Biden’s Disastrous Infrastructure Plan - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Biden’s Disastrous Infrastructure Plan
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President Biden makes remarks on his infrastructure plan, March 31, 2021, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (YouTube screenshot)

On Wednesday, President Biden traveled to Pittsburgh to continue to advance his progressive agenda with his massive $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, which he is disingenuously calling the “American Jobs Plan” (AJP). In a couple weeks, he will present the second part of the proposal, called the “American Families Plan.”

Similarly to the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” stimulus package that he signed into law last month, of which only 9 percent was related to COVID relief, Biden’s latest monstrosity has little to do with its supposed purpose. His infrastructure plan is not pro-worker, pro-union, or pro-growth, as he claims.

Biden’s speech was classic Scranton Joe: alarmist, divisive, disingenuous, specious, short on specifics, and at times incoherent.

“Today I’m proposing a plan for the nation that rewards work, not just rewards wealth. It builds a fair economy that gives everybody a chance to succeed. And it’s going to create the strongest, most resilient, innovative economy in the world,” Biden said.

Perhaps Biden, who has been employed by the federal government since 1973, is unaware that redistributing wealth is not only the antithesis of a fair economy, but it does not reward work; it disincentivizes it.

In his speech, when he was not busy dividing the country along racial lines, Biden did so by creating class division: “Millions of Americans lost their jobs last year, while the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw their net worth increase by $4 trillion. Just goes to show you how distorted and unfair our economy has become.” Apparently, Biden still has yet to figure out that a meteorite did not hit planet Earth, but rather never-ending lockdowns. And unscientific restrictions that his administration continues to advocate are entirely responsible for many of those jobs that were lost in the last year.

According to a White House Fact Sheet about the plan, $621 billion will be spent on items that are somewhat related to infrastructure, but only $115 billion out of the $2.3 trillion is specifically for roads and bridges. So what is the other $2 trillion-plus being spent on?

The AJP includes $213 billion to retrofit more than two million homes and commercial buildings; $174 billion in the electric vehicle market, including building 500,000 new charging stations; $100 billion to address “racial equity” in the job market; $100 billion to build high-speed broadband internet; $48 billion for an American workforce development program; $45 billion in the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Drinking Water State Revolving Fund”; $40 billion in a “new Dislocated Workers Program”; $25 billion for a “dedicated fund to support ambitious projects that have tangible benefits to the regional or national economy”; $10 billion for a civil climate corps; and $5 billion to support “evidence-based community violence prevention programs.”

Biden did not bother explaining what spending $25 billion to advance “ambitious projects” might look like, nor did he articulate what he means by advancing racial equity. But he did brag about his two-hour phone call with President Xi Jinping.

He talked about how much he supposedly cares about union workers but did not mention that on his first day in office, he eliminated 11,000 good-paying jobs, including 8,000 for union workers, when he canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline permit.

Biden, ever the doom-and-gloom president, also said that failing to make these investments now will somehow add to our debt and put our children at a competitive disadvantage. Biden does not seem to think that unprecedented spending will add to our debt, nor does he think keeping children home from school for a year and counting will cause any setbacks to their education and career prospects.

Biden also pandered to Main Street Americans by echoing former President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” business rhetoric. “Wall Street didn’t build this country. You, the great middle class, built this country,” Biden said.

Moments later, presumably forgetting that he had just attacked his wealthiest donors, Biden then cited Wall Street’s expertise as a reason for passing his plan: “The proposal I put forward will create millions of jobs, estimated by some Wall Street outfits of 18 million jobs over four years, good-paying jobs.”

Never mind the fact that the Congressional Budget Office projected 3.7 percent GDP growth in 2021 and that the economy could return to pre-pandemic levels by the middle of the year without the passage of an infrastructure bill based on this pan. The Federal Reserve has also projected the current 6.2 percent unemployment rate to fall to 4.5 percent by the end of the year and to 3.5 percent by the end of 2023.

Biden, who loves to pretend to be a member of the working class, also spoke about his admiration for the everyday Americans who work hard and pay their taxes. Yet in order to pay for this wasteful infrastructure plan, Biden would have to replace the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and significantly raise taxes. This explains why he falsely said that the Trump tax cuts only benefited the wealthiest Americans, even though a typical family of four earning $75,000 a year with two children was estimated to receive a tax cut of more than $2,000 in 2018 under the TCJA.

Biden has maintained that “no one making under $400,000 will see their federal taxes go up, period.” Yet his press secretary, Jen Psaki, contradicted that claim when she said it applies to “families” and not individuals.

Only time will tell, but this tax issue could turn out to be Biden’s version of “If you like your doctor, you’ll be able to keep your doctor; if you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan.” Maybe he’ll call it “If you like your tax plan, you’ll be able to keep your tax plan.”

To finance this “infrastructure plan,” Biden also plans to raise the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent and add a 15 percent minimum tax to try to prevent large corporations such as Amazon from legally paying close to zero in taxes.

Biden also said he will invite Republicans into the Oval Office and “be open to other ideas.” But the last time Biden met with Republicans at the White House to discuss the COVID relief bill, he did not compromise on a single item and signed it into law without the support of a single Republican.

“We have to move now,” Biden said during his remarks, realizing that his days of using the COVID pandemic as a pretext for enacting his radical agenda and out-of-control spending appear to be numbered. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is well aware that her party’s control over both the House and Senate could end next year, says she intends to push the proposal through the House by July 4.

Until then, Biden will continue to stick to the teleprompter, hide from the sycophantic press, and tout himself as the second coming of FDR.

David Keltz was a speechwriter for the Administrator at the U.S. General Services Administration from 2020–21 and is the author of the new book The Campaign of his Life and Media Bias in the Trump Presidency and the Extinction of the Conservative Millennial. He previously served as a White House Intern for Vice President Mike Pence. You can follow him on Twitter @david_keltz.

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