A bipartisan infrastructure deal unveiled last week by a group of five Republicans and five Democrats is coming under fire from both sides of the aisle and may not survive the week.
Democrats are gearing up to kill the proposal because it falls well short of President Biden’s $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan, and because its menu of ways to pay for it includes indexing the gas tax to inflation, imposing a mileage tax on electric vehicles and repurposing unspent COVID-19 relief funds.
While Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Sunday said the deal would not include a gas tax increase, people familiar with the proposal said indexing the gas tax to inflation, which would raise revenue, was under discussion. They argue that would not represent a tax increase.
That view, however, is not universally shared in either party.
“I think indexing the gas tax is a tax increase,” said one Republican senator. “I’ve never been a proponent of increasing the gas tax. My colleagues are spinning that it’s not a tax increase.
Another major problem for Democrats is the bipartisan plan doesn’t go far enough to address climate change.
Many Republicans are unenthusiastic about the sheer size of the proposal and the prospect of giving Biden a major legislative accomplishment on a top domestic priority.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}
