Bipartisan infighting catches nation’s infrastructure in crosshairs

The future of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure is caught in a huge political battle largely over what counts as infrastructure.

Democrats are united behind President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, which includes everything from highways and bridges to home care for elderly and pre-school for 3-year-old toddlers.

Democrats say it’s time for a “transformational” approach to rebuilding America in order to compete with China and, as long as they have narrow majorities in the House and Senate, to go big.

“Throughout our history, public investments and infrastructure have transformed America,” President Biden said recently in a joint address to Congress. “The transcontinental railroad and interstate highways united two oceans and brought us into a totally new age of progress,” Biden added. “These are investments we make together, as one country, and that only government can make. Time and again, they propel us into the future.”

Republicans take a stricter constructionist approach – roads, bridges, ports and seaways.  In case one was wondering where Republicans are on infrastructure, here’s the math: one-fourth of where President Biden is. 

A group of Senate Republicans lead by Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W. Va., is backing a $568 billion infrastructure proposal as a counteroffer to Biden’s go-big plan.

Senate Republicans are pushing user fees for electric vehicles and finding unused federal spending allocated by the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that Congress passed in March to cover the cost of the plan.

The Biden team is hoping that popularity for infrastructure spending of all types plays very well outside the Beltway. Overall, a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan has 52% of Americans favoring it, 35% opposed.

Broken down by party, 82% of Democrats liked it, 51% of independents and 17% of Republicans also approved of Biden’s plan. As far as paying for it, 58% of Americans say they favored raising the corporate tax rate with two of three Republicans opposing that scheme.

Democrats seem to know their clock is ticking.

“We have to move in a dozen different directions—and we have to move hard,” Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said.

But Capito and other leading Republicans are quietly admitting it’s time to compromise, or risk getting run over by the Biden steamroller.

“Our focus is to say what our concepts are as Republicans [about] what infrastructure means, what our principles are in terms of pay-fors and to say it to President Biden and his team and our Democrat colleagues: 'We're ready to sit down and get to work on this,' ” Capito said.

But it’s difficult to see how much Republicans will give considering their Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says Democrats should expect “zero” support from Republicans for Biden’s new big-ticket infrastructure and social-spending plans.

Moderate Democrats such as Sen. Chris Coons, a close Biden ally from Delaware, have embraced the idea of passing a bipartisan down payment on Biden’s infrastructure agenda. Other Democrats have championed Biden’s plan to “go big” right out of the gate.

Coons says Biden is taking an “openhanded approach” to bipartisanship, which he defined as this: ‘Bring your ideas, let’s sit down and negotiate.” But Biden recently told the Washington Post: “We can’t wait forever.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on MSNBC recently that he “welcomed” Republicans’ input in an attempt to reach a compromise with Biden’s plan.

“We believe this is the time to go big,” Buttigieg said. “But this is a negotiation. It’s a process.”

Nevertheless, Buttigieg called Biden’s plan “transformational” and added, “Challenging and changing the tradition around infrastructure is actually one of the best parts of our (Democratic) tradition around infrastructure.”

Going back in history, Buttigieg cited creation of the railroads at the turn of the last century and the Interstate Highway Act in the mid-1950s as non-traditional but important acts.

“Those were not traditional by the standards of their day,” Buttigieg said. “Trains weren’t traditional until we built them. Yes, we’re doing things. But you need an internet connection as well as an interstate highway connection to thrive in the economy.”

Buttigieg scoffed at the previous administration’s oft-cited “infrastructure weeks” that led to nothing but talk. As he put it, “We need infrastructure to be more than a week. We need an infrastructure year.”

While the White House is still pushing for Republican support to pass the infrastructure package, there’s widespread expectation on Capitol Hill that it will only make it through Congress if Democrats pass it on their own through reconciliation — meaning it could pass with a simple majority.

“The leadership in Congress will begin to work with the members and figure out what they like, what they don’t like and try to fashion the kind of legislation that will put hundreds of thousands of people back to work,” said former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who played a leading role during the debate over Obama’s stimulus bill in 2009.

Battle lines are being drawn in the private sector as well. Sixteen environmental and labor groups have teamed up to ask the White House for $4 trillion in infrastructure investments to be spent over Biden’s first term—far more than the $2 trillion the administration is proposing over eight years.

And some of the trade groups that have pressed Congress for years to invest in infrastructure aren’t yet on board with Biden’s proposal. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce applauded the focus on infrastructure while strongly criticizing the tax increases proposed to cover the cost.

Suzanne Clark, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is warning her members against “job-killing” tax hikes in order to pay for infrastructure.

“The current debate over an infrastructure package gives President Biden the opportunity for a big achievement that will help our economy today and into future—if it’s done on a bipartisan basis,” Clark said.

“As someone who spent more than 35 years in the Senate, President Biden knows that bipartisanship and consensus is the only way to get big, important, difficult things done in a meaningful and durable way. If you don’t get the buy-in of the other party, any change in power puts the policy at risk of reversal or repeal,” Clark added.

The White House contends the tax hikes, combined with measures designed to stop offshoring of profits, would fund the infrastructure plan within 15 years.