Senators will meet with Biden after a potential breakthrough on a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

 

Senators will meet with Biden after a potential breakthrough on a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/24/us/joe-biden-news

 

White House negotiators and a group of senators reached a tentative agreement Wednesday evening on the contours of what would be a bipartisan infrastructure agreement, with lawmakers set to brief President Biden on Thursday as details were filled in.

 

The framework is expected to increase federal spending by nearly $600 billion to invest in roads, broadband internet, electric utilities and other federal infrastructure projects. It is expected to be paid for with a suite of revenue increases that do not violate either Mr. Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class or Republicans’ red line of not reversing business tax cuts passed under President Donald J. Trump in 2017, though the details of the revenue sources have not yet been finalized.

 

The senators are scheduled to meet with Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at 11:45 a.m.

 

Those revenue increases, which have been a major sticking point in negotiations, are expected to include heightened enforcement efforts by the Internal Revenue Service to reduce tax evasion by corporations and high earners, which many economists say could yield a significant increase in tax collections over time. They most likely will not include any increases in the tax rates corporations pay, as Mr. Biden had proposed, or so-called user fees, as Republicans had proposed.

 

“There’s a framework of agreement on a bipartisan infrastructure package,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, told reporters as she left negotiations in the Capitol. “There’s still details to be worked out.”

 

“We also have to brief our respective caucuses,” she added. “But I’m optimistic that we’ve had a breakthrough.”

 

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a statement on Wednesday evening that “White House senior staff had two productive meetings today with the bipartisan group of senators who have been negotiating about infrastructure.”

 

“The group made progress toward an outline of a potential agreement,” she added, “and the president has invited the group to come to the White House tomorrow to discuss this in person.”

 

White House officials told Senate negotiators on Wednesday that Mr. Biden was prepared to support the framework once it was finalized with details, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity. A White House spokesman declined to comment beyond Ms. Psaki’s statement.

 

Sealing a bipartisan deal would put Mr. Biden firmly on the path to a piecemeal approach to passing his $4 trillion economic agenda, with a first step focused on a large-scale investment in the nation’s aging public works system. Senators refused to disclose details, but a framework previously endorsed by the five Republicans and five Democrats would provide for $579 billion in new spending as part of an overall $1.2 trillion package distributed over eight years.

 

But it would leave large swaths of the president’s economic proposals — including much of his spending to combat climate change, along with investments in child care, education and other types of what administration officials call “human infrastructure” — for a potential future bill that Democrats would try to pass through Congress without any Republican votes using a procedural mechanism known as reconciliation.

 

— Emily Cochrane and Jim Tankersley