The complex budgetary maneuver would permit Senate Democrats to pass Biden’s expansive infrastructure plan with a simple majority in the chamber. But Klain declined Thursday to comment on whether the White House had already determined it would seek to bypass the filibuster, saying he was “not going to get into legislative tactics today.”
“We just launched this plan yesterday,” he said. “Congress is out of session. We’re going to start to bring members down here physically … after this Easter break and talk to Congress — talk to members of the House and Senate, Democrats, Republicans about how they want to move forward. We want to move forward, if it’s at all possible, on a bipartisan basis, and I think there’s some hope for that.”
Biden unveiled his infrastructure plan at an event Wednesday in Pittsburgh, laying out a series of investments in roads, bridges and transit — as well as improved access to clean water, broadband and elder and disability care. The administration has proposed paying for the legislation with a rewrite of the corporate tax code, including raising the amount paid by businesses from 21 percent to 28 percent.
“Look, I think these are national needs. And as the president has said, people have to decide if they’re going to deliver or divide. And we intend to deliver,” Klain said Thursday. “And when I talk to Republicans, I see that they want to deliver, too.”
Republicans in Congress have blasted Biden’s effort to reverse the corporate component of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, and progressive Democrats have complained the administration’s infrastructure plan is not far-reaching enough. But Klain indicated the White House would not be deterred by congressional criticism.
“In the end, let me be clear: The president was elected to do a job,” he said. “And part of that job is to get this country ready to win the future. That’s what he’s going to do.”