Biden agrees to a $ 1 billion infrastructure reduction deal with senators

U.S. President Joe Biden has reached an agreement on a $ 1 billion infrastructure package to spend billions of dollars on upgrading roads, bridges and broadband networks over the next eight years.

The agreement with one bipartisan group of senators it does not reach the $ 2.3 million infrastructure spending plan announced by Biden in March and does not address the $ 1.8 million in social media spending that the U.S. president proposed in April.

But it represents one great milestone for Biden, who vowed to use his decades of experience as a Delaware senator to work with Republicans and challenge the polarization that has become endemic to American politics.

Biden announced the deal at the White House on Thursday after meeting with moderate senators who forged the compromise, including Cinema Kyrsten, Arizona Democrat and Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine.

“We made serious commitments on both ends,” said the president, who recalled “the days we did so much in Congress.”

Democrats and the White House hope to pass the rest of their economic agenda using their meager majorities in Congress separate from the Republican-negotiated bipartisan infrastructure bill.

But Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House Democrats, said Thursday that legislation should be linked: the lower house of Congress would only consider the bipartisan infrastructure package if Biden’s broader economic priorities, including the rise of taxes on businesses and the rich, had first passed the Senate.

Biden has considered the infrastructure bill to be crucial in addressing the chronic underfunding of U.S. transportation networks and other facilities over the years, and placing America in a better position to compete with China in the 21st century.

“There is a massive investment with autocrats,” he said in White House statements later in the afternoon. “We have to move and we have to move fast.”

A large-scale infrastructure deal had been a target for Republicans and Democrats, even during Donald Trump’s presidency, but it had been elusive. Biden said he had been flexible in negotiations and was unlikely to make further demands.

“They have my word, I will stick with what they have proposed. And they have also given me their word. Where I come from, it’s good enough for me, ”Biden said.

Some members of the bipartisan group celebrated the deal. “It’s infrastructure week!” has tweeted Bill Cassidy, the Republican senator from Louisiana.

The infrastructure agreement, if approved by Congress, would come to light Biden’s $ 1.9 million stimulus bill, which was approved in March as an emergency measure to bring about recovery as the country emerges from the pandemic.

The White House said the proposed deal involved $ 579 billion in new spending; if combined with the renewal of existing infrastructure funding, the total would reach $ 973 billion over the next five years and $ 1.2 billion over the next eight years.

The new spending will include $ 109 billion in roads and bridges, $ 66 billion in rail networks and $ 49 billion in public transportation. Ports, airports and electric vehicle charging stations would also get additional funding.

The biggest source of tension over the infrastructure package was related to disagreements over ways to increase revenue so that it would not add to the deficit.

In the end, the bipartisan group agreed to cover the cost with unspent money from previous rounds of pandemic-related stimulus measures, an increase in the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to enforce tax laws and sales of the pandemic. Strategic Oil Reserve.

Republicans had proposed raising the federal gasoline tax and electric vehicle user fees to pay for the plan, but the White House rejected the idea because it would violate Biden’s commitment not to raise taxes on Americans who they would earn less than $ 400,000 a year.