President Biden, in a speech in Pittsburgh today (March 31, 2021) formally unveiled the American Jobs Plan, the first of two proposals designed to modernize the nation's infrastructure and make massive investments in human capital in all socio-economic sectors and demographics.
It is the fulfillment of the Biden/Harris Build Back Better Plan.
The need for significant infusions of funding into the nation's infrastructure has been apparent for decades.
According to the American Society of Engineers, the nation's infrastructure currently earns a C- grade and recommends about $2.6 trillion in investments. In his speech, the President noted that the United States is ranked 13th in the world in infrastructure.
The two Biden/Harris infrastructure proposals address those concerns and funding needs.
What President Biden said in his speech?
During his speech on the American Jobs Plan in Pittsburgh, President Biden said it is about time the union guys and middle class "get a piece of the action."
Mr. Biden started by explaining how his Administration is trying to help the American People combat the Coronavirus by passing the American Rescue Plan, supplying a record number of COVID 19 vaccinations, grow the economy, and reduce child poverty.
Mr. Biden, noting that people in high-income brackets were doing well during the pandemic, said that it is time for a plan to help the people that have fallen behind, saying "this is about opening opportunities for everyone else. We all do better when we all do well. We need to build the economy from the bottom up...Unions built the middle class and it is time we rebuild it and bring everyone along. I am proposing a plan that rewards work, not just wealth...It is a once-in-a-generation effort...It is the largest American jobs investment since World War Two."
The President said that this American Jobs Plan would:
- Modernize the nation's infrastructure.
- Lift everyone up.
- Create good-paying jobs.
- Help senior citizens and the disabled with receiving home care.
- Save long-term health care costs with the replacement of lead pipes that still transport water supplies.
- Spend more on research, development, and innovation like battery technology, biotechnology, and clean energy.
- Fund school, and child care facility construction.
- Provide universal, quick, and affordable broadband in all communities (including rural.)
- Environmental cleanup.
- Targeted clean energy jobs and projects.
He also said that the goal would be to promote the buying of American products, especially from communities that have been left out of these investments.
Biden reminded the people that America is all about possibilities and how American enterprise has accomplished great things like the interstate highway system, space flight, and developing the Coronavirus vaccine in record time.
The President also said this infrastructure plan will connect to all parts of the country, not just the coastal areas.
Mr. Biden said the plan would be paid for by repealing parts of the Trump tax cut plan that affects people making more than $400,000. He would also raise the American Corporate Tax rate, especially on those that use their foreign holdings as tax write-offs.
The President used the analogy of a farmer paying 22 percent and Amazon paying zero in taxes.
If we act now, Biden said, historians will say: "this is the moment America won the future."
Mr. Biden pledged to have good faith negotiations with Republicans in Congress and is receptive to other ideas but emphasized that "this needs to get done."
What is in the American Rescue Plan?
The first part of the Biden/Harris Administrations Infrastructure proposals, the American Rescue Plan, which will cost a little over two trillion dollars, consists of the following components:
- Transportation Modernization: $621 Billion which includes funding to upgrade the nation's roads, waterways, railways, and airports. It also includes major investments in the electric vehicle market, giving people and businesses tax incentives and credits to purchase them.
- Water: $111 billion to help replace all the nation's lead water pipes and upgrade the nation's water systems and environmental controls.
- Electric Grid: $100 million dollars to modernize it.
- Schools: $137 billion towards school building modernization projects, child care facility development, and community colleges.
- Human Care: $400 Billion that goes toward helping to improve the care of people with disabilities and senior citizens.
- Revitalizing American Manufacturing: $300 billion where monies will be targeted toward small businesses, rural communities, and the clean energy sector.
- Housing: $213 billion toward retrofitting homes to become more energy-efficient and construct half a million residences for low and middle-income buyers.
- Research and Development: $180 billion to invest in minority communities and colleges and restore American leadership in technology.
- Digital Infrastructure: $100 billion to give every American across the country universal broadband with access to high-speed, affordable, and reliable internet.
- Workforce Development: $100 billion to help students, veterans, and displaced workers find jobs including career pathways and apprenticeship programs.
- Modernizing Veterans and other Federal Buildings: $28 billion.
- Environmental Cleanup: $16 billion which would go toward plugging old oil and natural gas wells as well as repossessing abandoned coal, uranium, and hard rock mines.
- Civilian Conservation Corps: $10 billion to create a group that would conserve public lands and waters.
Please click here to see a more itemized list from the New York Times.
If enacted as is, the American Jobs Plan would rebuild 20,000 miles of the nation's roads and ten of the most vitally important bridges to the country.
