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One of the party’s negotiators said Republican senators have rejected a plan to spend $ 40 billion more on tax enforcement to help pay for a $ 1 billion bipartisan infrastructure package.
Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican senator and one of 22 members who negotiated the deal, said Sunday that his colleagues had decided not to include a proposal to strengthen the Internal Revenue Service after the retreat of his fellow Republicans .
Members of the bipartisan group continued to meet over the weekend to discuss the details of their bill, with Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate majority, having promised hold a vote in a matter of days to test support for the package.
Portman said Sunday that Republican senators had rejected the Democratic proposal to strengthen the IRS after learning that U.S. President Joe Biden intended to include a measure similar to his budget bill. later in the year.
“One of the reasons it’s not part of the proposal is that we’ve had a setback,” Portman told CNN. “Another reason is that we learned that Democrats were going to present a proposal to the reconciliation package, which was not only similar to what we had, but with much more IRS implementation.”
Natasha Sarin, a senior Treasury official, defended the plan to increase the IRS budget. A few hours after Portman’s comments she tweeted: “The IRS has fewer auditors than at any time since World War II. It’s not uncommon for the fiscal gap to cost the U.S. 3% of GDP / year, disproportionately of those who don’t pay their fair share.”
Biden announced last month that senators on both sides had reached an agreement on an agreement to spend about $ 1 billion on roads, bridges and broadband networks over the next eight years. The deal was seen as a victory for the president, who has prioritized spending on infrastructure, but also promised to restore inter-party cooperation in Washington.
However, since then, negotiators on both sides have tried to translate this agreement into a legislative text that can be approved by both houses of Congress.
One of the key points has been how to pay additional billions of dollars.
Democrats have pushed for a major boost to the IRS budget, which fell 20 percent from 2010 to 2018, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which meant a 22% reduction in staff.
These cuts have widened the U.S. fiscal gap. The Treasury estimates that about $ 580 billion in taxes were not paid in 2019, from approximately $ 400 billion annually between 2011 and 2013.
The OBC estimates that by spending an additional $ 40 billion in tax revenue over ten years, Congress could increase revenue by $ 100 billion. But the proposals sparked concern among Republicans, who have been critical of the IRS for a long time.
Portman said last month, “What we don’t want is for the IRS to be too intrusive to get into small businesses and cause inappropriate burdens.”
Portman on Sunday also rejected Schumer’s attempts to pressure senators to reach an agreement in time to hold a vote test this week. The Republican senator said: “Chuck Schumer, with all due respect, is not writing the bill. Neither is Mitch McConnell [the Senate minority leader], by the way. Therefore, we should not have an arbitrary deadline of Wednesday. “
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