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Critical week for bipartisan infrastructure proposal

Yahoo Finaance's Jessica Smith joins to break down the latest out of Washington D.C. as Congress continues to battle it out over the bipartisan infrastucture bill

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: The bipartisan infrastructure deal could be in jeopardy, as negotiators struggle to finalize the agreement ahead of a critical week. Our Washington correspondent, Jessica Smith, here now with those details. Hi, Jess.

JESSICA SMITH: Hi, Alexis. Yeah, we are still waiting for that bipartisan agreement. Senators who are negotiating this had hoped to finish it today, but at this point, there is still no deal. We did hear from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer just a short time ago and he said he is still fully committed to passing the bill. And he says since senators are still finalizing it, the Senate should be on notice that they might be staying in session through the weekend in order to get this bill finalized. He said potentially they might have to stay through part of the August recess to actually advance it and pass it.

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Democrats did put forward an offer to Republicans involved in these negotiations, but Republicans reportedly said that they were discouraged by that offer. The White House had said that they had hoped that offer would clear up the remaining issues, but it does not look like that is the case at this point. Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat involved in all of this, had said yesterday on the Sunday shows that he was hoping to get a deal. He thought it would happen at some point this afternoon. Last we heard, one of the sticking points was transit. That was one of the most notable sticking points.

Senator Rob Portman, the lead Republican, said on the Sunday shows that they were 90% of the way there. But the group has been close for quite some time now. And I think some Democrats are getting more and more antsy as this drags on. You could see them start to push to do it alone, to go the reconciliation route on this infrastructure package. But Majority Leader Schumer did say that negotiators have had more than a month now since they came to this agreement with the president. He said it is time to get to yes.

Now of course, Democrats are also working on their own multi-trillion dollar plan that they plan to pass with only Democratic votes. That would have trillions of dollars in new spending for President Biden's agenda, like universal pre-K, free community college, potentially tax hikes on businesses and the wealthy. Speaker Pelosi says she won't pass that, or excuse me, she won't pass the bipartisan bill without the Senate having passed the reconciliation package. So we're still a long way off before either of these proposals could potentially end up on the president's desk. But right now, we're just still waiting on a bill. So we'll keep you updated if they're able to come to an agreement on this any time soon.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Jessica Smith, playing the waiting game. All right, thanks a lot for that update.