Biden sets out to prove Republican lawmakers are on the wrong side of history. They're helping him
President Joe Biden met Monday with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to talk infrastructure. Coming out of the meeting, his message was clear: "I'm prepared to negotiate as to the extent of my infrastructure project, as well as how we pay for it," Biden said. "It's going to get down to what we call 'infrastructure.'" He also said "Everyone acknowledges we need a significant increase in infrastructure."
The message worked for one of the Republicans in the room. "Those are all the exact words that I wanted to hear going into the meeting," Republican Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana, a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told the AP. "And so that was really encouraging." One of the Democrats in the room, Sen. Alex Padilla of California, attested to the collegiality in the room. "Nobody stormed out yelling 'no.'" That's probably because Rand Paul and Ted Cruz weren't invited.
Instead, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi gets to play the role of obstructor, though he might be a bit more civil in doing so. He came out of the meeting saying "clearly there are parts of this program that are non-starters for Republicans." He was mostly speaking about partially undoing the 2017 GOP Tax Scam that still hasn't produced any jobs. Wicker told Biden that partially restoring the taxes to 28% (pre-2017 they were 35%, now they're at 21%) "would be an impossible sell."
So yes, you can see how going right to the middle and landing on 28% would be an absolutely outrageous compromise for the Republicans that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin insists will be happy to find middle ground to help pass this bill. Manchin suggests a rate of maybe 25%—which isn't the middle.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/4/13/2025728/-Biden-extends-hand-to-Republicans-on-infrastructure-but-reminds-them-he-s-the-one-voters-approve
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