President Biden has released one of the most sweeping government work projects, harkening back to the days of the New Deal, with an infrastructure package that also includes funding for new affordable housing, among other features.
“These are investments we have to make,” Biden said of his historic plan. “We can afford to make them. To put it another way: we can’t afford not to.”
The largest part of the multi-faceted plan would commit $621 billion to a variety of infrastructure projects ranging from bridge and road upgrades and construction, to airport, ports, and public transit projects.
Some $300 billion will target broadband network construction, as well as an effort to improve drinking water infrastructure.
The President additionally wants to put $300 million into the construction and upgrading of public schools, along with the building and retrofitting of affordable housing.
The infrastructure package, officially called the American Jobs Plan, comes on the heels of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, which was approved by Congress earlier this month.
In announcing his plan, Biden additionally remarked: “It’s time to build our economy from the bottom up and the middle out.” He said that if his proposal wins Congressional passage, it will allow the U.S. to become the “strongest, most resilient innovative economy in the world.”
The President said he wants to pay for the plan partly through raising the nation’s current corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.
Some analysts have said that the tax raise could bring in up to $2 trillion in revenue in the next decade and a half.
In a statement, Stephen Sandherr, chief executive officer of the Associated General Contractors of America, said Biden was right to “focus on rebuilding a broad range of aging and overburdened infrastructure and modernizing buildings.”
But Sandherr added that the package is weighed down by a “host of labor and regulatory measures that will hurt workers and offset many of the economic benefits of these new infrastructure investments.”
Neil Bradley, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, remarked: “The proposal is dangerously misguided when it comes to how to pay for infrastructure,” adding that the proposed tax increases will “slow the economic recovery and make the U.S. less competitive globally—the exact opposite of the goals of the infrastructure plan.”
Applauding the initiative, Mary Joyce Ivers, president of the American Public Works Association, said the infrastructure investment presented in the plan will provide, “a successful foundation to safeguard the essential public works services counted upon by our citizenry.”
Members of Congress will now be tasked with reviewing Biden’s proposal, with the possibility of passing it by mid-summer.
By Garry Boulard
