Last week, President Joe Biden released a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure plan. Republicans have been very critical of the president’s proposal.
“Biden’s $2.3 trillion “infrastructure” plan is nothing more than a repackaged Green New Deal,” said Congressman Jerry Carl, R-Mobile, on social media. “Less than 6% of this proposal goes to roads and bridges, and even less goes to airports and waterways.”
“The vast majority of this money would be spent destroying right-to-work laws, propping up corrupt unions, and subsidizing green energy projects at your expense,” Carl explained. “Biden’s plan is to raise taxes and increase debt, while killing American jobs. This is flat out wrong.”
“In all the time that I’ve spent in public policy with the think tank and the short time that I’ve been in Congress, I’ve never seen a transportation/infrastructure bill come out of Congress that was not bipartisan until now,” Congressman Gary Palmer, R-AL06, said on the Jeff Poor talk radio show. “And that’s entirely because of the Republicans being shut out of the process — and not only in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. It came out of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and then went to Rules and they added another trillion dollars to it. With zero Republican input.”
“It’s going to be probably twice as expensive, at least, and will be largely dictated by the Green New Deal ideas that the Democrats have been pushing,” Palmer explained. “I think it’s not going to be good for the future of the country. And in terms of cost, I’m anticipating some energy taxes as they continue their all-out assault on fossil fuels.”
Palmer cautioned that energy taxes would have adverse consequences across the American economy, as every sector and every aspect of daily life would be impacted by increased energy costs. Palmer expressed concerns that the higher fuel taxes would lead be especially hard on lower income working Americans.
“Biden’s infrastructure plan is about everything but infrastructure,” said Republican insider and Trump loyalist former state Rep. Perry O. Hooper Jr. “In the $2.5 trillion infrastructure bill, only $115 billion or less than 5 percent of the total is spent to modernize the bridges, highways, roads, and main streets” $25 billion on airports, and $17 billion on inland waterways, coastal ports, land ports of entry, and ferries”. The rest is a combination of the Green New Deal and a host of federal social programs that have nothing to do with infrastructure. These programs include 300 billion for housing, 400 billion for elderly and disabled care. Additional spending also includes 400 billion for “clean energy credits” to promote wind and solar. All of these programs individually are receiving much more than roads and bridges.”
“To pay for these programs Biden unbelievably proposes the biggest tax hikes in our country’s history right as we are emerging from COVID lockdowns,” Hooper said. “These tax hikes include return of the death taxes for the middle class and corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. This rate is among the highest in the world. It is even higher than China’s rate of 25 percent. We are purposely crippling our ability to attract global investments into our economy and giving multinational companies a strong incentive to move their corporate headquarters offshore.”
“It seems like President Biden has an insatiable appetite to spend more money and raise people’s taxes,” said Republican Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
“Tax hikes will slam the brakes on the great economy created by President Trump,” warned Sen. Tim Scott, R-Florida.
“When people think about infrastructure, they’re thinking about roads, bridges, ports and airports. That’s a very small part of what they’re calling an infrastructure package,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri said on ABC. “The other 70 or so percent of the package—that doesn’t have very much to do with infrastructure.”
“The results of these programs will be a return to the stagnation of the 1970s brought on by the disastrous policies of Jimmy Carter,” Hooper said. “High inflation will kill the consumer, sky high interest rates will destroy small businesses, and low economic growth will deny minorities and other low income individuals a pathway to better lives. Republicans in the House and Senate must do everything in their power to stop this disaster from passing.”
While Biden has proposed massive tax increases to pay for his jobs and infrastructure bill most of the package is likely to be paid for with more deficit spending growing the national debt, which is already in excess of $28 billion.
