President Joe Biden will unveil a more than $2 trillion infrastructure package as his administration shifts its focus to bolstering the post-pandemic economy. The plan, which the Administration is calling the American Jobs Plan, will start by addressing physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges and efforts to expand rural broadband access.
The plan Biden will outline Wednesday contains four parts broken up into transportation infrastructure, modern infrastructure like broadband, investing in the care economy to aid health workers and funding innovation and research and development infrastructure. Spending will be spread out over eight years and would raise the corporate tax rate to 28% to fund it according to CNBC.
The announcement will kick off Biden’s second major initiative after passage of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan earlier this month. In the new move, the administration aims to approve a first proposal designed to create jobs, revamp U.S. infrastructure and fight climate change before it turns toward a second plan to improve education and expand paid leave and health-care coverage.
This first proposal would:
- Put $621 billion into transportation infrastructure such as bridges, roads, public transit, ports, airports and electric vehicle development
- Direct $400 billion to care for elderly and disabled Americans
- Inject more than $300 billion into improving drinking-water infrastructure, expanding broadband access and upgrading electric grids
- Put more than $300 billion into building and retrofitting affordable housing, along with constructing and upgrading schools
- Invest $580 billion in American manufacturing, research and development and job training efforts
Details Emerge from the White House
The White House says the plan would specifically: Fix highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports and transit systems. The President’s plan will modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads and main-streets. It will fix the ten most economically significant bridges in the country in need of reconstruction. It also will repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, providing critical linkages to communities. And, it will replace thousands of buses and rail cars, repair hundreds of stations, renew airports and expand transit and rail into new communities.
"President Biden is calling on Congress to make a historic and overdue investment in our roads, bridges, rail, ports, airports and transit systems," The American Rescue Plan document says. "The President’s plan will ensure that these investments produce good-quality jobs with strong labor standards, prevailing wages, and a free and fair choice to join a union and bargain collectively. These investments will advance racial equity by providing better jobs and better transportation options to underserved communities. These investments also will extend opportunities to small businesses to participate in the design, construction, and manufacturing of new infrastructure and component parts. President Biden’s plan will deliver infrastructure Americans can trust, because it will be resilient to floods, fires, storms, and other threats, and not fragile in the face of these increasing risks.
President Biden is calling on Congress to:
- Transform our crumbling transportation infrastructure: Decades of declining public investment has left our roads, bridges, rail, and transit systems in poor condition, with a trillion-dollar backlog of needed repairs. More than 35,000 people die in traffic crashes on U.S. roads each year, and millions more are seriously and often permanently injured. The United States has one of the highest traffic fatality rates in the industrialized world, double the rate in Canada and quadruple that in Europe. Across cities, suburbs, and rural areas, President Biden’s plan will help parents get to work reliably and affordably, reduce the impacts of climate change for our kids, and make sure fewer families mourn the loss of a loved one to road crashes. His investments will use more sustainable and innovative materials, including cleaner steel and cement, and component parts Made in America and shipped on U.S.-flag vessels with American crews under U.S. laws. And, his infrastructure investments will mitigate socio-economic disparities, advance racial equity, and promote affordable access to opportunity. The President’s plan invests an additional $621 billion in transportation infrastructure and resilience. It will:
- Repair American roads and bridges. One in five miles, or 173,000 total miles, of our highways and major roads are in poor condition, as well as 45,000 bridges. Delays caused by traffic congestion alone cost over $160 billion per year, and motorists are forced to pay over $1,000 every year in wasted time and fuel. The President is proposing a total increase of $115 billion to modernize the bridges, highways, roads, and main streets that are in most critical need of repair. This includes funding to improve air quality, limit greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce congestion. His plan will modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and main streets, not only “fixing them first” but “fixing them right,” with safety, resilience, and all users in mind. It will fix the most economically significant large bridges in the country in need of reconstruction, and it will repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, including bridges that provide critical connections to rural and tribal communities. The plan includes $20 billion to improve road safety for all users, including increases to existing safety programs and a new Safe Streets for All program to fund state and local “vision zero” plans and other improvements to reduce crashes and fatalities, especially for cyclists and pedestrians.
Alongside his American Jobs Plan, President Biden is releasing a Made in America Tax Plan to make sure corporations pay their fair share in taxes and encourage job creation at home. A recent study found that 91 Fortune 500 companies paid $0 in federal taxes on U.S. income in 2018. Another study found that the average corporation paid just 8 percent in taxes. President Biden believes that profitable corporations should not be able to get away with paying little or no tax by shifting jobs and profits overseas. President Biden’s plan will reward investment at home, stop profit shifting, and ensure other nations won’t gain a competitive edge by becoming tax havens.
View the full American Jobs Plan Fact Sheet.