President Joe Biden stepped out on the White House driveway Thursday afternoon and announced 'we have a deal' on an infrast...
President Joe Biden stepped out on the White House driveway Thursday afternoon and announced 'we have a deal' on an infrastructure package.
'We had a really good meeting and to answer your direct question, we have a deal,' the president told reporters. 'I think it's really important, we've all agreed that, none of us got all what we wanted, I clearly didn't get all I wanted, they gave more than I think maybe they were inclined to give in the first place.'
According to the Associated Press the deal will put $953 billion toward infrastructure.
'We made serious compromises on both ends,' Biden said. 'This reminds me of the days we used to get an awful lot done in Congress,' the president also said.
President Joe Biden stepped out on the White House driveway Thursday afternoon and announced 'we have a deal' on an infrastructure package
President Joe Biden leads a bipartisan group of senators to the microphones on the White House driveway, announcing that they'd come together on a deal on an infrastructure package
President Joe Biden (right) puts his hand on the shoulder of Republican Sen. Rob Portman (left). Portman was one of the leaders of the effort
Biden was surrounded by a bipartisan group of senators led by Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Sen. Rob Portman.
Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, said the two parties agreed on the 'price tag, the scope and how to pay for it.'
Other senators who etched out the deal included Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Warner and Jon Tester.
The senators vowed to give more details on the plan later this afternoon as they left the microphones.
Biden will address the detail from the East Room at 2 p.m.
Biden's original 'American Jobs Plan' was to cost $2 trillion.
The Democratic president wanted to pay for the plan by bumping back up the corporate tax rate, which was decreased in 2017 as part of the tax bill signed by then President Donald Trump and backed by Congressional Republicans.
Biden also wanted to uphold a campaign promise of not upping taxes on any American making under $400,000 annually.
Republicans, however, balked at eroding any of the Trump-era tax breaks.
In order to make up for some of the spending Democrats wanted, lawmakers want to pair the infrastructure package with another bill, which would be pushed through using the Senate reconciliation process - meaning it can bypass a Republican filibuster if all 50 Senate Democrats are on board.
'This is important,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at her weekly press conference earlier Thursday. 'There ain't going to be a bipartisan bill without a reconciliation bill.'
If Biden gets the infrastructure deal passed, it will be the second significant piece of legislation he'll sign since coming into office in January.
Biden signed the American Rescue Plan - the COVID-19 economic relief bill - into law in March.
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