Senate Republicans announced on Thursday a $928 billion infrastructure “counteroffer” meant to help strike a compromise with President Joe Biden, who has pitched a much broader and more expensive measure.
The Senate GOP measure is narrower than the $1.7 trillion compromise offer that Biden’s White House team provided the GOP a week ago, and it sticks to traditional infrastructure projects that would address road, bridges, broadband, and water projects.
The GOP offered the bill in a last-ditch effort to jump-start stalled negotiations ahead of Memorial Day, when lawmakers believe real progress must be made if an accord is to be reached between the two parties.
The money would come from unspent funds initially designated for COVID-19 relief.
“It’s a serious effort to try to reach a bipartisan agreement,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican and top infrastructure negotiator, said Thursday. “We are hoping this moves the ball forward.”
The White House has not yet responded to the offer. The two sides have been engaged in talks for several weeks, but negotiations stalled a week ago when White House aides pitched the $1.7 trillion offer that was to be paid for with tax increases.
It was a nonstarter for the GOP.
The measure they proposed cuts out the spending and tax increases that the GOP cannot support. It does not include a gas tax or mileage fee.
Sen. Patrick Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, said much of the money in the GOP proposal is “already in the pipeline” from previously passed bills designated for highway funding. The rest, about $575 billion, can come from excess coronavirus aid funding, Toomey said.
“We believe that repurposing these funds need to be a really important part of how we fill this gap,” he said.
Republicans disputed the White House’s claims that the coronavirus money had already been spent.
“We do believe this money is available,” Toomey said.
The measure leaves out the “human infrastructure” provisions that the Democrats want to include in the measure, such as $400 billion for elder care. The GOP bill excludes $100 billion to provide electric vehicle tax credits.
Unlike the Biden offer, it does not require a tax increase.
Biden’s infrastructure offer called for raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, which would partly reverse the GOP’s 2017 tax cut legislation.
Republicans say they will not support any bill that raises taxes because it would hurt the economy and job creation.
Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said some of the pandemic aid funding isn’t needed and can be redirected to fix crumbling roads and bridges.
“Better to use that money for something we all want than have it sit around there for somebody else’s pet project,” Blunt said.
