Posted on 03/31/2021 8:17:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
After weeks of waiting with investors hanging on every new detail, President Joe Biden is expected to unveil the first part of his sweeping economic reform/redistribution plan on Wednesday afternoon.
As Biden's press secretary Jen Psaki revealed over the weekend that Biden and his team are planning to unveil his sprawling "Build Back Better" plan in two parts: The first part of the "Build Back Better" plan, which will be officially unveiled later today, is expected to focus on rebuilding "roads and railways" while the second part, which will be released "in just a couple of weeks", will focus on "social infrastructure" funding, including childcare and healthcare initiatives.
Details of the plan have been leaking out at a steady pace for weeks, although some of the details reported earlier have been changed. According to the leaked 25-page document obtained by the NYT, Biden's "American Jobs Plan" will "invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the inter-state highways and won the Space Race." The plan, which will carry a $2.25 trillion price tag (that's more than 2/3rds of the $3 trillion marked for "BBB") per the Washington Post, will finance the rebuilding of 20K miles of road, repairs to the 10 most economically important bridges in the country, and the elimination of lead pipes and service lines from the country's water supplies. In total, the plan features $50 billion "in dedicated investments to improve infrastructure resilience".
The plan also includes a long list of other projects intended to create millions of jobs, with the goal of strengthening America's long-term competitiveness. The plan will also address Biden's climate change priorities, by hastening the shift to new, cleaner energy sources, and would help promote racial equity in the economy. The plan includes $16 billion to fund a program to retain fossil fuel workers to transition to new work (we imagine they'll take to learning to code like a fish to water).
Fortunately for Tesla, its shareholders and - most importantly - its CEO, Elon Musk, the plan proposes an additional $46 billion in federal procurement programs for government agencies to buy fleets of electric vehicles, and $35 billion in research and development programs for cutting-edge, new technologies. While more competitors are making their own EV vehicles, Tesla remains the market leader.
Here's a breakdown of the innards of the $2 trillion proposal reported in the NYT (courtesy of Newsquawk):
USD 180bln for research and development
USD 115bln for roads and bridges
USD 85bln for public transit
USD 80bln for Amtrak and freight rail
USD 174bln to encourage EVs via tax credits and other incentives to companies that make EV batteries in the US instead of China
USD 42bln for ports and airports
USD 100bln for broadband
USD 111bln for water infrastructure
USD 300bln to promote advanced manufacturing
USD 400bln spending on in-home care
USD 100bln in programs to update and modernize the electric grid
USD 46bln in fed procurement programs for government agencies to buy fleets of EVs
USD 35bln in R&D programs for cutting-edge, new technologies
USD 50bln in dedicated investments to improve infrastructure resilience
USD 16bln program intended to help fossil fuel workers transition to new work
USD 10bln for a new "Civilian Climate Corps."
In theory, at least, a sweeping infrastructure plan should have strong bipartisan support. But as we learned during the Trump Administration, political priorities can easily scuttle even the most popular package, and while Democratic opposition helped transform Trump's "infrastructure week" into a punchline, the GOP - and a handful of East Coast Democrats - are already digging in their heels over taxes.
Here's a quick rundown of how Biden plans to pay for it all via massive tax hikes, some of which (like the corporate tax hike) have already been reported:
Eliminate tax preferences for fossil fuel companies
Raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%
Overall taxation of profits earned oversees by US megacorps (including raising minimum tax on global profits and eliminating several provisions that allow companies to reduce US tax liability)
Ramp up enforcement of large companies avoiding taxes
Prevent American companies from "inversions" to tax havens
Eliminate loopholes that encourage offshoring
Deny expense deductions for companies that are offshoring jobs
Readers can learn more from a White House "fact sheet" released Wednesday morning that includes detailed breakdowns of the Biden infrastructure plan, and the associated tax plan.
