President Joe Biden insisted his talks with Republicans on infrastructure were not “window dressing,” as he said he was prepared to negotiate everything from the scale of his plans to how to pay for them.
The president faces a battle in getting his $2.3 trillion infrastructure package through Congress.
On Monday, he hosted Republicans as well as Democrats at the White House.
“I’m prepared to negotiate as to the extent of my infrastructure project as well as how we pay for it,” he said in the Oval Office.
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“If we can get a serious conversation about how to do that — I think everyone acknowledges we need a significant increase in infrastructure,” the president said.
Before taking office, Biden made much of his time in the Senate and his reputation for crossing party lines in search of deals.
However, hopes that he might appoint a Republican to his administration have so far come to naught.
And officials have carefully redefined their notion of bipartisanship, claiming that Republican voters back their infrastructure plans even if the White House has struggled to find GOP support on the Hill.
In response, Biden officials are trying to woo Republicans with a state-by-state breakdown of projects that they can present to voters tired of bumping over potholed streets or making do with slow internet speeds.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office as he sat with Republican senators and representatives, he said his bipartisan push was more than tokenism.
“I’m not big on window dressing, as you’ve observed,” he said.
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Republicans fear that plans to raise corporate taxes to pay for the vast program will drive jobs overseas and accuse the president of adopting an overly broad definition of infrastructure in order to smuggle through liberal priorities.
