Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) has countered President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposal, on which Biden said he is ready to negotiate.
The counter proposal includes a vehicle mile traveled tax, road usage fees for electric vehicles, and repurposed federal money from the coronavirus package.
Capito said the “sweet spot” for a bipartisan infrastructure deal “would probably cost around $600-800 billion.” She also noted:
What I’d like to do is get back to what I consider the regular definition of infrastructure in terms of job creation. So that’s roads, bridges, ports, airports, including broadband into that, water infrastructure, not home health aides and school building and all of these kinds of things.
The Republican proposal notably does not include a corporate tax hike counter, leaving the Democrats to negotiate among themselves.
Capito’s fellow West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has indicated he, along with six or seven Democrats, would not support Biden’s proposal as is, opposing a corporate tax hike to 28 percent, seven points higher than the current rate, and three points higher than Communist China’s tax rate on American businesses.
A study conducted Thursday by Rice University found raising taxes similar to Biden’s tax hike would kill American “economic activity” and one million jobs in the first two years.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday Biden’s infrastructure proposal, including tax hikes, is an “Orwellian campaign” that seeks to relabel many far-left policies as “infrastructure.”
“This plan would impose one of the biggest tax hikes in a generation when workers need an economic recovery,” he said. “It would gut right-to-work protections for blue collar workers. It would throw hundreds of billions to far left’s green fads.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Republicans are willing to negotiate but not at any cost. “Well, listen, we’re willing to negotiate a much smaller package,” he said.
Wicker continued:
You’ve got a proposal here of the $2.3 trillion, 70 percent of which any stretch of the imagination can’t be called infrastructure. That’s on top of what a few weeks ago was not COVID-related, the skinny federal budget that the president rolled out just this past week. Where does the spending end? This is a massive social welfare spending program combined with a massive tax increase on small business job creators.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has also voiced her opposition. “Not even six percent of President Joe Biden’s massive $2 trillion ‘infrastructure’ bill would be used to build roads and bridges,” Blackburn wrote to Breitbart News. “Biden’s plan includes the largest tax hike in nearly three decades, but of course, coastal elites will have their taxes slashed. It will strip Americans of their right to work by forcing them to join Democrat-backed unions.”
Over in the House of Representatives, 17 Democrats have postured with the administration over the tax hike, saying they will not discuss Biden’s tax proposals until the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction is on the table. A few of those members include Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY). The SALT deduction was previously capped under the Trump administration.
“I know my Democratic colleagues have made it very clear, the ones that are in New York and New Jersey, that they will not support an infrastructure bill, any kind of tax reform, that does not take SALT into account,” Dingell stated.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) has also opposed Biden’s tax plan. “When you raise taxes … companies start moving their jobs overseas again, like they were doing when we had high taxes a few years ago. That means we lose middle class jobs,” Scalise said.
Other Trojan horse items in the president’s proposal include a ramped up Internal Revenue Service on business activities, kitchens for healthier school lunches, paid leave, child care, caregiving, housing, eldercare, and research and development to address the warming of the globe.
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