After the “save”, the “relaunch”.
Much more than solving the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus epidemic, to play on a par with China, US President Joe Biden will propose a major infrastructure investment plan.
As in the days of triumphant Keynesianism, some already reproach.
The Democratic president wants to spend $ 2,000 billion on infrastructure - roads, airports, railways, over eight years, with the aim of creating millions of jobs and meeting the challenge of competitiveness against China .
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Biden is scheduled to present this Wednesday, during a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the first phase of his "Build Back Better" program, consisting of modernizing more than 32,000 kilometers of roads, highways and of bridges across the country, for an estimated budget of $ 620 billion.
These gigantic investments, a rare public expenditure in the United States, would be financed in particular by an increase in the corporate tax, which would go from 21% to 28%.
According to the White House, this rate would remain, after this increase, at the lowest since World War II, with the exception of the years since Donald Trump's tax reform passed in 2017. But it will take more arguments to convince the Congress in a country ultra sensitive to the question of public spending, and despite the popularity of the economic plans undertaken under Trump and then Biden to fight against the economic consequences of the pandemic, and although the Americans consider their infrastructure to be dilapidated.
"The president will not compromise on the urgency to act"
In the coming months, Biden and his team will be very busy negotiating in Washington with the narrow Democratic majority and some Republicans.
"The president wants to make it clear that he has a plan and that he is open to discussion," said a senior White House official.
"But he will not compromise on the urgency to act" and the need to be ambitious to "reimagine" a "new American economy", he added.
Hence some ecological commitments, such as, for example, the switch to electricity for 20% of the famous yellow “school buses”.
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"I think we have an extraordinary opportunity to have the support of both parties to think big and be bold on infrastructure," insists Transport Minister Pete Buttigieg, who will have the difficult task of tilting the debate on the plane side.
"Americans don't need to be explained to them that we need to act on infrastructure, and the reality is that you can't separate the climate dimension" from this challenge, he wants to believe.
The Biden-Harris administration is working on a plan to build our infrastructure back better than ever.
What does the future of transportation look like to you?
- Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) March 29, 2021
The young minister has already had to backpedal.
On Monday, contrary to what he had hinted at on Friday, he asserted that gasoline taxes and the kilometer tax would not be increased to finance the plan.