Senate negotiators struggled Tuesday to shore up enough support for both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a large tax and spending measure backed only by Democrats, marking a significant political hurdle for quick congressional approval of President Joe Biden’s $4 trillion economic agenda.
A group of 22 Democratic and Republican senators plans to huddle Tuesday night to sort out lingering problems with their proposed $579 billion physical infrastructure package, while a separate group of Senate Democrats will meet in the evening to discuss the top-line spending level for the second package.
The biggest issue for the infrastructure bill is how Congress intends to pay for it -- through increased tax enforcement and user fees -- as well as re-purposed pandemic relief money and incentivizing private investment.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has not agreed with the senators that a $40 billion investment in the IRS will net $100 billion in newly collected tax revenue. Some Republican senators who previously supported the deal said that poses a problem.
Republican Senators Jerry Moran of Kansas and Mike Rounds of South Dakota said they want to see the bill fully paid for in a CBO score. Rounds, however, added that he felt the bill was “getting there.”
Keeping Flexible
Other Republican senators, such as lead negotiator Rob Portman of Ohio and Mitt Romney of Utah, are more willing to forgo official CBO blessing if they are convinced the bill pays for itself. The White House has previously said there is $1 trillion in unpaid taxes to be reaped from increased audits.
Romney said the CBO isn’t likely to give senators full credit for beefed up Internal Revenue Service enforcement, dynamic scoring -- which counts on revenue gains from anticipated faster growth -- and other items the group believes will pay for the package.
“My test is, is it paid for in my own mind,” Romney said.
Republicans also remain concerned that Democrats will link passage of the infrastructure bill to the budget measure, which so far has no GOP support.
GOP Concern
Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, one of the 11 Republicans to back the tentative infrastructure deal, said his biggest concern is that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to tie approval of the infrastructure package in her chamber to Senate clearance of the budget resolution.