Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Members of Congress on Infrastructure and Jobs Legislation and an Exchange With Reporters

The President. Thanks for coming in, guys. I want to thank my colleagues—they're still my colleagues; I'm more of a Member of Congress than I've been here. And—but I'm glad you all came down.

We're going to talk about our infrastructure package. And as I indicated earlier, I am prepared to compromise, prepared to see what we can do and what we can get together on. It's a big package, but there's a lot of needs.

And so we're going to be talking about, number one, what should be included in the package—obviously, I put a lot in the package; I think it all should be included—and how to pay for it. And there are two issues.

I've noticed everybody is for infrastructure. [Laughter] The question is: Who's going to pay for it? And that's what we're going to try to work out today, at least in this bipartisan group of Members of the House and Senate.

And, a little secret here, we're going to—in full disclosure, I asked Senators and Congressmen who had either been Governors or mayors because they know what it's like to make things work, to make sure that you get things done and deal with infrastructure and the needs of your community.

So that's why we're here. We—hopefully, we'll be able to reach some kind of consensus, at least in broad terms.

So thank you all for coming in. And we'll be talking to you later.

Infrastructure

Q. Mr. President, what do you think about the idea of paying for it with user fees?

The President. That's what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about all that right now.

Thank you very much. Thank you.