Democratic leaders emerged from the White House Tuesday to announce they had agreed to a budget of $2 trillion over 25 years for infrastructure improvements with President Trump.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said congressional investigations into the president’s behavior and finances had not soured what they characterized as a “very constructive meeting.”
They said they would meet again in three weeks’ time to begin discussing how to pay for the work.
Schumer said: “It is clear that both the White House and all of us want to get something done on infrastructure in a big and bold way.”
“There was goodwill in this meeting. That was different than some of the other meetings that we’ve had, which is a very good thing,” he said.
Rebuilding America’s crumbling roads, bridges, and water networks has long been seen as a potential area of bipartisan agreement, boosting the economy and creating jobs.
However, previous meetings between Trump and the two most senior Democrats in Congress have not always gone as planned.
In January, the president walked out of a meeting to discuss ending the government shutdown, calling it a “waste of time.”
This time, the meeting lasted 90 minutes and included a discussion of which projects to include. Bridges and highways, the power grid, water, and broadband would all be covered, said Schumer.
Both leaders insisted they could make progress even while Congress and the president battled a string of subpoenas.
“In previous meetings, the president has said if these investigations continue, I can’t work with you,” said Schumer. “He didn’t bring it up.”
Paying for the work could yet prove a major stumbling block.
Unions and business groups have proposed raising the federal gasoline tax, but on Tuesday morning Kellyanne Conway, White House adviser, suggested the president would be resistant to the idea.
“This president is the guy who lowers taxes,” she told reporters.
And minutes before the meeting ended, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff, said he believed the tensions would undermine the prospects of a giant infrastructure deal.
Speaking at a conference in California, he said a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico had a better chance of being approved than getting infrastructure legislation passed.
Senior Republicans have also said there was little appetite for any tax increases to pay for an ambitious program of improvements.
Sarah Sanders, White House press secretary, confirmed the two sides would reconvene in three weeks to discuss specific proposals and financing.
“The United States has not come even close to properly investing in infrastructure for many years, foolishly prioritizing the interests of other countries over our own,” she said. “We have to invest in this country’s future and bring our infrastructure to a level better than it has ever been before.“
[Opinion: Democrats have one good and two bad infrastructure demands]
