President Biden Approves New Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan

President Joe Biden gave his support to a compromise infrastructure package negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators, a potentially major step forward in the implementation of the president's domestic agenda.

The question now is whether enough other senators will get on board and whether Democratic leadership would allow the measure to move forward as a stand-alone bill.

The package is significantly smaller than what the president proposed three months ago with the rollout of his $2.2 Trillion American Jobs Plan. Most of the non-traditional, so-called "human" infrastructure contained in that proposal was taken out. Still there were indications going into Biden's meeting with the senators on Thursday that he would give their plan his blessing.

Emerging from the West Wing with the 10 senators, the president was immediately asked by one of the reporters at the stakeout if they'd reached a deal.

"In answer to your direct question, we have a deal," the president said once he reached the pre-stationed microphones.

According to the White House, the eight-year $1.2 trillion infrastructure framework contains $579 billion in new spending. A little more than half -- $312 billion -- would go to transportation items like roads, bridges, public transit and passenger rail. The remaining $266 billion would be spent on things like water systems, broadband and environmental remediation.

"No one got everything they wanted in this package," said Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-Arizona, the lead Democratic negotiator. "We all gave some to get some, and we are delighted to go back to the Hill and begin earning more support from both Republicans and Democrats to get this bill across the finish line."

It's certainly not clear at this point, even with the backing of the president, that the bill will have the 60 votes needed for passage. Progressive Democrats are unhappy that so much has been cut out, and some conservative Republicans may feel the price tag is still too high.

"We are waiting to see what the agreement is at this point," said Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma.

In an interview Thursday afternoon, Lankford said he was only beginning to learn what the package contains. Still, he's optimistic Congress will get something done, because infrastructure has always had bipartisan support.

"There aren’t Republican roads and bridges or Democratic waterways," said Lankford. "I mean, these are all American issues, so we just have to figure out how it’s going to be paid for and what the process is."

A White House fact sheet suggests the plan is to pay for the package, largely, by closing the tax gap and repurposing COVID relief dollars. Republicans in the negotiating group were adamantly opposed to the president's and Democrats' notion of increasing the corporate income tax. In fact, that was a red line for all Republicans.

"We are not interested in raising taxes," said Rep. Stephanie Bice, (R) OK-5. "We want to look at utilizing the COVID relief dollars that were left over and went unused to be able to fund some of these very important initiatives."

If this does get across the finish line, both sides can potentially claim victory. Republicans would be able to claim they fended off a tax hike to fund Green New Deal-type policies, while the president would be able to say that he has delivered on his promise of bipartisanship.