After months of negotiations, the Senate voted 69-30 Aug. 10 on a historic nearly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges and ports, boost broadband internet, among other improvements.
“I want to thank those senators who worked so hard to bring this agreement together. I know it wasn’t easy,” President Joe Biden said during remarks at the White House after the vote. “For the Republicans who supported this bill, you showed a lot of courage. And I want to personally thank you for that.”
Of the 19 Republicans who voted for the bill, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), one of the lead negotiators, touted the efforts of everybody involved and stated that bipartisanship still exists in Congress.
“To me, not only does this investment make sense, but importantly, what we are doing here today also demonstrates to the American people that we can get our act together on a bipartisan basis and get something done,” Portman said. “We can do big things on a bipartisan basis if we put our minds to it.”
The bill, formally known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, would spend $550 billion of new federal spending over five years into improving the nation’s infrastructure. The legislation allocates $66 billion for rail transportation and safety, $55 billion for water infrastructure and $65 billion for increasing and improving broadband connections. In addition, the legislation includes $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations.
How to pay for the bill was the subject of last-minute negotiations, but the bill will use some $200 billion allocated by Congress for earlier COVID-19 pandemic relief and $53 billion from states that canceled their enhanced federal unemployment insurance benefits. In addition, the measure also requires cryptocurrency “brokers” to report their transactions to the IRS. The bill does not include any corporate tax hikes, which Biden first proposed.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget published its review of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on Aug. 5.
“Though its estimates are complicated to decipher, they show the legislation would directly add over $340 billion to the deficit and cost nearly $400 billion when including indirect effects from a higher transportation spending baseline; neither figure includes interest,” the report read.
The committee said the direct spending, appropriations and revenue provisions in the legislation would have a net cost of $256 billion. In addition, the legislation would increase highway and transit contract authority by about $90 billion over five years, leading to a $196 billion increase over 10 years.
In total, the legislation would authorize $566 billion of spending and tax breaks, about $517 billion in costs over the next decade. Offsetting revenue and spending provisions would save about $206 billion in budget authority and generate $173 billion of actual savings, according to the report.
Human infrastructure
Coming on the heels of passage of the infrastructure bill, the Senate also approved a $3.5 trillion human infrastructure package.
The budget resolution passed 50-49 along party lines and focuses on climate policy, paid leave, childcare, education and health care.
The budget resolution does not go into specific detail about the policies, but it directs the Senate budget committees to finish writing budget details by Sept. 15, days before the House returns from its August recess.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD-5) announced that the chamber would return from its current recess on Aug. 23, about a month earlier than previously planned.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) raised concerns about the $3.5 trillion price tag and signaled he would try to scale back the final legislation.
“Given the current state of the economic recovery, it is simply irresponsible to continue spending at levels more suited to respond to a Great Depression or Great Recession—not an economy that is on the verge of overheating,” he said in a statement.
The $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act are part of Biden’s Build Back Better vision. — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
