Biden to Unveil $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan in Pittsburgh Wednesday

President Joe Biden will unveil his vision for a mass ramp-up in U.S. infrastructure spending Wednesday in Pittsburgh, a city the White House views as a prime example of an old manufacturing hub revitalized by new industries from health care to technology.

Brian Deese, one of Biden’s top economic aides, told senior congressional Democrats on Tuesday that the infrastructure package would amount to about $2 trillion over eight years, according to a person familiar with the discussion. That would be paid for over a 15-year period with a bump in the corporate tax to 28% from 21% and the introduction of a minimum tax on global corporate earnings, another person said.

The administration wants the same type of reorientation that Pittsburgh saw to provide fresh opportunities to working-class cities and towns across the country. While the president’s plan does feature traditional road, bridge and airport projects, the package also includes items like high-speed broadband, along with long-neglected priorities to update the electrical grid, replace lead pipes in homes and schools and retrofit and weatherize commercial buildings. The proposal is vastly bigger in size and breadth than the nation’s last long-term infrastructure bill -- a $305 billion, five-year surface-transportation initiative in 2015.

It envisions an expensive political gambit carried out over the next decade to try to create well-paying jobs by both updating the country’s infrastructure and preparing for the coming weather patterns wrought by climate change -- financed by tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations, anathema to Republicans and business groups.

The Washington Post earlier reported that Biden’s infrastructure-and-jobs plan would total $2.25 trillion.

White House aides spent the weekend debating the make-up and size of the tax-increase package. Deese spent part of Tuesday briefing congressional leaders and committee chairs on some of the proposal’s details. Besides surface transportation, broadband and money for the electrical grid, the program will also have funding for elder care, housing and manufacturing, a person familiar with the discussion said.

Though Biden will ultimately propose two sweeping legislative proposals, totaling anywhere from $3 trillion to $4 trillion, he is expected on Wednesday to focus on a narrower discussion of rebuilding roads and bridges and transitioning to clean energy.

The Wednesday speech will introduce the proposal that the White House is calling the American Jobs Plan, which follows on the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act that Biden signed earlier in March.

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