Acting on the infrastructure
The infrastructure of the United States is threadbare. The commuter train tunnel beneath the Hudson River connecting New York City and New Jersey has deteriorated. The Brent Spence Bridge across the Ohio River between Covington, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio is falling apart. There are crumbling schools vulnerable to earthquakes. Hundreds of bridges are unsafe and closed. Dams damaged by climate change are in danger of collapsing, as two did in Midland County endangering 40,000 people there. There is a water emergency in Mississippi and Texas. The Flint water crisis of 2015 has resulted in mitigation and large payments. And potholes! Some can swallow Tiny Humans without a trace.
The nation’s power grid is vulnerable and is often subject to attack. It consists of 160,000 miles of transmission lines and 55,000 sub-stations. Every four days or so, the electrical grid is struck by either a physical or a cyber-attack. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that a cyber-attack worthy of taking down the power grid was a matter of “when” not “if.”
Daniel Cohan, associate professor at Rice University said “We need to better realize how vulnerable our energy systems are — both electricity and the vulnerability of electricity and natural gas systems together is going to take some regrouping and there’s not going to be a single step. We’re going to need a portfolio of steps.”
Broadband reception in remote areas hardly exists. Fiber optics and 5G phone service is often nonexistent there. As a consequence, rural area residents cannot compete for work requiring such capability and are often confronted with misinformation leading to bad decisions.
The former administration had been informed about these conditions but did little to solve them.
President Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion infrastructure package would create about 2.7 million jobs, repairing roads, bridges, pipes, railroads, seaports as well as expanding access to long-term care services under Medicaid, building schools and expanding internet access across the US. It includes $115 billion for modernizing highways, roads and main streets, $25 billion to airports and $17 billion for inland waterways, ports and ferries. It also calls for
$85 billion to modernize public transit, $80 billion for Amtrak, $50 billion to safeguard critical infrastructure and $20 billion to improve road safety.
Biden plans to fund these investments in large part through tax increases. The plan proposes raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from the current 21%, effectively repealing the changes to the corporate tax made under the Trump administration’s sweeping tax cuts in 2017 [EF1] .
The GOP has criticized the plan for its tax increases saying they will kill jobs and complaining that a majority of the funds allocated within the bill don’t go to infrastructure. GOP Senator Mike Crapo claimed the plan’s proposed changes to the tax system would “cost jobs, shrink domestic investment and slow down wage growth, ultimately crushing ordinary workers and the middle class.” While it might eliminate 159,000 jobs in 1030 years, it will create millions. Lost jobs would have occurred through automation anyway. Actually, taxes will be brought back to 28% where they had been. Corporations receive the benefits of improved infrastructure and should pay just as we do. They are “people” after all. A number of CEOS have accepted the taxes as necessary and support the plan.
President Biden has been talking to the public about the plan and its benefits. It will benefit Michigan through employment, a better local economy and more money in our economy. The more you understand about it and talk to your friends and relatives, the more readily all will receive its advantages.