Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer walk out of the White House after meeting US President Donald Trump about infrastructure. Photo / AP
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer walk out of the White House after meeting US President Donald Trump about infrastructure. Photo / AP
The two top Democrats in Congress said that they had reached an agreement with US President Donald Trump to try to craft a US$2 trillion ($3t) plan aimed at overhauling America's ailing roads, bridges, waterways and other infrastructure.
Emerging from the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate MinorityLeader Chuck Schumer said they would meet again with Trump in three weeks to talk about what is likely to be a more contentious issue: paying for the plan.
"We want to hear his ideas on funding," Schumer said, adding that Trump's views will be a "crucial point" to moving forward on a rare potential area of bipartisan cooperation.
Trump, a Republican who campaigned on addressing the nation's ageing infrastructure, unveiled a long-awaited plan last year that received a cool reception from members of both parties, who said he had not presented a viable way to pay for it.
The plan focused on US$1.5 trillion in new spending on infrastructure over the coming decade but relied heavily on states, localities and the private sector to cover the costs.
A plan released earlier by Senate Democrats would have relied far more heavily on direct federal government spending than Trump's plan. The President's plan included US$200 billion in federal spending with the aim of enticing several times that amount from other levels of government.
Both Schumer and Pelosi characterised the meeting with Trump as productive, and Pelosi said she is hopeful Democrats can work with the White House despite friction over ongoing congressional investigations of the Administration.
"We cannot ignore the needs of the American people as we go forward," she said.
Pelosi and Schumer said the purpose of the meeting "was to find out the amount of investment the President was willing to agree to. We were pleased he suggested $2 trillion."
The two Democrats added that all sides "have an historic opportunity to build infrastructure for the future, and an urgency to address the safety needs that our crumbling infrastructure represents. Every congressional district in America has urgent needs, which any big and bold initiative must address."
In a statement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also called the meeting productive and spoke of the need for bipartisan co-operation, but she made no mention of a US$2t figure.
Schumer told reporters that Trump did not rule out tax increases - an idea many Republicans are loath to embrace, especially with an election around the corner - but offered no specifics.
"The ball is in their court," Schumer said. "We told him that, it was repeated over and over again, that unless he is willing to come up with the pay-fors for this large package, it will never get done, and he agreed. And so we agreed to meet in three weeks, the same group, and they would present what their pay-fors would be, and I thought that was encouraging."
