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© Reuters. File photo: On January 20, 2021, the sun rises from the dome of the U.S. Capitol before Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration in Washington, USA.REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
Authors: Jarrett Renshaw and David Morgan
Washington (Reuters)-After the Republicans refused to fund the implementation of existing tax laws, the White House and U.S. Congressional negotiators are scrambling to save a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure agreement. The key way to plan is to allow both parties to find a way forward.
Senators and Biden administration officials still hope to finalize the deal in Wednesday’s Senate vote, including plans to fund it, but on Tuesday both sides became increasingly skeptical.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, one of the bipartisan infrastructure negotiators, told Reuters: “(It is difficult) to think of a bill when we vote tomorrow.” “There are more questions. ,” he said, including how the Congressional Budget Office assesses the impact of the bill on the federal finances of the United States.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that the president supports Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s plan to hold a procedural vote to debate the bill on Wednesday, despite the lack of text and agreement on how to pay.
“There are no secrets in this legislation,” Psaki told reporters.
Democrats said that the next step may be to completely abandon the bipartisan agreement, which requires 10 votes from Republicans to pass in the Senate, and incorporates all the spending priorities of US President Joe Biden into the “Budget Settlement Bill” that can be passed on a partisan line. “.
A Democratic aide involved in the negotiations said: “The patience of the Democrats is fading. I fully expect the party leadership to turn to it alone soon. Then, the blame game will begin.”
Last month, Biden and a bipartisan group of senators reached an agreement on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, in which some $600 billion in new expenditures came from strengthening tax law enforcement.
The two sides agreed to increase the budget of the Internal Revenue Service by $40 billion, and Biden said the move will focus on enforcing tax laws for large companies and people with annual incomes of more than $400,000.
The negotiator stated that the funds will generate approximately US$100 billion in taxes, accounting for one-sixth of the cost of new expenditures for the plan.
Republicans rejected the plan over the weekend under pressure from anti-tax groups that claimed to authorize auditors to harass business owners and political opponents.
Ohio Senator Rob Portman said on Sunday that Republicans believe that Biden has agreed that the full scope of IRS enforcement funds will be included in the bipartisan bill; on the contrary, the Democrats plan to add billions of dollars to the subsequent settlement bill. The intensity of enforcement by the IRS. [nL1N2OU0B3]
The budget of the US Internal Revenue Service dropped from an inflation-adjusted US$14.6 billion in 2010 to approximately US$11.95 billion in 2020, mainly due to the Democratic Party’s desire to reverse the budget cuts promoted by the Republican Party.
On Monday, Biden attacked the Republicans who withdrew from the agreement, saying “we shook hands and made peace.”
When asked if it’s time to advance the settlement if Wednesday’s Senate vote fails, Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, the leading progressive representative of the Democratic Party, told reporters: “Yes… they have been killing them for months. At this point in time, I believe it has begun to reach the point where this bipartisan effort seems to be less and less effective in investing in our infrastructure, and more simply to postpone actions on infrastructure. “
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