President Joe Biden on Tuesday ended negotiations to reach an agreement on an infrastructure package with a group of Republican senators after the two sides failed to agree on a price tag.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who led Republicans in the negotiations, said she received a phone call from Biden on Tuesday about the infrastructure talks.
“I spoke with the president this afternoon, and he ended our infrastructure negotiations,” she said in a statement. “Throughout our negotiations, we engaged respectfully, fully and very candidly — delivering several serious counteroffers that each represented the largest infrastructure investment Republicans have put forth.”
Capito said she was “disappointed by his decision.”
Biden initially proposed a $2 trillion package in March that included two parts — the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan — to focus on modernizing transportation infrastructure, including roads, bridges and airports. He also sought to boost the electric vehicle market, expand broadband Internet access, upgrade schools and affordable housing, increase job training, and care for elderly and disabled Americans.
After Republicans balked at the price tag on the legislation, Biden twice brought down the figure — first to $1.7 trillion, then to $1 trillion last week.
GOP negotiators countered with a $928 billion proposal in late May that included $330 billion in new spending.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden offered “gratitude to [Capito] for her efforts and good faith conversations, but expressed his disappointment that, while he was willing to reduce his plan by more than $1 trillion, the Republican group had increased their proposed new investments by only $150 billion.”
Biden moved on from working with the GOP negotiators and instead reached out to a bipartisan group working on their own proposal — Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
“The president said that he would be in contact with members of the group by phone while in Europe, and he designated his Jobs Cabinet and White House aides Steve Ricchetti, Louisa Terrell, and Brian Deese to meet with them in person to advance this effort,” Psaki said.
Biden planned to pay for his infrastructure package with increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy, but last week told Republicans he was willing to negotiate on how much the corporate tax was increased, and offered to ditch the hike entirely to gain Republican support.
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In the words of Mick Jagger & The Rolling Stones: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.”
If you truly want money for infrastructure, Joe, then stay focused on what infrastructure is.
The first hurdle to jump is to agree on just what the definition of an infrastructure bill should be? Republicans define it as roads, bridges, airports, electric grids, etc., while the Democrats just name more social experiments to throw money at for party skimming, that have little if anything to do with infrastructure, other than build more government Democrat party houses of cards that blow down when the first ill wind, or big bad wolf arrives at the door of our citizens. A 2 trillion-dollar government infrastructure built for party taxation and wealth redistribution is all they offered, knowing full well that when the government goes about building ANYTHING, the cost get inflated 3 times what the private sector can do the same job for, but then the politicians cannot get theirs back under the table. Just another way to finance their own government, corruption of course with other people’s money. Inflation is their weapon of choice to pay off their stupidity because THE PEOPLE are bled in silence, and the death of the nation is slow and not so easily noticed.
AND that’s part of the problem. TO THE LEFT< every damn thing under the sun is now 'infrastructure'…
The infrastructure fraud, just like under Obama’s trillion dollar infrastructure bill. The 80 to 90% pork bill. The fattest pigs I have ever seen.
Not nice to call out michoola
True dat.. Where were all those shovel ready jobs, we were supposed to see??
OH YEA< only in his mind.
Negotiating with slo joe the demented must be like negotiating with a non english speaking person with the translator ear piece stuck in his ear. Surely his handlers don’t let him negotiate on his own.
IMO you’d stand a better chance of creating a hole in a dam, by head butting it, than you would in negotiating with biden.
“He sought – affordable housing, increase job training, and care for elderly and disabled Americans. The affordable housing would primarily be for his illegal invaders as would be job training for them. Care for elderly and disabled Americans would be those who came here illegally but made legal residents by biden EO. Why can’t the focus on modernizing transportation infrastructure, including roads, bridges and airports be just one bill with its own price tag and then negotiate the rest. Just like most politicians, in every instance they want to add “porK’ for their own benefit and if it does not pass then “the people” get nothing.
BECAUSE the dems know, tha their OTHER bull, won’t pass on its own, SO THEY like always, Attach it to something that “HAS TO pass” to get it through…