Tag: Biden American Jobs Plan

Apples to apples, the Senate GOP infrastructure proposal is smaller than it appears

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“These figures are what you would consider regular appropriations-plus. So it’s baseline-plus.”

—Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), remarks at a news conference, April 22

The headlines were almost all universally the same — some variation of “GOP Counters Biden With $568 Billion Infrastructure Plan.” Just about every news report suggested that the headline-number offered for the Senate Republican plan was comparable to President Biden’s $2.2 trillion infrastructure plan.

But toward the end of the news conference announcing the Republican counteroffer, Capito made the comment above. She added, “When you hear the $115 billion [Biden is] dedicating to roads, that’s in addition. So we are going to have to square the figures for you better.”

Long ago, The Fact Checker used to be a federal budget reporter. From experience, we learned that the numbers announced at news conferences often needed to be scrubbed carefully. Capito’s reference to “baseline-plus” made our ears perk up a bit. Continue reading.

White House sees GOP proposal as legitimate starting point

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The White House on Thursday signaled it would be open to further talks with Republican lawmakers after they proposed a significantly reduced infrastructure plan to counter President Biden‘s $2.2 trillion proposal.

Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the administration believes the $568 billion proposal from Senate Republicans unveiled earlier in the day is a legitimate starting point for ongoing talks, and she said the president would likely host lawmakers at the White House for further discussions in the coming weeks. 

“It’s the beginning of a discussion,” Psaki said. “And the next steps will be conversations at the staff level, conversations between senior members of our administration, members of Congress, appropriate committee staff through the course of next week, and then as I noted the president will invite members down to the White House. But there are a lot of details to be discussed.” Continue reading.

Republicans unveil $568 billion infrastructure plan

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A group of Senate Republicans led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) on Thursday unveiled a $568 billion infrastructure proposal, a much smaller counteroffer to President Biden’s $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan.

Republicans sent the offer to Biden shortly before noon Thursday. 

The proposal seeks to define infrastructure more narrowly compared to Biden’s expansive view of the issue, focusing on roads and bridges, public transit systems, rail, wastewater infrastructure, airports and broadband infrastructure. Continue reading.

Senate GOP crafts outlines for infrastructure counter proposal

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Senate Republicans on Tuesday discussed the outlines of a scaled-down infrastructure bill they say could pass the Democratic-led Congress with strong bipartisan support. 

The entire Senate GOP conference during its weekly lunch meeting discussed the emerging proposal after getting a briefing from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee. 

Capito is leading negotiations among a smaller group of GOP moderates who met with President Biden earlier this year. The group held a meeting late afternoon Monday to narrow Biden’s proposed $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan into something in the range of $600 billion to $800 billion. Continue reading.

American Jobs Plan Update

American Jobs Plan


The American Jobs Plan is an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs, rebuild our country’s infrastructure, and position the United States to out-compete China.

This week, the White House released both state-by-state and issue based fact sheets that highlight the urgent need in every state across the country for the investments proposed by President Biden in the American Jobs Plan. The fact sheets highlight the number of bridges and miles of road in each state in poor condition, the percentage of households without access to broadband, the billions of dollars required for water infrastructure, among other infrastructure needs.  

Fact Sheets by State can be viewed here.

Voters Like Biden Infrastructure Plan; G.O.P. Still Sees an Opening on Taxes

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A Times poll shows large majorities back spending on roads, ports, broadband and more. But Republicans aim to make corporate tax increases the issue.

President Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan has yet to win over a single Republican in Congress, but it is broadly popular with voters nationwide, mirroring the dynamics of the $1.9 trillion economic aid bill that Mr. Biden signed into law last month.

The infrastructure proposal garners support from two in three Americans, and from seven in 10 independent voters, in new polling for The New York Times by the online research firm SurveyMonkey. Three in 10 Republican respondents support the plan, which features spending on roads, water pipes, the electrical grid, care for older and disabled Americans and a range of efforts to shift to low-carbon energy sources.

That support is essentially unchanged from a month ago, when SurveyMonkey polled voter opinions on a hypothetical $2 trillion Biden infrastructure package, despite Republican attacks since the president outlined his American Jobs Plan in Pittsburgh at the end of March. And there is near-unanimous support for the plan from Democrats, whose confidence in the nation’s economic recovery has surged in the first months of Mr. Biden’s administration. Continue reading.

Conservative groups target swing Democrats in fight against infrastructure plan and taxes

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Americans for Prosperity travels to Iowa, takes aim at Cindy Axne

Tim Phillips, who runs the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, is going on the road to fight major elements of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan and the potential tax increases to help fund it. 

He’ll be in Iowa on Monday, seeking to put pressure on Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne, who represents the southwest section of the state. 

The stop in Des Moines is a sign of what’s to come across the country as the Biden administration and congressional Democrats craft a $2 trillion infrastructure-jobs-tax package. Americans for Prosperity’s burgeoning campaign is just one slice of a broader, emerging push among conservative policy groups and political networks focused on Democratic lawmakers in swing districts.   Continue reading.

A pair of misleading GOP attacks on Biden’s infrastructure plan

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President Biden has proposed a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, to be financed mainly by increases in corporate taxes. Here’s a guide to two misleading talking points that have already emerged.

“This is a massive social welfare spending program combined with a massive tax increase on small-business job creators.”

— Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), in an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” April 11

Politicians on both sides of the aisle often sing the praises of small businesses. But we were rather surprised to see Wicker claim that increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent would be a burden on small businesses. (Before the 2017 tax law, the corporate rate was 35 percent. Biden argues that the reduction was too steep.)

Wicker’s staff noted that Biden’s tax plan does not include a carve-out for small businesses, so “any business, including a small business, that files as a C-corporation would see their tax rate increase from 21 percent to 28 percent,” an aide said. The aide pointed to a National Federation of Independent Business report that cites “federal taxes on business income” as the third most severe issue facing small-business owners, with 20 percent of respondents finding federal taxes on income to be a “critical” issue in operating their businesses.

Senate GOP Memo On Biden Jobs Plan Is Replete With Lies

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A new messaging memo from the Senate Republican Conference to its members’ communications teams frames President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan as a “job-crushing slush fund.”

According to Politico, the memo, dated April 11, dismisses the $2.25 trillion infrastructure package as a “partisan plan to kill jobs and create slush funds on the taxpayer dime.”

The memo is the latest in a series of attempts by Congressional Republicans to dent the bipartisan popularity of Biden’s plan. Recent polling has shown that the vast majority of likely American voters, including 57 percent of Republicans, back the plan to invest trillions of dollars in roads, bridges, broadband, transit, water systems, clean energy, and human infrastructure like child care. Continue reading.

Is broadband infrastructure? Republicans used to think so

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Republicans less sure that providing the service to all Americans is infrastructure, or at least at Biden’s price tag

The debate in Congress over President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan has featured a clean, simple attack line from Republicans: Most of the money wouldn’t really go to infrastructure.

Of course, that depends entirely on how you define infrastructure. For their purposes, Republicans are opting for a classic definition, seeking to limit the scope to things like roads and bridges. Russell Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget under President Donald Trump, asserted in a recent Fox News appearance that “only 5 to 7 percent” of the plan is actual infrastructure.

And although that assertion was awarded “Three Pinocchios” by a Washington Post fact-checker, one can make an argument that funding in the plan for things like home-care services and electric vehicle purchases isn’t exactly infrastructure. But Republicans’ objection to one piece of the plan, broadband expansion so that households in all parts of the country have access to fast internet service, seems the result of a particularly curious case of political amnesia. Continue reading.