Fact-check criticism of Biden’s infrastructure plan

Fact-check criticism of Biden’s infrastructure plan

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Biden plans to finance these investments primarily through tax increases. The plan proposes raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from the current 21%, which should effectively repeal the corporate tax changes made under the Trump administration’s comprehensive tax cuts in 2017.

Republicans have been quick to point out and criticize the plan as a stand-in for the Green New Deal, arguing that the tax increases will kill jobs, and complain that a majority of the funds allocated within the bill do not go to infrastructure is not going.

Here’s a look at the facts.

Idaho Senator Mike Crapo claims, in a tweet, that the proposed changes to the plan’s tax system ‘will cost jobs, shrink local investment and slow down wage growth, which will eventually crush ordinary workers and the middle class.’

Facts first: While a respected tax policy think tank lays the groundwork for Crapo’s claim that the plan will result in some job losses, other experts predict that it will also create new jobs. It remains to be seen whether this will result in net profit or net loss of jobs in the long run.

According to a report by the Tax Foundation, which Republicans quoted last week over the House Ways and Means Committee, Biden’s proposed increase in corporate taxes will eliminate 159,000 jobs within 10-30 years and reduce wages by 0.7 percent . The IRS also notes that the federal tax rate hike “would increase the U.S. federal state’s joint tax rate to 32.34 percent, the highest in the OECD and among the Group of Seven (G7) countries.”

While estimates may change depending on the average effective corporate tax rate – which measures what companies actually pay in taxes after taking out items such as deductible credits and credits – Garrett Watson, one of the authors of the Tax Foundation’s report, told CNN “the Biden tax plan would probably put our average effective tax rate above the OECD average as in 2017 ‘before the Trump administration’s tax cuts.

Watson said the Foundation sticks to its estimates, but explained that the consequences of the other tax conditions are still unclear.

Fact check: Biden administration officials falsely estimate infrastructure estimate

While it is possible that the proposed increase in corporate tax in isolation could lead to job losses, the plan as a whole is aimed at encouraging job creation, particularly in the transport sector.

Asked about Biden’s plan on CNN on Wednesday, ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said: “In the short term, I think it means an increase in jobs, especially in construction.”
S&P Global has estimated that Biden’s plan could create 2.3 million jobs in the short term, but that the number of jobs will decrease after infrastructure projects and the net jobs added to the proposal will be 713 000 by 2029.

Not infrastructure

A day after Biden’s announcement, an email from the Republican National Committee claims that Joe Biden’s ‘infrastructure’ plan is not really about infrastructure, it’s another multi-trillion dollar far left wish list, which is in line with similar complaints about the Covid-19 relief package, the U.S. rescue plan.

According to the IDP, “only 7% of the bill’s spending is on what Americans traditionally consider infrastructure.”

Facts first: The IDP claims that only 7 percent of the account’s spending on infrastructure is misleading. That said, the debate over what technically counts as infrastructure is a real debate, and much of the bill’s spending falls outside even the broadest definitions.

Biden’s plan includes $ 621 billion for transportation, $ 400 billion for home care services, $ 300 billion for manufacturing and $ 180 billion for research and development.
Under their “traditional” definition of infrastructure, the IDP email limits infrastructure spending to the $ 115 billion allocated to the plan for the modernization of highways, roads and highways, $ 25 billion to airports and $ 17 billion to inland waterways, ports and ferries.
However, Biden’s plan also requires $ 85 billion to modernize public transportation, $ 80 billion for Amtrak, $ 50 billion to protect critical infrastructure and $ 20 billion to improve road safety. The IDP email does not provide an explanation as to why these investments are not considered part of infrastructure.
If we include the above $ 235 billion extra funding for transportation infrastructure, plus the $ 126 billion for housing construction, the $ 112 billion to build public schools and improve community facilities, the $ 111 billion for water infrastructure, the $ 100 billion for digital infrastructure and the $ 100 billion for power infrastructure, infrastructure accounts for about 30% of the $ 2.65 trillion plan as announced by the White House.

The Republicans could have reasonably argued that the majority of the funds do not go directly to infrastructure projects, but the figure of 7% depends on the IDP’s own narrow definition of infrastructure.

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