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Please complete the survey to share your opinion on the plan

With the recent announcement by the Biden Administration to focus efforts on passing more than $2 trillion in infrastructure funding, the Chamber is looking to better understand how this plan would impact you and provide the information you need to understand the plan on your own.

To submit your opinion, please follow this survey link and follow the instructions. If you don’t know the answer to a question or it doesn’t apply to you, just skip it or type NA.

BACKGROUND
On Wednesday, March 31st President Biden announced an ambitious plan to invest more than $2 trillion in broadly defined infrastructure projects across the United States. The plan would invest in traditional infrastructures such as roads and bridges, as well as less common items such as workforce infrastructure, R&D funding, and broadband investment.

To pay for the plan, the administration is paring bonds with increases in taxes for corporations and the highest income individuals (including pass-through entities). This is a concern to us and groups such as the U.S. Chamber are exploring different ways to fund these projects, focused on user fees and 30-year debt obligations. Though we recognize costs are associated with infrastructure investment, we will work to mitigate the impact on businesses. Please make sure to provide your feedback on this particular issue in the survey.

For historic context, the most recent infrastructure package passed in 2015 and provided five years of funding certainty. At the time, the legislation passed with an 83-16 majority in the Senate and 359-65 in the House.

Items likely to negatively impact businesses:

Taxes:

  • Sets the top corporate tax rate at 28 percent, 33 percent higher than the current rate of 21 percent.
  • Strengthens the GILTI tax to discourage offshoring by raising the rate from 10.5 percent to 21 percent (could be positive for main streets, keeping business local).
  • Seeks to build international consensus to stop inverted headquarters and other offshoring/tax avoidance techniques.
  • Enact 15% minimum tax on “book income” aka the profit statement presented to investors.
  • Eliminate tax preferences for fossil fuels.

Prevailing Wages, Unions, and Collective Bargaining

  • Includes the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) which would make it easier to join and start a union.
  • Ties federal investment to labor standards set by the administration.
  • Increases penalties for workplace safety and health violations.

Items likely to positively impact businesses:

Transportation

  • $115 billion for modernizing highways, roads, and main streets. In addition it would go to repair thousands of bridges.
  • $85 billion for public transportation.
  • $80 billion for Amtrak and other rail projects.
  • $25 billion to airports and $17 billion for inland waterways, ports, and ferries
  • $174 billion investment in electric vehicle infrastructure (charging ports, electrifying federal fleet) and creating rebates and tax incentives for consumer purchase of electric vehicles.
  • $20 billion to address racial inequity in infrastructure investment.
  • $25 billion for shovel-ready projects that lack current funding streams.

Drinking Water, electric grid, high speed broadband

  • $45 billion to replace the remaining lead pipe infrastructure in the US, including at schools.
  • $56 billion in low-cost loans to modernize drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems.
  • $100 billion for building out broadband infrastructure, promoting competition, and reducing the cost of service.
  • $100 billion to build a more resilient electric transmission system, spur jobs in clean energy, create jobs geared towards displaced workers, invest in brownfield/grayfield sites, create opportunities for this investment in distressed communities, mobilize the next generation of conservation workers.

Modernizing homes, education facilities, hospitals and federal buildings

  • $213 billion to produce, preserve, and retrofit more than two million affordable units.
  • $100 billion to upgrade and build new public schools.
  • $12 billion for community colleges.
  • $25 billion to upgrade childcare facilities and increase the number of providers.
  • $28 billion to upgrade VA hospitals and federal buildings.
  • $400 billion to expand access to in-home or community-based care for aging Americans.

Manufacturing, Supply Chains, and R&D:

  • $50 billion for the National Science Foundation.
  • $30 billion for R&D that spurs job creation including in rural areas.
  • $40 billion in upgrading research infrastructure.
  • $35 billion for climate science and innovation.
  • $5 billion for other climate focused research.
  • $15 billion for demonstration projects, including utility scale energy storage.
  • $10 billion for HBCUs and MSIs.
  • $15 billion to create centers of excellence at HBCUs.
  • $50 billion to create a new office at the department of commerce focused on domestic industrial capacity.
  • $50 billion to on-shore semiconductor manufacturing and research.
  • $30 billion over 4 years to protect from future pandemics.
  • $46 billion for clean energy procurement.
  • $20 billion for regional innovation hubs and a community revitalization fund.
  • $14 billion to bring together multidisciplinary groups.
  • $52 billion to incentivize domestic manufacturing.
  • $31 billion for small/mid-sized manufacturers to access credit, venture capital, and R&D dollars.
  • $5 billion for rural economic growth and job creation.
  • $40 billion for “Dislocated Workers Program” to provide sector based training.
  • $12 billion targeted at workforce development in underserved communities and populations.
  • $48 billion in American workforce development infrastructure and worker protection.

Discussion:

Coverage of the plan:

Infrastructure Push sets off feeding frenzy in Washington

US Chamber of Commerce called Biden’s new infrastructure plan ‘dangerously misguided’

Senator Grassley wants more information on administration infrastructure plan

Business World divided on whether to fight corporate tax hike in Biden’s infrastructure plan

Buttigieg says $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan Is A ‘Common Sense Investment’

‘Decades overdue.’ Transportation industry cheers Biden’s infrastructure plan

AOC says Biden’s infrastructure plan is way too small – she wants a $10 trillion package

Biden’s Infrastructure Plan: Which Sectors Would Benefit

Share your input on the plan