President Joe Biden unveiled a broad-based $2.5 trillion infrastructure plan Wednesday that ranges from building roads to elderly care, to be paid for with an increase in the corporate tax rate.
“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,” says a White House statement.
President Joe Biden
The eight-year Biden plan is massive but detailed and also provides the often most controversial aspect of infrastructure funding – how to pay for it. So far, that has been the main sticking point in Congress, with many members unwilling to raise the gas tax or adopt alternative methods, such as a vehicle miles traveled tax.
Instead, Biden seeks to pay for his plan by increasing the corporate tax rate, which was reduced in 2017, and eliminating some of the tax breaks and benefits for corporations that were also adopted in 2017.
“The 2017 tax law only made an unfair system worse,” says the Biden plan. “A recent independent study found that 91 Fortune 500 companies paid $0 in federal corporate taxes on U.S. income in 2018.”
He said the tax increase and other measures would bring in more than $2 trillion over 15 years. "These are key steps toward a fairer tax code that encourages investment in the United States, stops shifting of jobs and profits abroad, and makes sure that corporations pay their fair share.”
