Behind the Biden announcement of what is called a $2.2 trillion, 8-10 year “infrastructure and jobs bill,” there are various moving parts. Most of the tax increases to back it up would not come in until the 2030s, which would be quite reasonable if the plan involved investments which raise economic productivity; but it does not. It mixes together aid to caregivers for elderly and disabled people, with mandates for solar and wind power and electric vehicles, with worker retraining (training new oil field workers to cap wells!), with actual transportation infrastructure repair and renewal and federal R&D spending. Combined with shutdowns of coal, oil, and nuclear power production, it will reduce productivity.
The infrastructure and jobs plan will actually be part of the annual budget legislation the administration will propose in May, likely joined, by then, by $1 or $2 trillion more in proposed new spending ("American Families Act"), and another trillion in tax increases and new taxes. And a part of the $2.2 trillion “plan” may split off into a separate, multi-year surface transportation bill.
Biden’s clear intent is to put forward a legislative plan which can only be passed with 51 party-line Democratic votes in the Senate under “budget reconciliation” — or, after abolishing the filibuster — because it is based on revoking the Republicans’ “signature” corporate tax reduction of 2018 and raising the corporate tax rate back up to 28%. Carbon taxes, capital gains, and individual tax increases are likely to come up later in April when “American Family Plan” spending is added, such as subsidized child care, further expanded Medicare, etc.
Parallel to this 8- to 10-year spending plan is a British Crown-like scheme for the Interior Department to offer very large offshore leases for wind farms on a scale not seen yet in the United States. Bloomberg reported March 29, based on leaks from an administration briefing to state officials and corporate executives, that these would include the entire southern coastline of Long Island, the New York Bight across from Long Island to New Jersey, and the Texas Gulf Coast “where there are looser regulations,” according to an accounting expert quoted. How are fishermen and other marine interests supposed to navigate these hundreds of miles of wind turbines anchored in the sea bed and the cables running along the bottom? How long until Texas suffers more blackouts when its electricity capacity is virtually nothing but this wind power, and natural gas turbines?
