Republicans Prepare Counteroffer to Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

By Yuval Rosenberg

Republicans Prepare a Counteroffer to Biden’s Infrastructure
Plan

Republican lawmakers are preparing their own infrastructure
proposal as a counteroffer to President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion
American Jobs Plan.

The still-developing proposal is expected to be considerably
smaller and more narrowly focused than Biden’s, in the range of
$600 billion to $800 billion, and be funded by "unspecified user
fees" that target those who benefit from whatever construction or
repair is included in the plan, Politico’s Sam Mintz
reported Wednesday.

"The pay-for ought to come from the people who are using it,"
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told reporters Wednesday. "If it’s an
airport, the people who are flying. If it’s a port, the people who
are shipping into the port. If it’s highways, it ought to be gas if
it’s a gasoline-powered vehicle. If it’s an electric vehicle some
kind of mileage associated with that electric vehicle that would be
similar to a gas tax."

The meaning of "infrastructure:" Romney’s comments
highlight two of the key criticisms of Biden’s plan made by
Republicans. First, they don’t want to roll back the 2017 Trump tax
cuts or impose new taxes to fund infrastructure spending. Second,
they object to the way Biden’s plan covers a wide range of issues,
ranging from bridges and highways to housing and elder care, under
the rubric of infrastructure.

"What I'd like to do is get back to what I consider the regular
definition of infrastructure in terms of job creation," Sen.
Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the ranking member on the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee, told CNBC Wednesday. "So
that's roads, bridges, ports, airports, including broadband into
that, water infrastructure."

Capito also said that removing what Republicans see as
extraneous items from the infrastructure plan would be necessary to
win bipartisan support. "If we’re going to do this together — which
we want to do and is our desire — we’ve got to find those areas and
take away the extra infrastructure areas that the president put
into his bill like home-health aids and school building and all of
these kinds of things," Capito said.

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain met with the bipartisan
Problem Solvers group of lawmakers Wednesday afternoon to continue
to explore the possibility of bipartisan cooperation on the
package.

Multiple smaller bills? One Republican lawmaker said they
might break the proposal into separate bills, each focused on a
specific area, so to avoid the inclusion of anything unrelated to
that issue.

"A general principle for me is that we shouldn't have a huge
bill with a bunch of stuff thrown" in, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE),
ranking member of the Senate Commerce Transportation subcommittee,
told Politico. "If you want road users to pay for it, have a bill
that only deals with roads. If you want waterways to be part of the
bill, then you have a bill that only deals with that so you can
find appropriate pay-fors if you want a user fee," Fischer said.
"I've always been a strong proponent of going segment by
segment."

Americans express support for Biden’s plan: A new Morning
Consult/Politico
poll shows that a majority of American voters
support Biden’s plan to spend heavily on a wide variety of
infrastructure issues while raising taxes on corporations to pay
for it.

"Biden’s slate of economic policies, especially his stimulus
package, have enjoyed consistently broad support from both
Republican and Democratic voters," Morning Consult said. In the
last week, however, Republican support has slipped, likely driven
by increasingly vocal opposition to Biden’s plan by GOP lawmakers.
Republican voters seem particularly opposed to Biden’s expansive
definition of infrastructure, and to his plan to raise corporate
taxes to cover costs.

Still, the poll shows solid support for Biden’s big plans, and
most voters don’t seem too worried about labeling issues such as
child care and internet access as infrastructure. "As long as it’s
something they like, the Biden administration can call it whatever
they want," Politico Playbook
said.

The chart below shows the levels of support for various
categories of spending included in Biden’s proposal. A majority of
respondents, including both Democrats and Republicans, say that
roads, transportation, housing and internet are infrastructure
issues. A majority of respondents, but not a majority of
Republicans, also support the inclusion of caregiving and child
care, with support dropping to 43% and 40% among GOP voters on
those issues. Of the seven categories included in the poll, only
one — paid leave — failed to win support from a majority of
respondents.

Democrats Propose Sweeping Reform of Unemployment System

Two Senate Democrats on Wednesday introduced legislation to
overhaul the nation’s unemployment insurance system after the
coronavirus exposed flaws in the existing structure.

The sweeping proposal sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and
Michael Bennet of Colorado aims to raise base benefits, create a
permanent benefit for self-employed and gig workers, minimize
differences between state programs and tie extended benefits to the
unemployment rate.

The draft bill, titled the
Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act, would
require all states to offer at least 26 weeks of benefits and
replace 75% of a worker’s typical wages up to a set maximum.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has made it overwhelmingly clear that our
nation’s unemployment insurance system is inadequate and unreliable
for workers when they lose a job," said Bennet.
"Unemployment programs are critical to helping workers stay afloat
during difficult times — but too many workers still struggle to
access their benefits in our patchwork of outdated state systems.
And too many receive no protection at all when they lose a job —
including many low-wage workers, workers of color, returning
caregivers, and self-employed workers. This proposal will protect
workers by strengthening and expanding benefits, modernize UI
infrastructure with needed technology investments, and prepare us
for the future by tying benefits to economic conditions."

Why it matters: "Wyden and Bennet maintain they have an
opportunity to advance their reforms as part of Democrats’ broader
rethinking of the country’s safety net programs,"
writes The Washington Post’s Tony Romm. "President
Biden is set to unveil a multi-trillion-dollar proposal in the
coming weeks that aims to provide new aid to workers, parents and
children facing financial hardship. Wyden and Bennet said they have
already encouraged Biden to overhaul unemployment insurance as part
of that package, which has been dubbed the American Families
Plan."

More than 18 million people collected unemployment benefits in
the week ending March 20, according to the Labor Department.

Read more at
The Washington Post or
CNBC.

New Batch of Stimulus Payments Brings Total Sent to More Than
$376 Billion

The U.S. government said Wednesday that it had sent out another
round of $1,400 Economic Impact Payments, more commonly called
stimulus checks. This batch, the fifth under the American Rescue
Plan Act enacted last month, included about 2 million payments for
a total of more than $3.4 billion. More than 320,000 payments, with
a total value of $450 million, went to Veterans Affairs
beneficiaries who receive Compensation and Pension benefits but who
don’t normally file a tax return and didn’t use the IRS’s
non-filers tool last year, the Treasury Department said.

The latest round of payments lifts the total number made
to about 159 million and the total amount disbursed to more than
$376 billion.

Rep. Kevin Brady Announces He Will Retire at End of His
Term

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the
tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, announced Wednesday
that he will retire from Congress at the end of his term.

"This term, my 13th, will be the last," he
said at an appearance before the Woodlands Area
Chamber of Commerce in his district north of Houston.

Brady, 66, has represented Texas’s 8th district in Congress
since 1997 and has been the top Republican on the powerful Ways and
Means Committee since November 2015, when the previous chair, Paul
Ryan, became House speaker. As head of the committee, Brady was a
key architect of the 2017 Republican tax cuts.

Brady said that he is retiring in part because Republican term
limit rules will force him to step down from his committee
post.

"As you may not know, because Republicans limit committee
leadership to six years, I won’t be able to chair the Ways and
Means committee in the next session when Republicans win back the
House majority. Did that factor in? Honestly, some," he said.

In a
statement, House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal
(D-MA) called Brady’s decision to retire "a loss for both the Ways
and Means Committee and Congress," adding that he and Brady "have
been able to overcome ideological differences time and time again
to partner on behalf of the American people."

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