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With a new stimulus plan enacted into law last month, the $1.9 trillion spending package focused on fighting the effects of coronavirus, the Biden administration is turning its attention to its next legislative priority, a two-part infrastructure package. The first, which President Joe Biden discussed on Wednesday, would include government spending to update everything from roads and bridges to the electric grid, investments in fifth generation technology or 5G, manufacturing in America, alternative forms of energy, cyber security, all this would be included in the bill.
The second part which will be formally proposed later will focus on providing more benefits for lower income families, offering free preschool for children and free community college to high school graduates and expanding child care programs. The total estimated cost for both of these packages together could be higher than $4 trillion, and a big debate right now is how or if the government would pay for it.
The Biden administration has proposed offsetting some of the cost by increasing the corporate tax rate, the percentage of profits paid by corporations based in America.
Currently, that tax rate is 21 percent. The government wants to increase it to 28 percent. It also plans to increase taxes on people who earn $400,000 or more per year. This would raise more than $2 trillion for the government over the next 15 years, according to the Biden administration.
But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it would hurt American businesses and their ability to compete internationally. And congressional Republicans have said they're opposed to tax increases.
Lawmakers are also divided over how far the infrastructure plans should go, how much they should cost, and what the money would be spent on. So, experts say debate on this in the House and Senate will take considerably longer than it did on the COVID relief bill. And the infrastructure proposals could undergo a lot of changes before they come up for votes in the House and Senate.
So the Biden administration's plan is a first step toward what could become a months-long process concerning a new infrastructure package.
