WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., on Wednesday to continue negotiations about an infrastructure package.
“The president is looking forward to hosting Senator Capito on Wednesday afternoon at the White House,” a White House official said Tuesday, adding that the bipartisan negotiations are “about investing in our middle class and economic growth through infrastructure.”
Their meeting comes after Senate Republicans last week offered a nearly $1 trillion counterproposal to the White House’s updated outline for an infrastructure plan. The GOP’s new measure would include $257 billion in new spending — more than the Republicans’ earlier proposal — and would fund much of the rest by repurposing unused Covid-19 relief money. That’s still much less, however, than Biden’s latest $1.7 trillion proposal.
Capito and other Republicans involved in infrastructure negotiations said that their bill delivers what Biden has called for. Congressional Democrats, on the other hand, were sour about the GOP plan, with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., suggesting that Democrats might have to pass their own legislation without Republican support using the special budget reconciliation process.
On Fox News Sunday, Capito said that staffers involved in the talks are “smoothing” out the edges as they go back and forth with the White House over the details. Capito said she believes they could reach an agreement.
“I think we can get to real compromise, absolutely, because we’re both still in the game,” she said. “We realize this is not easy.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
