WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden has begun publicly courting Republicans to support his sweeping infrastructure plan, but his reach down the aisle is just as much a way of keeping the Democrats in line as it is a first step in an uphill climb to a two-pronged deal.
Biden’s high-profile Oval Office meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Monday was just part of his bid to win over GOP lawmakers, Said White House aides. But even if it doesn’t work out, it can be beneficial – boxing against Republicans while helping to keep the very diverse Democrats in line. Some moderate Democrats, most notably Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have pushed for a bipartisan effort to hit the $ 2.3 trillion bill.
And while Biden has made it clear publicly and privately that he wants Republican support, the White House is also preparing to do it alone, if necessary, to get the bill passed. That would leave the GOP in a politically unpopular position to explain why it objected to investments that many Americans want.
“I am ready to negotiate the size of my infrastructure project and how we will pay for it,” Biden said at Monday’s meeting with lawmakers. “Everyone recognizes that we need a significant expansion of the infrastructure.”
Biden rejected the idea that his reach with Republicans is for show only, proclaiming, “I’m not that good at window dressing, as you’ve seen.”
In fact, lawmakers left the White House meeting knowing that Biden was open to discussion and that the president’s team was heading to Capitol Hill to meet with them or other representatives as soon as Tuesday.
“Those are exactly the words I wanted to hear at the meeting,” said Republican Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana, a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, in an interview with The Associated Press. “And that was really encouraging.”
Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Offered, “No one rushed out and shouted ‘no’.”
The White House’s reach was considerable, with cabinet members and allies meeting with lawmakers and activists, while also spreading across the country to sell the plan directly to voters. Officials said Biden would hold more bipartisan meetings this month and top officials have scheduled meetings this week with more than a dozen congressional committees.
But most Republicans have made it clear that, for the time being, they have little interest in joining the effort, rejecting the idea of raising the corporate tax rate to pay for it. And they blame the proposal as major expenditures, preferring to leave Biden to pursue his priority legislation on his own.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has said the whole package needs to be redone, “completely redesigned” to get Republicans. And Senator Roger Wicker from Mississippi, the top Republican on the Trade Commission, who attended Monday’s meeting, said afterwards that “there are clearly parts of this program that are not starters for Republicans.”
Undo the GOP 2017 tax benefits “Would be a near-impossible sale,” Wicker told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Wicker said he had told Biden exactly that in the meeting and typified the president’s response: “Well, he disagrees.”
But the White House has expressed confidence that voters are not sympathetic to a defense that companies object to their tax rates being raised from 21% to 28% at the expense of widely popular funding for highways, subways, water pipes, broadband. and more. .
Cedric Richmond, the White House’s director of public engagement, said the reach to lawmakers and business leaders alike has benefited Biden from being seen as an honest broker who is straightforward with his intentions. Richmond has also stressed to the companies that the 21% rate set by President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut was higher than what they had asked for.
“No company in six years has ever named 21%.” Richmond said. “What I remind them is that we would bring the rate back to the neighborhood they wanted in the first place. And at the same time we were able to repair the infrastructure. “
Congress has launched the long battle of legislation, with multiple avenues of pushing the package forward for votes.
Democrats have the smallest majority in Congress, a three-vote margin in the House, and an evenly distributed 50-50 Senate that leaves no room for error as Biden tries to keep the party aligned. The party’s vice president, Kamala Harris, can secure a tie in the Senate.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi set a target for action on July 4, but even that seems politically ambitious in light of the huge challenges ahead. And for every step the White House takes to win over centrists, including Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, they risk liberals like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y. who wants Biden to reach for an even bigger package to meet the nation’s needs.
One option Democrats are considering is the so-called budget reconciliation process, which would allow for a 51-vote majority in the Senate, rather than the 60 votes typically required to overcome a Republican filibuster.
Manchin, in particular, has expressed some discomfort at using reconciliation without an attempt at duality, making him as much of an audience for the White House as the Republicans. He and others have opposed attempts to change the filibuster’s rules, but West Wing aides believe he would be inclined to support reconciliation if he saw Republicans resist an attempt at bipartisanism.
“This is another time to show that the Republicans just want to obstruct the whole Biden agenda,” said Dan Pfeiffer, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “And the American people want you to try to be bipartisan, but not at the expense of the things you support.”
Citing his four decades in Washington, Biden campaigned as a two-pronged deal maker. But the Republicans have so far uniformly rejected his attempts. No GOP legislators voted in favor of the $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 bill that Biden signed the law last month, despite polls suggesting the measure was popular among Republican voters.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden’s outreach was genuine: “You don’t use the time of the President of the United States multiple times, including two infrastructure meetings, if he doesn’t want to hear authentically from members in attendance about their ideas. . about how to forward this parcel in two ways. “
The West Wing has also pointed to polls suggesting a two-pronged voter hunger for infrastructure spending, and Biden plans to unveil a second part in the coming weeks – focusing on health and family care. The White House has telegraphed that much more of this package could be negotiated than was the case with the COVID-19 law, but it also set a Memorial Day deadline for demonstrating progress.
“Democrats have made a proactive effort to make it difficult for Republicans to stand on a transportation project in their district and cut the ribbon if they don’t vote for it,” said Kevin Madden, senior adviser to the presidential campaign. Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.. That’s their attempt to pressure Republicans. Can Republicans as a party now maintain the same level of unity to oppose it? “
Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.