Source: joe daniel price / Getty
President Joe Biden on Wednesday will unveil a sprawling infrastructure proposal that brings monumental changes, according to White House sources.
Some of the ambitious set of ideas will include mass transit overhaul from coast-to-coast, a change to how electricity is generated, widespread broadband internet coverage, improvements in water quality, and physical changes to schools in the nation toward the STEM model.
What’s being called The American Jobs Plan is mostly centralized on a infrastructure rebuild across the country. A measure supported by both Democrats and Republicans along with a majority of Americans is well overdue.
Here’s a reported breakdown of the initial costs:
-$115 billion to repair bridges, highways and roads.
-$100 billion to expand high-speed broadband internet to rural areas
-$100 billion to upgrade educational facilities
-$100 billion to introduce clean energy into the US power grid
This is just the first part of a sweeping plan from Biden, who’ll introduce this in Pittsburgh, Penn. later today. The rest of the plan will be rolled out over time and is expected to address climate change, education, childcare, the economy, and other social programs.
Outside of the costs, the plan will bring millions of jobs nationwide in several different areas.
According to NPR, Biden seeks to raise the corporate tax rate 7%, to readjust the Trump tax cuts handed out in 2017 from a total of 21% to 28 %. That will help the country pay for the overhaul without raising taxes on individuals, including those in the highest tax brackets. Biden’s measure would also raise the global minimum tax for U.S. multinational corporations, attempting to stop the shifting of profits to tax havens, according to the publicly-funded media outlet.
The bulk of the $2 trillion price tag will be needed over the next eight years, but some projects have an expectancy of 15 years.
“Don’t get hung up on this concept that we need to find a way to pay for it dollar for dollar because infrastructure is one of those issues that pays for itself,” said Zac Petkanas, a senior advisor to Invest in America.
The entire plan will need bipartisan support which is something Biden and Democrats will seek over the coming weeks.