It would also create many good-paying and union-based jobs across the country. Biden cited Wall Street analysts that said the number may be 18 million new jobs.
How is the American Rescue Plan Paid for?
Those Trump tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy who make over $400,000. If these infrastructure proposals pass as is, many of them will disappear.
The Biden/Harris team proposes to raise the Corporate Tax Rate from 21 to 28 percent. The Global Minimum Tax and fees on book income would also increase. It also does away with federal tax breaks for fossil fuel companies (not totally happening would be my guess) and increases tax enforcement on corporations.
Of course, conservative business groups like the Business Round Table and the United States Chamber of Commerce, while applauding the need for investments in infrastructure, denounced the idea of taxing large American corporations to pay for it, repeating the urban legend that tax increases stifle economic growth and job creativity.
For the historically ignorant, compare economic growth and job creation in the higher tax Clinton and Obama Administrations compared to the low tax Bush II and Trump ones.
The spending will take place over eight years and it will be paid for over 15.
What is in the second Infrastructure Proposal from the Biden-Harris Administration?
The second phase of the Biden/Harris Infrastructure proposals, called the American Family's Plan, would deal more with human capital investments like Universal Pre-K, health care investments, child care, additional educational and workforce funding, and helping those hit hardest by the pandemic.
The details of this second proposal should be unveiled sometime in April.
Moving the proposals through Congress.
Like the American Rescue Plan, efforts to modernize and rebuild the nation's infrastructure poll very well, and the plan's general designs get high marks.
Is it really hard to fathom that Americans want lead pipes that transport water replaced?
Unfortunately, Republicans are playing the same old games again.
Obstructionist in Chief-Enemy of the People Moscow Mitch McConnell has said that the Biden/Harris infrastructure plan who said on the Senate floor last week:
“We’re hearing the next few months might bring a so-called 'infrastructure' proposal that may actually be a Trojan horse for massive tax hikes and other job-killing left-wing policies."
Again, the same line was said about the Clinton and Obama Economic Plans and history has rendered its verdict on those and the results compared to the Republican voodoo supply-side economics approach to governing.
Other Republicans have expressed reactionary concerns about the clean energy and social justice features of the proposal, wanting to instead focus on rebuilding the transportation sector.
Why would you modernize infrastructure through dirty energy means when climate change is such a paramount issue?
Some Republicans are also repeating the Solyndra talking point. For those that do not remember, Solyndra was a clean energy firm that received a $535 million loan from the federal government in the American Recovery Act. Unfortunately, the company folded and Republicans used that example as a message against funding clean energy projects.
However, as Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman point out in their editorial "GOP gaslighting on infrastructure has begun. Here’s how Democrats must respond," Tesla also received close to half a billion-dollar loan in the American Recovery Act and it now employs 70,000 people around the world.
Even if, like the American Rescue Plan, a significant number of Republicans in the country support this Infrastructure plan, do not expect many votes from members of the former Party of Lincoln for any of these two bills.
It is time to say those two magic words again:
Budget Reconciliation.
Do not be surprised if Democrats have to combine both bills and pass them along budget reconciliation guidelines to get through the Senate.
If that is the case, President Biden will have to keep the Democrats united like in the American Rescue Plan.
Some Democratic representatives are already advertising what their vote will cost.
Democratic House members from New York and New Jersey say they will vote for the American Jobs Plan only if 2017 the Trump Tax Cut provision limiting state and local tax deductions is repealed.
Expect that to be part of the final legislation.
Progressives like Alexandra Oscaio-Cortez want more spending.
Progressives also want more targeted funding toward infrastructure programs that combat climate change.
Senate and House Democratic moderates want a plan that will attract Republican support.
Great idea.
The moderates should be encouraged to find a plan that addresses all the country's infrastructure needs and satisfies the majority of both sides.
Do not hold your breath though.
Republicans have proven that they will vote no even when they put in provisions they support. Look at the American Recovery Act. Look at the Affordable Care Act. Look at the American Rescue Plan. All had provisions that Republicans put in and the three pieces of legislation netted a total of three Republican votes.
Infrastructure be it improving the nation's transportation sector or investing in human capital is a vital need that this country has not fully addressed for several decades.
President Obama wanted to invest more in infrastructure and was rebuffed by Republicans.
President Trump said he would rebuild the nation's infrastructure but inexplicably concentrated on trying to repeal Obamacare and cut taxes for the wealthy instead.
It is time to do what the people want and pass the Biden/Harris American Jobs Plan.
It may take months to iron out all the final details but it would be a significant piece of legislation that will dramatically move the country forward.
