WASHINGTON — The last major infrastructure package approved by Congress came after one of the country’s most liberal senators chipped through her icy relationship with Mitch McConnell.
“We hadn’t really worked on anything for 20 years. We had a cold relationship since the Robert Packwood scandal,” recalled former California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who led negotiations for Democrats on the $300 billion package in 2015. “I took it to … Mitch’s people first and then to him. I said, ‘This is important for Kentucky’ and he agreed. That was really a breakthrough.”
That highway bill won 83 votes in the U.S. Senate, even though it included about $170 billion less than former President Barack Obama had wanted. Still, both parties hold it up as a substantial achievement in updating America’s roads and bridges.
There’s almost nobody in Washington who thinks an infrastructure package could net 83 Senate votes right now. And McConnell appears to be keeping his GOP caucus largely unified against anything that creeps much beyond $300 billion in new spending.
The difference between now and then is the size and scope of the plan being pushed by President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats, as well as the hardening of partisan lines around every Washington policy debate.
Boxer thinks the only way McConnell would ultimately get on board with an infrastructure package is if Biden drastically reduces his $1 trillion price tag and agrees to include only basic provisions like roads, bridges and internet broadband.
“It’s a shadow of what we need,” Boxer said, but “McConnell’s got his modus operandi. He doesn’t want to hand Biden a win.”
Deadlines are often fungible in Washington, but Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg marked Monday as when the Biden administration will evaluate how to proceed on their second legislative priority of the year. Speaking on CNN Sunday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm warned, “This has got to be done soon.”
The latest GOP counter offer only included $257 billion in new spending in a $900 billion plan that would lean heavily on repurposing money from the coronavirus rescue package that’s already been signed into law -- a nonstarter for the White House.
A bipartisan group of five senators is attempting a late compromise of $878 billion, according to Fox Business, but it’s still unclear how much of that offer would include new money and how it would be paid for.
Former Sen. Trent Lott, a Republican lobbyist who has talked with McConnell’s staff about the infrastructure negotiations, said he still sees the possibility of a compromise around a hike of the corporate tax rate as a way to finance the new spending. The current corporate tax is 21%; Biden wants to bring it to 28%. Lott suggested lifting it to 25% could net some Republican votes.
But McConnell has repeatedly said raising taxes is a red line that his caucus will not cross.
Lott also said that money for electric charging stations would be acceptable to some GOP senators.
“Some of them would be, I would be (for it),” Lott said. “We’re going to have electric vehicles. Even Ford has introduced an electric truck. If you’re going from DC to Mississippi, you’re going to need some charging stations.”
But as recently as a few weeks ago, McConnell mocked such cars on the Senate floor as part of the Biden administration’s “grab bag of miscellaneous liberal programs.”
“It took less money to win a global war than these Democrats want to spend on a hodge-podge of stuff like electric cars and welfare programs,” he said.
Progressives are exhausted with the back-and-forth and are increasing pressure on the White House to move on regardless of what McConnell or any other Republican signals. They see McConnell as simply feigning interest in a bipartisan deal to run down the clock and prevent Democrats from moving on to other, even more ambitious legislative items.
But if Biden decides to go it alone, simply with Senate Democrats, he will need to make sure he has all 50 votes, especially those of the more moderate members and those who are up for reelection in 2022 in highly competitive states like New Hampshire and Nevada.
Asked if Democrats had a valid point that McConnell would likely be opposed to whatever package ends up hitting the Senate floor, Lott acknowledged, “He’s a world class defensive player,” but, “He represents Kentucky, which could use some of that, the roads, and the rail and transportation.”
“It may be slow-walked,” Lott said, “but I think, for the country, we need an infrastructure bill.”
