President Biden will unveil an infrastructure plan today whose $2 trillion price tag would translate into 20,000 miles of rebuilt roads, repairs to the 10 most economically important bridges in the country, the elimination of lead pipes and service lines from the nation’s water supplies and a long list of other projects intended to create millions of jobs in the short run and strengthen American competitiveness in the long run, the New York Times reported. Biden administration officials said the proposal, which they detailed in a 25-page briefing paper and which Biden will discuss in an afternoon speech in Pittsburgh, would also accelerate the fight against climate change by hastening the shift to new, cleaner energy sources, and would help promote racial equity in the economy. The spending in the plan would take place over eight years, officials said. Unlike the economic stimulus passed under President Barack Obama in 2009, when Biden was vice president, officials will not in every case prioritize so-called shovel ready projects that could quickly bolster growth. But even spread over years, the scale of the proposal underscores how fully Biden has embraced the opportunity to use federal spending to address longstanding social and economic challenges in a way not seen in half a century. While spending on roads, bridges and other physical improvements to the nation’s economic foundations has always had bipartisan appeal, Biden’s plan is sure to draw intense Republican opposition, both for its sheer size and for its reliance on corporate tax increases to pay for it. Administration officials said that the tax increases in the plan — including an increase in the corporate tax rate and a variety of measures to tax multinationals on money they earn and book overseas — would take 15 years to fully offset the cost of the spending programs.
