Here is the 27 page summary by the Biden administration:
As you can see it is much broader plan including dozens of programs than many of us expected.
There is a strong emphasis on expanding labor unions.
The spending will be over 8 years, but the increased taxes will be over 15 years so the plan really doesn’t pay for itself [one expects the plan to be extended in 8 years.] The tax increase will be entirely on corporations. I really think it should have included an individual personal income increase for the well off.
“Biden and Democratic leaders—backed by a majority of the U.S. population—[believe] that “infrastructure” is more than just roads and bridges and encompasses all the structures that help modern society function.”
No. Traditionally this was called the President’s domestic agenda.
Compare for example LBJ and Medicare vs Biden and home care for the elderly and disabled. The two are fundamentally comparable (in fact Medicare covers the later to a certain extent). But LBJ never called Medicare infrastructure.
Biden’s use of infrastructure for this is simply a gimmick for massive deficit spending (he wants to pay for 8 years of programs with 15 years of corporate income taxes–but of course the programs will last 15+ years).
Biden’s proposal was to pay for it with a tax increase, the GOP counterproposal (to the extent there is one) was to slash the expenditure to mostly already-approved projects* and not raise any taxes to pay for it, and Biden’s the one engaging in a “gimmick for massive deficit spending”?!
*To the extent infrastructure is inadequate, simply spending at the previous level or on previously-approved projects is clearly also inadequate. Throwing in leftover stimulus money as a supposed sop to Democrats raises the question of why such a thing even exists, when
a key purpose of the stimulus was to stimulate the economy when Covid was at its worst
many small and medium-sized businesses who applied for relief didn’t get any.
Anyone know whats in the compromise bill? I feel this will probably be another ACA situation where the GOP keeps watering down the bill and then votes against it anyway.
A smaller part of the big picture is the decrease in road use taxes (basically taxes on gas/diesel) due to more fuel efficient vehicles and electric vehicles, who apparently pay no road use taxes despite using the roads.
I have no issues in higher taxes (fuel or other) if it is going to fix the infrastructure of roads, bridges, etc… Problem is there is a lot of “fluff” added to this bill that has nothing to do with true infrastructure.
Reminds me of President Obama’s “shovel ready” job program, lots of show but very little go.
Based on the reporting I watched this morning on PBS, nobody is quite sure how this is being funded except that some of the money is coming from unused COVID funds. No specific rise in tax revenue has been mentioned by lawmakers. What’s the “fluff” that you mention? Seems they took a lot of it out in order to achieve bipartisan compromise.
As far as I can tell the only thing which has been agreed to is this 4 page Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. Any bill is going to be several hundred pages. But, as frequently said: “The devil is in the details”.
What’s Biden’s play here? To squeeze Sinema and Manchin into voting for a straight Democratic Party infrastructure resolution vote?
Why not get this 1.2T passed to at least get one bipartisan win behind his belt? Unless he has good reason not to trust the GOP to continue to support it when it is fully fleshed out. Which is probably the case.
13 House Republicans voted for the infrastructure bill to help it to pass, and GOP leadership is so pissed off about an infrastructure bill that they’re threatening to remove them from their committee assignments.
Are they going to do this every single time any Republican votes for anything a Democratic president wants?
