Biden faces a U-turn threat over the bipartisan infrastructure agreement
U.S. President Joe Biden has reiterated his threat to refuse to sign a $ 1 billion bipartisan infrastructure agreement, unless it is accompanied by a larger and more complete spending package, in a abrupt rotation from the White House just two days after the cross-party affair.
The abrupt change by Biden came after Republicans reiterated the U.S. president’s insistence Thursday that the fate of the two pieces of legislation be tied. The growing rebellion has emerged as a serious threat to the agreement arrived just two days ago and celebrated the White House as a significant step toward adapting to its economic agenda.
“At a press conference after announcing the bipartisan agreement, I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without my Family Plan and other priorities, including clean energy,” Biden said. in a statement on Saturday.
“This statement has shocked some Republicans, who do not see the two plans as linked,” he added. “My comments also created the impression that it posed a threat of veto on the very plan I had just accepted, which was certainly not my intention.”
Biden’s move to lower the fury highlights the difficult budget act the president, White House staff and allies on Capitol Hill must make to pass on the rest of their economic proposals, which are worth trillions of dollars. dollars in new investments and are accompanied by tax increases for wealthy individuals and corporations.
Thursday’s comments also marked a significant mis-step by a president who touted his more than 40 years of experience in legislation in Washington as one of his main qualities.
Hello first attempt to link the enactment of the $ 1tn infrastructure agreement reached with Republicans to the passage of the wider spending bill supported by Democrats alone – even if a parliamentary process called “reconciliation” – had acclaimed the progressives. They feared that political impetus for their priorities would fade once the bipartisan agreement was made.
But Republicans, even some who had indicated they supported the infrastructure package, did not want it to be associated with Biden’s larger spending plans and its projected tax increases.
“No deal for extortion!” Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, tweeted Saturday. “It was never suggested to me during these negotiations that President Biden was holding back the bipartisan infrastructure proposal, unless a liberal reconciliation package had even been passed.”
Although Biden – who spends the weekend at the Camp David retreat in Maryland – said the two projects would not be matched, he insisted he would still “work hard” to bring them both together.
“I experienced a winning campaign for the president who promised to achieve both. No one should be surprised that’s exactly what I do,” he said.
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