In early March, President Biden passed his coronavirus relief bill, meaning he could now switch his focus to other bills and legislation he wanted to get through. In late March, Biden proposed a close to 2.3 trillion dollar infrastructure plan. The bill included a shift toward green energy and to help more blue collar parts of America.
Anytime a big spending bill like this is introduced the first question many people ask is how we are going to pay for it. Biden addresses this by outlining that he would raise corporate taxes, increase minimum global taxes, and by taxing book income. This spending bill was originally heavily opposed by Senate Republicans on almost all fronts. This led to the White House lowering their original spending bill to 1.7 trillion dollars; however, this was not well received by the GOP. They see this price tag as still being too high to receive any amount of bipartisan support. In fact, as soon as Republican aides saw the bill they rejected it.
At this point, the White House seems to believe that the ball is in the court of Republicans to work out a bipartisan compromise. Democrats believe that the new proposal was acting in good faith and expect Congress Republicans to act in the same manner. Another issue that Republicans have with the bill is the fact that some of the language in the bill is unclear in what “human infrastructure” is and how it relates to funding for care items. However, Democrats argue that because some money was taken from other places, money for care initiatives should remain.
Furthermore, Republicans also still have questions about the funding of the bill. The Biden administration wants to open up a 2017 Trump tax bill and raise taxes on corporation which is something the Republicans have said is off the table completely. All of these differences have led to a stalling of the passing of the infrastructure bill, and until we see one side budge, no more progress will be made to improve the United States’ infrastructure.
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