Biden Proposes Cutting Infrastructure Plan Bills by One Quarter | Business Wire Business and Economic News

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As a counter-offer to the Republicans, the President of the United States proposed to reduce his original $2.25 trillion proposal to $1.7 trillion, and the Republican Party proposed to reduce it to $568 billion.

President Joe Biden’s team proposed to reduce its infrastructure and employment plans by about a quarter to $1.7 trillion. This proposal is still much higher than the support expressed by Senate Republicans.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Biden’s team “made a reasonable counter-offer” with Republican lawmakers on Friday. Officials such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and National Economic Adviser Brian Deese were discussing the proposal with Republicans when they spoke on Friday afternoon.

Psaki said the new White House plan will be transferred to transfer manufacturing, supply chain, small business, and research and development expenditures to other legislation under consideration by Congress, including those aimed at combating China’s technological dominance and global semiconductor shortages. Bill.

Compared with the original US$2.25 trillion “U.S. Jobs Program,” it cuts spending requirements on roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure projects, as well as broadband.

The new total still dwarfs the initial offer of $568 billion made by Republicans in the Senate, which already includes benchmark spending. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Mitch McConnell) proposed a compromise figure of up to $800 billion, but it is still far below Biden’s new income.

funding problem

The government’s plan did not abandon all of Biden’s priorities. Psaki said this includes spending on clean energy, railroads, labor training, the so-called care economy, and other areas not mentioned in the Senate Republicans’ initial offer.

Psaki said that with regard to financing measures, the White House will not succumb to the president’s request that it will not raise taxes on Americans with an annual income of less than $400,000, but it has ruled out some Republicans’ proposed increases in gasoline taxes or user fees. .

Biden hosted a group of Senate Republicans at the White House last week to step up their efforts to win a compromise between the two parties.

In the talks last week, the US government emphasized that if these expenditures are not included in any compromise, it will be committed to pursuing social spending and taxation measures separately. Republicans stressed that they will not consider any rollback of the 2017 tax cuts they enacted.

Biden also released a separate $1.8 trillion “American Family Plan,” which includes social spending and higher taxes on the wealthy.

Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the congressman leading the Republican efforts, said earlier this week that she sees a more than 50% chance of reaching an agreement with the president. She described the next two weeks as the “key” for negotiations. She said that the whole process is still several months away, and a bill is unlikely to clear both houses of Congress before the deadline set by the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on July 4.



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