Biden team: New $3 trillion economy plan

President Joseph Biden is promoting a new $3 trillion plan in new spending for the nation’s overall economy.

Biden’s economic advisers are pulling together a $3 trillion package to boost America’s monetary stature as the nation works at shaking off the devastating pandemic.

The super program would begin with a giant infrastructure plan that may be financed, in part, through tax increases on corporations and the wealthy people in the world’s richest country.

Biden’s earlier $1.9 trillion economic aid package was signed into law this month. It includes money to help vulnerable people and businesses survive the devastating pandemic downturn.

But it does little to advance the longer-term economic agenda that Biden campaigned on, including transitioning to renewable energy and improving America’s ability to compete in emerging industries, like electrical vehicles. Administration officials essentially see those goals — building out the country’s infrastructure and shifting to a low-carbon future — as inseparable.

Biden’s advisers plan to recommend that the effort be broken into pieces, with Congress tackling infrastructure before turning to a second package that would include more people-focused proposals, like free community college, universal pre-kindergarten and a national paid leave program.

Some White House officials believe the focus of the first package may be more appealing to Republicans, business leaders and many moderate Senate Democrats, given the longstanding bipartisan push in Washington for an infrastructure bill.

“President Biden and his team are considering a range of potential options for how to invest in working families and reform our tax code so it rewards work, not wealth,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary said. “Those conversations are ongoing, so any speculation about future economic proposals is premature and not a reflection of the White House’s thinking.”

The infrastructure proposal includes large portions of the plan Biden offered during the 2020 election, including investments that his campaign predicted would create five million new jobs, on top of restoring all the jobs lost last year during the COVID-19 crisis.

The second plan is focused on what many progressives call the nation’s human infrastructure — students, workers and people left on the sidelines of the job market — according to documents and people familiar with the discussions. It would spend heavily on education and programs meant to increase the participation of women in the labor force by helping them balance work and care-giving.

Large business groups and some Republicans have expressed support for some of Biden’s broad goals, most notably efforts to rebuild roads, bridges, water and sewer systems and other infrastructure.