Republicans and business groups have already attacked Mr. Biden’s plans to fund the spending with corporate tax increases, which they say will hurt the competitiveness of American companies. In addition, several Democrats including NY Rep. Tom Suozzi and New Jersey's Josh Gottheimer, have insisted that they will oppose the infrastructure package unless Biden repeals a Trump-era limit on state and local tax deductions known as the SALT deduction.
These Dems actually have a lot of pull, and could end up getting their way. Because, as a team of analysts at Deutsche Bank pointed out in a note to clients this morning, Biden can only afford to lose 3 Democrats in the House, and zero Dems in the Senate, if Republicans oppose the plan on a party-line vote.
"Policymakers should avoid creating new barriers to job creation and economic growth," said Joshua Bolton, the president and CEO of the Business Roundtable, a top business lobbying group.
Biden will unveil the plan during a Wednesday press conference in Pittsburgh. He's expected to start speaking at 1630ET, after the market day has come to an end. And with markets mostly closed on Friday, Thursday's session will be critical for parsing the market's reaction to the Biden plan.
“The plans as announced have a long and tortuous journey to make it through Congress and thus the end result is likely to be nine months or more away and may well look very different indeed once it has been through that political wranglings on the Hill,” said James Athey, investment director at Aberdeen Standard Investments. “If investors are weighing the risks appropriately, there shouldn’t be much impact on markets in the short term.”
Oh Goody, the new 5 Year Plan released by the First Secretariat for the Sustainment of the Permanent Revolution.
Should work as well as the last one.
“Civilian Climate Corps?”
Is this the secret police who will be paid to report citizens?
2 Trillion? Why not 200 Trillion? Or 200 Gadzillion….
Civilian Climate Corps. Oh good, expert level college students lecturing us on the climate at our expense
Democrats, Bid Tax Hikes, wow what a surprise!!!
Maybe they’ll wear nice little green arm bands.
Each person who enlists in the “Climate Corps” get a free brown shirt!
Taxing long term capital gains as ordinary income, 100%, will force massive selloffs.
Yeah, right. That'll be the day
They left out the planned tax increase on working Americans
Government: “We are really going to screw the rich”
Citizens: “Good. Give it to them good”
Government: “Excellent. Bite down on this stick and bend over, rich boy”.
All based on naive pipe-dreams, just like opening the border.
There goes the 517,000 jobs that were recently added in the country.
I’m comfortable saying that everything on that list is nothing more than a slush fund for Dem donors and their various companies to win the contracts for all that building and do nothing. But, also get waivers for their workers who are pouring over the border, as I type, so they can pay them even less.
The Democratic Party is nothing more than a criminal enterprise. They have mastered the art of being able to steal from the US Treasury, openly, while making it sound like they’re helping people. This is nothing more than Theft by Deception and Theft by Conversion.
Didn’t Nobama spend a trillion dollars on shovel ready infrastructure jobs?
I think they made a 5 bike path. In contrast; Hoover built the Hoover Dam for a fraction of what Nobama spent. What did he actually accomplish other than a thousand road signs next to roads built in the 50’s; that claim road improvements. I think they painted the guardrails.
This will be a colossal waste to fund corrupt union retirement plans that have been pilfered to fund the Demonic Party.
Haven’t all the roads & bridges been fixed ?
Oh, but they would consider a brown shirt as racist!!! Must be white...this country is going to hell in a handbasket.
“ 2 Trillion? Why not 200 Trillion? Or 200 Gadzillion….”
Don’t be silly, one hundred eleventy billion is more than enough
There goes the Democrats with the class warfare and taxes....... Then watch the companies move to other countries....... and the jobs go with them.
Hey though, everyone can live off the Federal Government and the devaluation of the dollar.....well until...we run out of other peoples money and we do the Argentina and Venezuela shuffle.
The CCC. Paid $50 an hour to go around changing lightbulbs and shower heads while reporting on everything in your home.
How is it I have a 5g phone with the fastest internet I have ever had, tethered to a super fast computer, running off solar off-grid without a trillion road government program.
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