Democrats open to user fees for infrastructure deal

[DonViejo]

Axios
Hans Nichols, Alayna Treene

Some Senate Democrats are open to paying for a compromise infrastructure package by imposing user fees, including increasing the gas tax and raising money from electric car drivers through a vehicle-miles-traveled charge.

Why it matters: By inching toward the Republican position on pay-fors, some Democrats are bucking President Biden's push to offset his proposed $2.3 trillion plan by focusing only on raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

“User fees have to be part of the mix,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told Axios on Thursday.

“I am generally supportive of what the president is trying to do, but I think his initial unwillingness to include user fees makes it really hard."

more
https://www.axios.com/democrats-user-fees-infrastructure-deal-a3462dab-2106-420c-8077-73bef591e55e.html

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. No...User fees are taxes. We already pay high "User frees".

The upper 1% already have more money than they need.. Raise revenues from them.

Or make it a combination of both, making sure at least 75% comes from increased Corporate and Income taxes from the rich.

[jimfields33]

2. They already said no "taxes" on middle class

This will go against this statement. Not to mention the poor who already see prices going up on groceries and gas. How much more can they give????

[Hugin]

9. Regressive taxes at that...

There are very poor people who have to commute long distances to their slave wage paying jobs and these taxes hurt them more than a rich person who only leaves their compound in a company car.

[dalton99a]

14. +1.

[Diamond_Dog]

3. What don't they get?

User fees impact the average working person more. Delivery drivers, Uber drivers, visiting nurses, etc.

[lark]

4. This is not good news, user fees are just fees on the working class.

Fat cats get expensive fast passes and so don't get so slowed down on toll bridges and roads, ordinary people suffer with this. Repugs are totally not serious about this, they just want to have the rich gobble up all the goodies and the working class pay for the rich to get richer - don't know why Kane is pretending this is a real pay for effort by repugs - it's just another rope a dope - everything is that with them. I know Biden has to do this to try and get Mancin and Sienema onboard, but damn it's stupid for those 2 to be this way, anti-worker and pro-fascist (aka repug party) by pretending they are what they are not - a party that gives a damn about the American constitution or it's working class.

[Fullduplexxx]

5. Caving again

[EarlG]

6. I hope this gets shot down and soon

Because Joe Biden promised that he would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year, and these "user fees" that the Republicans are being so helpfully bipartisan on will not be called "user fees" when the GOP starts running "the Democrats broke their promise not to raise your taxes!" attack ads against all our candidates next year.

[spanone]

15. ⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧

THIS

[nykym]

7. Fine Sen Walker

taxes on jet fuel for corporate or private jets.
Gas tax for luxury yachts.
car tax for luxury cars
to name a few but only that would apply to the 1%.

[dalton99a]

8. Great way to lose the midterms.

[ebbie15644]

10. Absolutely no

They will be blamed forever and vilified every time they go up and they will go up

[dalton99a]

11. Earth to Buttigieg: Tax the rich, not the working poor.

So tone-deaf and clueless

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. I'm not totally closed to this idea

President Biden has several initiatives pending for Congress that total in the trillions. A proposed infra structure compromise with Republicans would likely not account for more than a third or so of the total spending Democrats are proposing. For one thing, any infrastructure bill that passes with Republican support will narrowly define that tern to include "hard" infrastructure only, not child care support etc. We will need to raise a lot of money one way or another to enact all of the legislative goals of the Biden Administration. An increase in the corporate tax rate could be slated to help pay for some other initiatives passed without Republican votes

It is conceivable to me that the path forward to achieve most of our agenda in Congress might involve an elaborate legislative dance wherein Biden provides political cover for the likes of Manchin by delivering on his promise to seek bipartisan support for legislation wherever possible. Infrastructure has always been held up as the poster child example of where bipartisan agreements should be possible. A real good faith effort to achieve passage of a compromise "Roads and Bridges" infrastructure bill with Republican votes could be a strategic imperative toward that end. Win or lose, Biden having gone the extra mile in negotiations with Republicans where some chance of achieving a compromise is possible, could free the likes of Joe Manchin to support a subsequent legislative act passed through Reconciliation with Democratic votes only. Joe Manchin is already on record, for example, favoring raising the corporate tax rate to 25%, halfway between where it now sits and Biden's original proposal. That revenue could then underwrite costs for expanded Day Care etc.

I will also note that the gasoline tax is currently extremely low, it hasn't been raised in a very long time and traditionally that has been a primary source for maintaining roads and bridges etc. And as we phase out gasoline engine cars, that source of revenue will dry up completely since electric vehicles don't use gas.

[Carlitos Brigante]

13. The second they agree to this, the 'Pukes will go "See??!! We told you

they were going to tax your asses off!!!". Then, there goes 'the football ".

[Fiendish Thingy]

16. The only reason the GOP supports user fees is to weaponize them for elections. Nt

[PortTack]

17. +1000

[Celerity]

18. Of course Sinema is one of them pushing for it, smdh, and two other centrists, but at least Manchin

is against the petrol tax increase.

[DFW]

19. The lower your income, the harder this will probably hit you

Obviously, if you live in a remote cabin off the grid, and are self-sufficient in food, water and energy, then you don’t care, but that doesn’t describe most of us.

This is a bad idea. Plus, like a value-added tax, it is government heroin. Once a bureaucracy starts feeding off such a tax, instead of being repealed when a crisis ebbs, it seems to always increase, hitting low-income people ever harder. Like heroin, best not to start.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

20. White House: User fees for infrastructure deal would "violate" Biden's tax pledge

The White House on Friday said that Republicans' idea to impose user fees for infrastructure spending would "violate" President Biden's promise not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 annually.

What they're saying: "The president's pledge and his commitment, his line in the sand, his red line, whatever you want to call it, is that he will not raise taxes for people making less than $400,000 a year," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. "User fees that have been proposed out there would violate that."

Driving the news: Some Senate Democrats were open to considering user fees, including increasing the gas tax and raising money from electric car drivers through a vehicle-miles-traveled charge, Axios' Hans Nichols reports.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told Axios on Thursday that he is "generally supportive of what the president is trying to do, but I think his initial unwillingness to include user fees makes it really hard."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-user-fees-infrastructure-190136960.html

[Raine]

21. NO!!!! I knew that it would eventually come down to sticking

it to the average guy with user fees (aka taxes) that's ALWAYS the way it happens!