Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticizes Biden’s $2.25 trillion infrastructure spending package set to be unveiled on Wednesday is “not nearly enough,”.
“This is not nearly enough,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Tuesday after details of the plan were released. “The important context here is that it’s $2.25T spread out over 10 years. For context, the COVID package was $1.9T for this year *alone,* with some provisions lasting 2 years. Needs to be way bigger.”
Needs to be way bigger. https://t.co/eTQ7cxuTzF
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 30, 2021
Furthermore, other progressive lawmakers agreed that the infrastructure plan needs to be bigger. Representative Debbie Dingell (D., Mich.) and Senator Ed Markey (D., Mass.) proposed spending by $10 trillion over the next decade to improve American infrastructure while fighting climate change, in a bill dubbed the Thrive Act.
According to report, the plan calls for investments in roads and bridges, public transportation, research and development, ramping up caregiving for aging and disabled Americans, building new public schools and renovating existing buildings among other investments. It also includes money for increasing broadband internet and other utilities across the country. To fund this massive bill, Biden plans to raise the corporate tax from 21 percent to 28 percent. Many of these measures would reverse the Trump administration’s 2017 tax cuts.
Republicans and prominent business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have already come out against the plan, particularly the proposed tax increases, arguing they would damage U.S. investment and global competitiveness. The White House’s stance is that higher taxes would offset concerns about adding to the federal deficit.
Meanwhile, economists are still debating whether Biden’s last major bill will overheat the economy and trigger cycles of inflation, compounding Republicans’ spending worries.
In addition, Republicans slammed the administration’s plan to increase the corporate tax to 28 percent from 21 percent to help fund the proposal. It was lowered from 35 percent during the Trump administration.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday showed he was not likely to support the final bill.
“When you are talking about tax hikes of this magnitude, I don’t see there being any Republican support on the Hill,” Marc Short, a longtime aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, said in an interview.
Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, warned that the proposed tax increases “could be the biggest economic blunder in our lifetimes.”
“Despite a long history of bipartisan agreement on the economic benefits of infrastructure,” he added, “President Biden has chosen a partisan path that severely weakens America’s competitiveness overseas and has China, Europe and our other economic competitors cheering.”
This is not nearly enough. The important context here is that it’s $2.25T spread out over 10 years.
For context, the COVID package was $1.9T for this year *alone,* with some provisions lasting 2 years.
Sources: washingtonpost, news.yahoo.com, nytimes.com,
