President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators reached an infrastructure deal on Thursday that includes an estimated $579billion for new projects including roads, electric utilities and broadband internet.
The breakthrough came after Biden and Republican and Democratic senators met for 30 minutes in the Oval Office. The deal ended a weeks-long stalemate over the price tag and how to fund the largest transportation package Congress has ever approved.
‘We have a deal,’ Biden announced outside the White House on Thursday afternoon. ‘I think it’s really important we’ve all agreed that none of us got all that we wanted.’
Biden did not reveal the total price tag, which is believed to be about $1.2trillion with more than $550billion for new investments. Democratic leaders said the plan, which is part of Biden’s $4trillion economic proposal, can only move forward with a bigger spending and tax raising package that Democrats are pushing in Congress, according to The New York Times.
Democrats’ two-track strategy is expected to be difficult as they hold thin majorities and Republicans are sure to oppose.
But Biden and centrist senators celebrated the compromise on Thursday, with the president saying it ‘reminds me of the days we used to get an awful lot done up in the United States Congress’.
Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, one of the leaders in the negotiations, said, ‘this does represent a historic investment in our nation’s infrastructure’.
Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio called it ‘a good compromise that’s going to help the American people’. Portman added he was ‘pleased to see we were able to come together on a core infrastructure package’ and that it would come to fruition ‘without new taxes’.
With support from Biden and bipartisan senators, the infrastructure bill is likely to pass the divided Congress.
The deal’s details have not yet been spelled out, but it is expected to be funded through revenue increases that do not break Biden’s promise to not raise taxes for the middle class. It is also expected to follow Republicans’ wishes of not undoing former President Donald Trump’s 2017 business tax cuts.
Breaking story, check back for updates…