How Biden can get the infrastructure bill through Congress

Last week President Biden ended negotiations with Republicans on an infrastructure bill. The two sides remained far apart. Democrats had reduced their proposal to $1 trillion in new spending. Republicans, led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), ranking member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, would not go higher than $330 billion.

A few days later, a bipartisan group of senators (five Republicans and five Democrats) announced they had reached agreement on “a realistic compromise framework to modernize our nation’s infrastructure and energy technologies.” Although the group released few details, the package reportedly allocated $579 billion in new spending and $1.8 trillion over eight years. The bill would be paid for without new taxes (although gas taxes might be indexed to inflation). Emphasizing the importance of bipartisan agreement on infrastructure, the group indicated all of them were discussing the plan with respective colleagues and the White House “and remain optimistic that this can lay the groundwork to garner broad support from both parties and meet America’s infrastructure needs.”

Other GOP members of the House and Senate, however, expressed skepticism about the deal. And many Democrats are growing impatient. They are especially concerned that a compromise package would eliminate climate action initiatives — charging stations for electric vehicles, transmission lines for renewable energy, tax incentives for solar, wind, and other clean energies, retrofits for reduced energy usage in homes, and clean energy standards for corporations. They agree with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio): “At some point, if they [Republicans] won’t go where we believe the country needs to go, and where the country seems to want to go, then we take off.”

The pathways for the Biden administration to get an infrastructure bill through Congress are narrowing. All the more so, as the summer recess for Congress approaches. Here’s what Biden should do:

He should assume that his attempts at bipartisanship have run their course because the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate and the House, led by Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) respectively, have no intention of getting to yes. Drawing on the play book they used for Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the Economic Stimulus legislation of 2009, and Biden’s Coronavirus Relief Bill, they are negotiating to run out the clock and tempting the president to negotiate with himself, while setting a predicate for claims that Republicans support modernizing our infrastructure and are committed to bipartisanship. That’s why Sen. Capito emphasized that it was Biden who ended infrastructure discussions. Republicans are also trying to drive a wedge between moderate Democrats — Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Mark Warner (D-Va.) — and their more numerous progressive colleagues.

The president should challenge the Republican members of the bipartisan group — Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) — to provide concrete details about the plan and its pay-fors. He should promise to negotiate with them when and if five additional Republican senators publicly endorse the agreement (to ensure a bill cannot be filibustered).

In the meantime, he should give Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) the go-ahead to prepare infrastructure legislation that could be passed with 51 votes under the budget reconciliation process, enlist the support of the Democratic moderates, and coordinate his efforts with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

As he reiterates that he prefers bipartisan legislation but only if it addresses the nation’s urgently important needs, Biden should take every opportunity to emphasize that almost 70 percent of Americans support a big, bold infrastructure bill, with only 29 percent opposed. He should indicate that corporations do not now pay their fair share for essential services provided by government — and point out that raising the corporate tax to 25 percent (which Manchin supports) will still leave it significantly lower than it was between the end of World War II and 2017. He should increase his trips to cities and towns around the country, showcasing crumbling roads, bridges, mass transit and some of the 400,000 schools and childcare facilities that expose children to lead poisoning.

And he should recognize that if his infrastructure package creates jobs, stimulates economic growth, and makes energy cleaner, few Americans will know — or care — if it received bipartisan support.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) of “Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.”