WASHINGTON – President Biden will unveil an infrastructure plan on Wednesday the cost of $ 2 trillion would result in 20,000 miles of rebuilt roads, repairs to the country’s 10 economically most important bridges, the removal of lead pipes and utilities from the country’s water supply, and one Long list of other projects designed to create millions of jobs in the short term and strengthen American competitiveness in the long term.
Biden government officials said the proposal, which they set out in a 25-page briefing paper, and which Mr Biden will discuss in an afternoon speech in Pittsburgh, will also accelerate the fight against climate change by accelerating the transition to new, cleaner sources of energy . and would help promote racial justice in the economy.
Spending in the plan would be over eight years, officials said. In contrast to the economic stimulus passed under President Barack Obama in 2009 when Mr Biden was Vice President, officials will not always prioritize so-called shovel-ready projects that could support growth quickly.
But even over the years, the scope of the proposal underscores how fully Mr Biden took the opportunity to use federal spending to address longstanding social and economic challenges in ways that have not been seen in half a century. Officials said that if approved, the spending on schedule would end decades of stagnation in federal investment in research and infrastructure and bring government investment in these areas back to its highest level since the 1960s as part of the economy.
The proposal is the first half of a two-stage publication of the president’s ambitious agenda to overhaul the economy and reshape American capitalism, which could cost up to $ 4 trillion in total over a decade. Mr. Biden’s administration has named it the American Jobs Plan, which mirrors the $ 1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill signed by Mr. Biden earlier this month, the American Rescue Plan.
“The American employment plan,” White House officials wrote in the document detailing it, “will invest in America in ways we have not invested in America since we built the highways and won the space race.”
While spending on roads, bridges, and other physical improvements to the country’s economic foundations has always had bipartisan appeal, Biden’s plan is sure to generate stiff opposition from Republicans, both for its size and for its reliance on corporate tax hikes to pay for it.
Administration officials said the tax hikes in the plan – including an increase in the corporate tax rate and a series of measures to tax multinationals on money they earn and book overseas – would take 15 years to fully offset the cost of the spending programs.
The plan’s expenses cover a wide range of physical infrastructure projects, including transportation, broadband, power grid, and housing. Efforts to stimulate advanced manufacturing; and other industry representatives see this as key to the United States’ growing economic competition with China. It also includes funding to train millions of workers, as well as funding initiatives to support unions and home care providers for elderly and disabled Americans, while increasing the pay of workers who provide that care.
Many of the items in the plan carry price tags that would have filled whole, ambitious bills in previous administrations.
Including: a total of $ 180 billion for research and development, $ 115 billion for roads and bridges, $ 85 billion for public transportation and $ 80 billion for Amtrak and rail freight. There’s $ 42 billion for ports and airports, $ 100 billion for broadband, and $ 111 billion for water infrastructure – including $ 45 billion to make sure no child is ever forced to use water from a lead pipe drink, which can slow children’s development and lead to behavioral and other problems.
The plan is to repair 10,000 smaller bridges across the country, along with the 10 most economically significant ones that need to be repaired. It would electrify 20 percent of the country’s fleet of yellow school buses. It would spend $ 300 billion to promote advanced manufacturing, including a four-year plan to replenish the country’s strategic national supply of medicines, including vaccines, in preparation for future pandemics.
In many cases, officials formulated these goals in the language of closing racial gaps in the economy, sometimes the result of previous federal spending efforts, such as highway developments that divided paint or air pollution communities, Black and Hispanic communities near ports or in power concern plants.
Officials gave the $ 400 billion for home care in part as ointment for “underpaid and undervalued” workers in the industry, who are disproportionately colored women.
Mr Biden’s promise to tackle climate change is embedded throughout the plan. Roads, bridges, and airports would be more resilient to the effects of extreme storms, floods, and fires caused by a warming planet. Research and development spending could help make breakthroughs in the latest clean technology, while plans to retrofit and weather millions of buildings would make them more energy efficient.
However, the president’s focus on climate change is on modernizing and reshaping the two largest sources of planetary greenhouse gas pollution in the United States: automobiles and power plants.
A decade ago, Obama’s stimulus program spent around $ 90 billion on clean energy programs designed to boost the country’s emerging renewable energy and electric vehicle industries. Mr. Biden’s plan is now to spend more money on similar programs that he hopes will fully incorporate these technologies into the mainstream.
It relies heavily on spending to increase the use of electric cars, which today only make up 2 percent of vehicles on American highways.
The plan is to spend $ 174 billion to boost electric vehicle manufacturing and buying by granting tax credits and other incentives to companies that make electric vehicle batteries in the U.S. instead of China. The aim is to lower vehicle prices.
The money would also fund the construction of roughly half a million electric vehicle charging stations – although experts say that number is only a tiny fraction of what it takes to make electric vehicles a common option.
Mr. Biden’s plan includes $ 100 billion in programs to upgrade and modernize the power grid to make it more reliable and less prone to power outages such as those recently devastated in Texas, while also adding more transmission lines from wind and solar plants to build big cities.
It proposes the creation of a “Clean Electricity Standard” – essentially a federal mandate that requires a certain percentage of electricity in the US to be generated from low-carbon energy sources such as wind, solar and possibly nuclear. However, this mandate would have to be passed by Congress, where the prospects for its success remain bleak. Similar efforts to pass such a mandate have failed several times over the past 20 years.
The plan provides an additional $ 46 billion in federal procurement programs for government agencies to purchase fleets of electric vehicles and $ 35 billion in research and development programs for cutting-edge new technologies.
There are also calls for infrastructure and communities to be better prepared for the worsening effects of climate change, although the administration has so far provided few details on how to deliver this goal.
However, according to the document released by the White House, the plan includes $ 50 billion for “earmarked investments to improve infrastructure resilience.” Efforts would defend against forest fires, rising seas, and hurricanes, and there would be a focus on investments that protect low-income residents and people of color.
The plan also includes a $ 16 billion program to help fossil fuel workers transition to new jobs – such as limiting leaks from abandoned oil wells and closing retired coal mines – and $ 10 billion for a new ” Civilian Climate Corps ”.
Mr Biden would fund his expenses in part by removing tax preferences for fossil fuel producers. But the bulk of its tax hikes would come from businesses in general.
It would raise the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, partially reversing a cut signed by President Donald J. Trump. Mr Biden would also take several steps to raise taxes on multinational corporations. Many of them work as part of a revision of the taxation of foreign profits that was incorporated into Mr. Trump’s tax law in 2017.
These measures would include raising the minimum tax rate on global profits and removing several provisions that allow companies to reduce their US tax liability on profits they earn and post overseas.
Mr. Biden would also introduce a new minimum tax on the global income of the largest multinationals, and heighten the Internal Revenue Service’s enforcement efforts against large corporations that are tax evading.
Administrative officials this week expressed hope that the plan could find bipartisan support in Congress. But Republicans and corporate groups have already attacked Mr. Biden’s plans to raise corporate taxes to finance the spending, which they believe will hurt the competitiveness of American businesses. Administration officials say the moves will push companies to keep profits and jobs in the United States.
Joshua Bolten, the president and executive director of the Business Roundtable, a powerful group representing top executives in Washington, said Tuesday that his group “firmly opposes corporate tax increases as payment for infrastructure investments.”
“Policymakers should avoid creating new barriers to job creation and economic growth,” said Bolten, “especially during the upswing.”
Coral Davenport and Christopher Flavelle contributed to the coverage.
