“I think there’s ways to do that. Hopefully it won’t be smoke and mirrors. Bottom line, this is probably the toughest part about this from my perspective, is how you get a pay-for,” he said, referring to finding a way to offset the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars in new infrastructure spending without raising taxes.
Many Democrats, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden
Jayapal argues the more time spent on bipartisan negotiations means the longer Congress will go without passing a significant infrastructure investment bill.
“Every day that is wasted trying to get Republicans on board is another day that people can’t go back to work because they don’t have child care; another day without investing in millions of good, union jobs, another day that we lose further ground on the climate crisis,” she said. “Further delays jeopardize momentum and allow Republicans to block progress for the American people with no end in sight.”
“To the surprise of nobody that I know, the rich and the powerful avoid paying their fair share of taxes,” said Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
Warren and Sanders both proposed wealth taxes during their 2020 presidential campaigns, but Biden did not. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
Biden has proposed paying for his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, focused on areas such as child care and education, through tax increases on high-income households that include raising the top individual tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent and taxing capital gains at the same rates as ordinary income for high earners. He has also proposed paying for his $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, focused on transportation and addressing climate change, through higher taxes on corporations.
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Democratic voters were more likely to list an infrastructure bill as a high priority, with roughly 49 percent of Democrats polled labeling it as being of top importance compared to 23 percent of GOP voters who said the same.
Several other issues rated as higher priorities for voters than infrastructure: 42 percent identified the federal budget deficit as the top priority, 41 percent said it was health care reform and 37 percent listed immigration.
Still, the highest priority issue among voters was stimulating economic growth to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, with 55 percent putting it in the top spot.
The survey of nearly 2,000 registered voters has an overall margin of error of 2 percentage points.
A bipartisan group of House moderates on Wednesday unveiled an eight-year, $1.25 trillion infrastructure plan designed to help break the months-long impasse over President Biden
The framework offered by the 58-member Problem Solvers Caucus calls for more than $959 billion for traditional infrastructure, including highways, bridges, rail, airports and waterways; $25 billion of that money would be set aside for electric vehicle infrastructure, including electric buses.
The plan also calls for $74 billion for drinking water and wastewater systems; $71 billion for the electric grid and clean-energy programs; $45 billion for broadband; and $10 billion for veterans’ housing.
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In the coming days, the group 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans will offer proposals for how to pay for the package but it is not backing tax increases that Biden and progressives want, sources said. About $762 billion of the package represents new spending.