Pres. Joe Biden's proposed Infrastructure Bill continues to face strong opposition from Republican lawmakers, now the fate of this bill will test his commitment.
Democrats Raised Concerns of Biden's Infrastructure Bill
President Biden has challenges in reaching unanimity among Democrats on an infrastructure plan, regardless of whether it is bipartisan legislation or whether Democrats seek legislation on their own.
Some members of the Democratic Party want Pres. Joe Biden to pass the bill without the GOP support through what lawmakers called as budget reconciliation process. However, some of the Democrats also raised concern about the language of the bill.
According to a published article in The Washington Post, one of their main concerns is the source of funds of the Infrastructure Bill once is it is approved. Specifically, raising the corporate tax to 28 percent has become an issue to some Democrats most especially in its regional interests.
New Offer of Republicans to Pres. Biden
Pres. Joe Biden and Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito talked Wednesday last week about the Infrastructure Bill. However, both of them did not end up in an agreement and scheduled another talk on Friday of the same week.
According to a report published in ABC News, Sen. Capito offered an additional $50 billion in spending compared to the previous offer of the Republicans. On the other hand, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the new offer was not satisfactory.
Psaki said in a statement "The President expressed his gratitude for her effort and goodwill, but also indicated that the current offer did not meet his objectives to grow the economy, tackle the climate crisis and create new jobs," according to a report published in The Hill.
Tension Within the Democratic Party
Progressive legislators are pressing Biden to end his negotiations with Republicans. Democrats increased their demands for Biden to go on with a partisan bill after it was revealed on Wednesday that the White House stressed alternatives other than hiking the corporate income tax rate as methods to pay for a scaled-back version of Biden's first $2.3 trillion plan.
The White House was particularly interested in Biden's plan to levy a minimum tax of 15 percent on major firms' profits as it is reported to investors. However, Biden risks alienating progressives with a plan that varies significantly from his earlier idea and the measures on his Infrastructure Bill.
Meanwhile, members of the progressive group in the House continued to raise concerns about the talks between the White House and the Republicans. Both parties cannot strike the deal due to the amount, measure, and source of funding.
Furthermore, Moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin also released a statement on Thursday and said that he wanted the deal to reach bipartisan support. Manchin said, "We need to do something in a bipartisan way."
He said this even though it is not clear as to how long the negotiation between Biden and Republicans will last. It can be remembered that both first committed to striking the deal before the Memorial but failed to do it.
