Biden Departs White House for Pittsburgh to Unveil Infrastructure Plan

President Joe Biden will unveil a $2.25 trillion U.S. infrastructure plan Wednesday -- paid for by tax hikes on businesses -- that his administration said will prove the most sweeping since investments in the 1960s space program.

The four-part, eight-year plan dedicates $620 billion for transportation, including a doubling in federal funding for public transit. It would provide $650 billion for initiatives tied to improving quality of life at home, like clean water and high-speed broadband. There’s $580 billion for strengthening American manufacturing -- some $180 billion of which goes to what’s billed as the biggest non-defense research and development program on record -- and $400 billion to address improved care for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Biden’s plan would increase the corporate income tax to 28% from 21%, and set a 21% minimum tax on global corporate earnings. The White House said tax increases will be “fully paying for the investments in this plan over the next 15 years.”

But the proposal faces a rough road in Congress. Garnering Republican support in either the House or Senate, both of which Democrats control by narrow margins, will be difficult, if not impossible. Corralling moderate and progressive Democrats will also be a challenge.

“Like great projects of the past, the president’s plan will unify and mobilize the country to meet the great challenges of our time: the climate crisis and the ambitions of an autocratic China,” the White House said in a statement before Biden’s afternoon speech in Pittsburgh.

What Biden lays out Wednesday is just the first part of his long-term economic program, with a second round of initiatives to be announced in mid-April. Those will focus on “helping families with the challenges like health care costs, child care, and education.”

The program will prove far more complex to enact than the $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill signed earlier in March. Republicans are staunchly opposed to tax increases, and the breadth of measures will invite partisan and even internal Democratic battles. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday, “It’s like a Trojan Horse that’s called infrastructure. But inside the Trojan Horse is going to be more borrowed money and massive tax increases on all of the productive parts of our economy.”

National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said that the program, even with higher levies on companies, will aid the private sector.

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