With Republicans lining up in opposition and some Democrats unsatisfied, the package faces hurdles on Capitol Hill.
Republicans on Capitol Hill began lining up on Wednesday against President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan and the tax increases he proposed to finance it, even as some Democrats suggested that the package was insufficient to address the country’s aging infrastructure and vulnerabilities to climate change. While most Democrats showered praise on Mr. Biden for the expansive package, the critiques from members of both parties illustrated that infrastructure legislation, once seen as a promising area of bipartisan compromise, is unlikely to sail through this Congress with widespread support from both sides. Republicans scoffed at the breadth of the plan — which includes traditional public-works projects as well as far-reaching initiatives to tackle climate change and racial inequities in the economy — and condemned Mr. Biden’s determination to pay for it in part with corporate tax increases. “We cannot begin thinking of bills that spend trillions as the new normal,” said Representative Sam Graves of Missouri, the top Republican on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “The president’s blueprint is a multitrillion-dollar partisan shopping list of progressive priorities, all broadly categorized as ‘infrastructure’ and paid for with massive, job-killing tax increases.” And early concern among some Democrats suggested that the measure is likely to have a bumpier path to enactment than the nearly $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation, which moved through Congress swiftly with only Democratic votes. Some liberal lawmakers said the package was too limited. In a statement, Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, called it “a welcome first step” but said it was “imperative that we act on a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use our governing majorities.” “It makes little sense to narrow his previous ambition on infrastructure or compromise with the physical realities of climate change,” Ms. Jayapal said of Mr. Biden. “We have a limited window to get this done — we must seize our chance to build back better with economywide investments that work for working families and communities of color.
