A small, bipartisan group of federal lawmakers met with President Joe Biden on Monday, including independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine.
King said the cordial and candid meeting on the president’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal exposed a lot of issues that need to be resolved.
“What came out of the meeting was general agreement that we need to do an infrastructure plan and general agreement that it needs to be paid for. However, the disagreement was exactly what infrastructure should be in the bill,” he said.
King said Biden’s proposal has a broad definition that includes funding for areas like workforce development, and he said Republicans favor a more traditional definition of infrastructure including roads, bridges, public transportation facilities, port improvements, water and sewer systems and broadband.
King said he urged Republicans to come up with a counterproposal to get negotiations going.
Last week the Biden administration ranked Maine’s infrastructure as a C-, with 315 bridges and close to 1,500 miles of highways needing serious investment.
