Republican lawmakers are signaling they won't support the Biden administration's proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill, but Democrats appear ready to plow ahead regardless.
"Republicans inside the Beltway can either get on board or they can watch Democrats pass one of the most monumental and important pieces of legislation on party-line votes," said Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass. 4th District), member of House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Auchincloss, a former Republican for a matter of months in 2013 and 2014 who then took the seat vacated by Joseph P. Kennedy III during his bid for Senate, is one of a younger generation of current Democrats seeing large-scale public investment as crucial to the country's economic future.
"Millennials are on track to be the first generation in American history who are worse off than our parents, and the American Jobs Plan can be the turning point," he said. "We can look to our kids and our grandkids and say America was in crisis, America hit a low point, and then we built back better."
The first-term congressman added that the bill could be a "starting point for a roaring 20s," alluding to a common refrain among those who are optimistic about the next decade of the U.S. economy.
Democrats are also pointing to polls that show widespread support for infrastructure spending, including a Reuters poll showing that 79 percent of Americans back a government overhaul of American roadways, railroads, bridges, and ports.
The representative noted that Democrats are willing to engage with Republicans in a healthy debate over how to prioritize investments and how to pay for the bill, but that they would not compromise on the size and scope of the legislation.
"We welcome a bipartisan conversation, but we're going to pass an infrastructure bill and it's going to be popular with the American people," he said.
Auchincloss pushed back against the argument that increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, the proposal from Biden as a way to help pay for the massive package, would not hurt the overall economy.
"We know that the multiplier effect on a dollar of infrastructure spending outweighs the multiplier effect on a tax cut for high-earning individuals and for corporations," he said.
The newly-elected representative also didn't shy from taking a hardline position on China, which he said is outcompeting the U.S. due to lack of sufficient investment.
"We're entering a G2 world and increasingly companies are going to have to choose whether they want to orbit the United States economy or orbit the Chinese economy," he said.
Auchincloss said competition with China will have both economic and ideological shades and also compared the U.S.'s global efforts to its experiences during World War II and the Cold War.
"If the United States invests in our vision and our own economy, we're going to win," he said.
President Donald Trump says a deal struck by Netflix last week to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share. The Republican president says he will be involved in the decision about whether federal regulators should approve the deal. Trump commented Sunday when he was asked about the deal as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors. The $72 billion deal would bring together two of the biggest players in television and film and potentially reshape the entertainment industry.
Real estate software company RealPage has agreed to stop sharing nonpublic information between landlords as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is drawing closer. The sides have reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalize during their high-stakes meeting Thursday in South Korea. Any agreement would be a relief to international markets. Trump's treasury secretary says discussions with China yielded preliminary agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the United States. Scott Bessent also says Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earth elements needed for advanced technologies.
