A bipartisan group of 10 Senate Democrats and Republicans yesterday reached a new deal on infrastructure, agreeing to a nearly $1 trillion, five-year package to improve the country’s roads, bridges, pipes and Internet connections, the Washington Post reported. The new deal is the product of five Democrats and five Republicans — Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.). Their early agreement calls for about $974 billion in infrastructure spending over five years, which comes to about $1.2 trillion when extrapolated over eight years. The package includes roughly $579 billion in new spending. Democrats and Republicans agreed to focus their investments on what they see as core infrastructure, and their plan does not include any new tax increases to finance the spending, the four people familiar with the plan said. But it does appear to wade into politically fraught territory by proposing changes to the gas tax: Lawmakers do not plan to raise the rate, but they do seek to index it to inflation, according to one of the sources, meaning consumers’ costs at the pump could rise.
