Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Is About More Than Concrete
The administration’s multi trillion dollar infrastructure plan is a Really Big Deal. The American Jobs Plan and the Made in America Tax corporate tax plan amounts an opening bid on creating a different kind of future. (Read 25 pages of details here)
Forget MajorGate, the ongoing series of faux scandals concerning the presidential pets.
Forget the Cone of Silence scandal, the supposed lack of a presidential press conference.
And…
Remember just how failed “trickle down” economics has been for the vast majority of Americans.
It’s Infrastructure Week. You know, the running joke from the Last Guy’s term in office used to distract the media from acts waaay outside the realm of “normal.” Only this time it means something. So pay attention and don't let your eyes glaze over at the prospect of repairing railroad beds and old structures.
https://twitter.com/EndOfWorldRobot/status/1377306438578577412?s=20
The Biden administration is proposing a sweeping array of programs aimed at both our decaying physical and social systems. It’s expensive. It’s green. It’s inclusive. And, most of all, it’s optimistic.
“The American Jobs Plan will invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race.”
Best of all, unlike the tax cuts Republicans have been selling, the administration’s plan amounts to an investment that will mitigate future crises and provide a broad stimulus to the economy going beyond lining the pockets of the ultra-rich.
The President’s American Jobs Plan is a historic public investment – consisting principally of one-time capital investments in our nation’s productivity and long-term growth. It will invest about 1 percent of GDP per year over eight years to upgrade our nation’s infrastructure, revitalize manufacturing, invest in basic research and science, shore up supply chains, and solidify our care infrastructure. These are investments that leading economists agree will give Americans good jobs now and will pay off for future generations by leaving the country more competitive and our communities stronger. In total, the plan will invest about $2 trillion this decade. If passed alongside President Biden’s Made in America corporate tax plan, it will be fully paid for within the next 15 years and reduce deficits in the years after.
A half century of bipartisan short sightedness has led to decay on just about every socioeconomic level. Republican and “New Democrat” orthodoxy about the supremacy of the marketplace has left the nation weakened, divided, and demoralized.
Senator Mitch McConell and his gang will do everything in their power to stop these proposals. The one thing the Biden administration has going for itself is the GOP’s past decade of simply saying no to just about anything other than military budgets, corporate tax cuts, and grifting. Refusing to engage (while trying to gaslight the public by moaning about the lack of bipartisanship) means diluting these programs is a non-starter for Republicans.
A Greg Sargent posits:
You can already see how this game will unfold. Republicans will declare that infrastructure repair could be bipartisan. But Republicans will add both that we can’t spend nearly what liberals want because of the deficit and that we can’t raise taxes to pay for it, because that will be “job-killing.”
Sound familiar? It should. As CNN’s John Harwood points out, Republicans claimed tax hikes for the rich under former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (the latter to fund the Affordable Care Act) would prove to be job-killers.
“In neither case was that proven to be true,” Harwood notes, citing “tremendous job growth during the Clinton years” and a “record streak” of it under Obama.
In other words, Republicans are already serving up the same warmed-over nonsense about tax hikes on the rich that we’ve heard for decades.
The Biden proposals are smart in the sense that they defang the (coming anyway) militarist arguments from the right by framing infrastructure improvement as a component of national defense.
While I’m less-than-thrilled about the repeated references to China (we live in a world full of challenges and too many idiots are otherizing Asian-Americans) as a threat, I’m also cognizant that Eisenhower used similar arguments to justify construction of the interstate highway system.
In practical terms Democratic legislators will be negotiating among themselves. There are plenty of people on the so-called left side of the aisle with terrible and/or selfish notions to be worried about. Infrastructure restoration needs to be about more than bridges and highways; the road to this concept failing runs right through failing to see the bigger picture.
These proposals (which will have problematic aspects yet to be discovered) are a good start. The very idea of the government stepping up and doing something beneficial to the nation and the planet represents a needed change in course.
As Katrina vanden Heuvel says in the Washington Post:
With Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) already signaling reflexive Republican opposition to major investments and progressive tax hikes, the big challenge is whether Democrats can unify again to pass a major bill either under reconciliation rules or by suspending the filibuster. All this will be heavy lifting with truly historic implications.
Democrats can’t allow the timid to block making a material difference in people’s lives. Will our beleaguered government finally be able to act to address pressing long-term needs? Or will partisan posturing, antiquated rules, constricted imaginations and structural impediments enable the minority to stand in the way? This isn’t just a test for Democrats; it is a test for our democracy.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus thinks we need more, and got 50 think tanks and advocacy groups to sign on to a letter, (excerpt below):
We need bold legislation to fix our crumbling physical infrastructure and deeply inadequate care infrastructure, and address the long-term crises of poverty, climate change, and inequities rooted in systemic racism. The Build Back Better package must address pressing social challenges, ensure that there are high-quality jobs throughout the economy, and provide a better and fairer society. Low-wage workers, women, immigrants, and Black and Brown communities have been hardest hit by the pandemic. As the nation recovers, the benefits of this package must be targeted in such a way that it generates greater equity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, immigration status, and zip code.
To achieve these goals, the Build Back Better package must be adequate in size and scope. A $3 trillion package is a step towards meeting our immediate physical infrastructure needs alone. But even addressing a robust subset of our pressing challenges would take substantially more. For example, to tackle the climate crisis; restructure the care economy; make college available to all; and modernize our unemployment insurance system would take a package two times as large. Meeting other crucial goals like advancing towards universal health care; monitoring the economic and public health of all the nation’s people; creating a pathway to citizenship for essential workers and their families, young immigrants, and TPS holders; and ending poverty—to build a truly inclusive economy from the bottom up—would need an investment on the order of $10 trillion over the next 10 years, along with key changes in regulations and other rules governing economic life. These changes will not only help our nation recover but also lead to dignified jobs and long-term shared prosperity. Lawmakers can sustain these transformational changes into the future by ensuring that wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share in taxes and by reducing prescription drug prices.
The scale of legislation that we recommend is economically sound and procedurally achievable. These policies are overwhelmingly popular. Their enactment is simply a matter of political will.
Now the discussion should be focusing on the best way to accomplish the things we all know in our hearts need to be done.
https://twitter.com/DataProgress/status/1377298142903861248?s=20
The American Jobs Plan is expected to be followed by a second economic package in April including a major expansion in health insurance coverage, child-care subsidies, free access to community colleges and other proposals.
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