WASHINGTON, May 27 — US Senate Republicans, hoping to strike a deal with President Joe Biden on infrastructure, are expected to unveil a new offer today that would spend about US$1 trillion (RM4.2 trillion) to revitalise America’s roads, bridges and broadband systems.
The plan, from a group of six Republicans led by Senator Shelley Moore Capito, represents their counter-offer to a week-old US$1.7 trillion White House proposal that slashed more than US$500 billion from Biden’s original US$2.25 trillion plan in a bid to reach a bipartisan agreement.
“Hopefully, it will move the ball along,” Capito told reporters yesterday.
Biden has imposed an unofficial end-of-May deadline on the negotiations, and some Senate Democrats have been pushing to go it alone if Republicans do not reach an agreement soon.
The White House has expressed willingness to negotiate on some of the finer details but has said it wants a large package that expands the definition of infrastructure to include items such as free community college and paid family leave.
To pay for it, the administration has said it is open to any ideas as long as they don’t include asking Americans earning less than US$400,000 to pick up the bill.
Capito, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, would not confirm that the new proposal calls for spending US$1 trillion. But other Republicans have said the offer would match parameters set by Biden at a White House meeting on May 13, when they said he mentioned a US$1 trillion figure.
Her 20-member committee on Wednesday unanimously approved a US$304 billion surface transportation bill that she said would anchor the Republican proposal.
Republicans initially proposed a US$568 billion, five-year plan and increased the top line to around US$800 billion over eight years when the two sides met on Capitol Hill on May 18, according to the lawmakers.
A US$1 trillion proposal would still leave the two sides hundreds of billions of dollars apart, with no agreement on the scope of a package or how to pay for it.
Republicans want the package limited to roads, bridges, airports, waterways and broadband access. The group rejected the White House’s US$1.7 trillion offer, saying it still contained social spending provisions and tax hikes on US corporations that they have opposed. Republicans are expected to propose that a bipartisan package be funded with unspent Covid-19 relief money.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney said the Capito group’s proposal parallels a separate bipartisan proposal that he has been working on with other congressional Republicans and Democrats including Senator Joe Manchin.
The bipartisan group could step forward with their own proposal, which is also expected to range near the US$1 trillion mark, if talks between the White House and Capito’s group fail.
“They’re on the front burner, we’re on the back burner,” Romney said. — Reuters
