Members of Congress are now dissecting President Biden’s big $2 trillion infrastructure plan, which they are receiving as the first of a two-part proposal.
The centerpiece of the legislation is asking for $621 billion to target road, bridge, and railway construction and upgrade projects across the country.
That $621 billion would also go for public transit, and ports, waterways, and airport projects.
Of that $621 billion, some $115 billion will be more specifically allocated for the modernization of around 20,000 miles of highways, main streets, and roads. Another $20 billion will be spent repairing both large and small bridges.
The President has also said that he wants to see up to $174 billion spent to grow the nation’s electric vehicle market. Part of that section of the proposal will provide consumers with rebates to purchase such vehicles, while another part will fund the construction of some half a million new electric car charging stations, to be built by the year 2030.
While many critics of the bill say they are for its transportation elements, that isn’t completely so with the $400 billion that would be spent expanding access to long-term care services under Medicaid.
The bill is also receiving a negative response for the $80 billion that Biden would like to use to spur semiconductor as well as medical product manufacturing.
Another large part of the legislation would invest up to $213 billion for the building, renovating, and retrofitting of more than 2 million housing units and homes, with $100 billion going to the construction of new public schools, and ventilation upgrades to existing schools.
Because the plan also calls for up to $2 trillion in new corporate tax increases over the next 15 years, raising the corporate tax rate from its current 21% to 28%, it is receiving no small amount of opposition from the business sector.
In a statement, Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, noting the tax increases that are a part of the Biden package, has said that it “would make America less competitive, which would mean less U.S. economic growth and less job creation.”
Joshua Bolton, chief executive officer of the Business Roundtable, said his group “strongly opposes corporate tax increases as a pay-for for infrastructure investment.”
Notes Politico: “The corporate world generally despises Biden’s plan in its current form and is fixated on its defeat.”
That opposition may mean less in the wake of a decision just announced by the parliamentarian of the Senate allowing for multiple reconciliation packages to be introduced. That decision makes it possible for the infrastructure package to bypass any filibuster attempts by approving the infrastructure plan with a simple majority vote.
By Garry Boulard
