WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) – Senate Republicans introduced their counter-offer to President Biden’s $1.7 trillion infrastructure plan.
The new GOP proposal, negotiated by West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito, comes with a nearly trillion-dollar price tag over 8 years.
Spending would be largely focused on building bridges, roads, transit systems and other core infrastructure and funded through repurposing unused COVID-19 relief money. But the plan still falls short of President Biden’s wish list and eliminates his spending to fight climate change.
Speaking on Capitol Hill this Thursday, Republicans say they hope this moves negotiations forward.
Sen. Moore Capito said, “We believe that the alternative, which is a partisan reconciliation process, would be destructive to our future bipartisan attempts, but also doesn’t serve the American public, and wouldn’t get us to an infrastructure package such as the one we believe would serve the American interest but also it trains spending to the areas of core physical infrastructure that is so important to this country.”
The Biden team recently reduced their proposal from over $2 trillion dollars of spending to $1.7 trillion.
The overall GOP infrastructure package includes more than $500 billion for roads and bridges, $98 billion for public transit systems, $72 billion for water storage, and $56 billion for airports.
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