A week after the top Senate Republican described himself as “100 percent focused” on stopping President Biden’s agenda, Senator Shelley Moore Capito will meet with the president on Thursday with a different strategy in mind.
“Maybe by working together, and accomplishing something together, we get a mutual win here — particularly a win for the country,” said Ms. Capito, a West Virginia Republican who is scheduled to lead a group of a half-dozen Republicans in an afternoon meeting with Mr. Biden at the White House to discuss the possibilities for an infrastructure compromise.
The comment from Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, delivered in his home state, was a harsh reminder of the tricky politics Ms. Capito is navigating as the Republican responsible for figuring out if there is a bipartisan compromise to be had with Mr. Biden on a major infrastructure and public works plan.
But if such a deal is to be struck on a substantial infrastructure package this year, Ms. Capito, 67, a close ally of Mr. McConnell’s, will most likely be leading it.
Mr. Biden has proposed a $4 trillion plan, including $2.3 trillion (not $2.3 billion, as an earlier post said) for projects like roads, bridges, pipelines and other initiatives that have traditionally dominated infrastructure packages and a huge expansion of safety net programs. He has labeled those programs critical “human infrastructure” initiatives and would pay for them with tax increases on corporations and high earners. Ms. Capito has drafted a blueprint for a counteroffer that would devote a small fraction of that amount — $568 billion — with little detail about how it would be financed.
Ms. Capito has spoken with Mr. Biden in recent days and dispatched her staff to talk to White House aides about reconciling her framework with the president’s.
“The first indication that Lucy is going to pull the football is if she quits talking to you, and we’re still talking daily,” Ms. Capito said.
In a series of interviews across her state last week, Ms. Capito acknowledged steep challenges in reaching a deal with Mr. Biden to deliver such legislation.
Mr. McConnell has repeatedly raised $600 billion as an acceptable price tag, and Republicans have refused to consider tax increases that would reverse the deep cuts they pushed through as part of the 2017 tax law. Several Democrats, for their part, have dismissed Ms. Capito’s plan as paltry given the nation’s infrastructure needs.
Moderates including Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, are pushing to find a compromise and have applauded, if not fully endorsed, Ms. Capito’s efforts. She readily concedes that her efforts could fall flat without a compromise that Democrats would be willing to accept — or if Republicans refuse to coalesce behind one, leaving Democrats to conclude it would be futile to winnow down the size of their plan in search of a bipartisan deal.
Privately, Ms. Capito said, Mr. McConnell is “telling me to move forward, he’s telling me to negotiate in good faith.” But his public remark “did sound a little…,” she trailed off with a chuckle.
“I thought, now I’m going to go into the president and go, ‘Well, here we are to negotiate!’”
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