Jessica Smith joins Brian Sozzi and Julie Hyman to discuss the bipartisan Senate group and President Biden coming to an agreement on an infrastructure bill and how even though there’s an agreement, there could still be trouble passing the bill in Congress.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Let's turn now to a different part of Washington than the Federal Reserve. That is Congress and the president. Jessica Smith, you see her there. You're going to give us the rundown on this new deal that we have in place on infrastructure. What's in it, and what happens now?

JESSICA SMITH: This deal, this agreement is a big step forward. But there's still a lot of work before this could actually become law. It's $579 billion in new spending over the course of five years. It's $312 billion for transportation projects, so roads, bridges, electric vehicles. And then you also have $266 billion for other infrastructure. Think broadband, water infrastructure, the power grid. And how they plan to pay for it, of course, that was the big question throughout all of these negotiations. They say they're going to use ramped up IRS enforcement, unused COVID relief funds, recouped money from unemployment insurance fraud, customs fees, and public private partnerships.

Now President Biden also says he wants a reconciliation bill in addition to this bipartisan deal. The reconciliation bill would have his so-called human infrastructure priorities, like childcare, the child tax credit. Some progressives say that is the only way they will get behind the bipartisan deal if they know a reconciliation bill is coming. President Biden says he won't sign the bipartisan deal without the reconciliation. And that is making some Republicans pretty upset. Let's watch.

JOE BIDEN: The bipartisan bill from the very beginning was understood there's going to have to be the second part of it, not just signing the bipartisan bill and forgetting about the rest that I proposed. I propose a significant piece of legislation in three parts. And all three parts are equally important.

MITCH MCCONNELL: Caving completely in less than two hours, that's not the way to show you're serious about getting a bipartisan outcome.

JESSICA SMITH: This is why it's going to still be difficult to get this done. President Biden says he wants to have it done before the end of the fiscal year, both the reconciliation and infrastructure. But it is just not clear if there's enough support beyond this group of 10 senators to reach the 60 votes needed to send it to the president's desk. We've already heard from people like Lindsey Graham, who said it's a deal breaker if the president is only signing the bipartisan deal with the promise of another bill to come. So we'll have to watch as this plays out over the summer. Julie.

JULIE HYMAN: Yes, we will. More infrastructure weeks yet to come. Jess Smith, thank you. Appreciate it.