Donald Trump blasts Joe Biden's $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan, says 'it is putting America LAST!'
President Joe Biden on Wednesday, March 31, unveiled an infrastructure plan worth $2.25 trillion to set the stage for his big economic program and said his administration was set “to bring everybody along”. However, not all were convinced with the mega plan and one among them is his predecessor Donald Trump.
While Biden said in a speech in Pittsburg that past stories of economic growth had not included all parts of the American society and that “we all do better when we all do well”, Trump opened his package is nothing but a “cruel and heartless attack on the American Dream” that will benefit China’s interests and “crush” American workers.
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'It is the exact OPPOSITE of putting America First'
The former Republican president’s statement, in fact, came ahead of Biden’s trip to Pittsburg where he rolled out the plan that included the most comprehensive tax corporate hike in three decades and could see a raid on those having high incomes. In his statement, Trump said: “Biden’s policy would break the back of the American Worker with among the highest business tax rates in the developed world. Under Biden’s plan, if you create jobs in America, and hire American workers, you will pay MORE in taxes—but if you close down your factories in Ohio and Michigan, fire U.S. workers, and move all your production to Beijing and Shanghai, you will pay LESS. It is the exact OPPOSITE of putting America First—it is putting America LAST!”
On the question of the tax hike (seven percent hike from the current rate of 21 percent), Trump said: “Joe Biden’s radical plan to implement the largest tax hike in American history is a massive giveaway to China, and many other countries, that will send thousands of factories, millions of jobs, and trillions of dollars to these competitive Nations. The Biden plan will crush American workers and decimate U.S. manufacturing, while giving special tax privileges to outsourcers, foreign and giant multinational corporations.”
“Biden’s ludicrous multi-trillion dollar tax hike is a strategy for total economic surrender,” Trump added.
Biden’s new plan, which he has praised as an “once-in-generation investment” is also a political statement of sorts against his predecessor’s economic policy. According to one report in Politico: “President Joe Biden is using his infrastructure plan to take aim at President Donald Trump's signature economic achievement: his corporate tax cuts. The administration is calling for $2 trillion in new spending on roads, bridges and a myriad other projects, and sticking big companies with the bill. To defray its cost, his plan would roll back Trump’s cut in the corporate tax rate — Biden would hike it to 28 percent, from 21 percent — while stiffening a minimum tax on multinational corporations.”
“That will set the stage for a split-screen debate in Washington in the coming months: Even as Democrats haggle over how to divvy up that $2 trillion, they will simultaneously relitigate — and, they hope, overturn — the centerpiece of Trump’s economic legacy,” it added.
White House defends Biden tax plan
The White House came out defending Biden’s plan saying in a fact sheet: “The President's tax plan will ensure that corporations pay their fair share of taxes by increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 percent.”
“His plan will return corporate tax revenue as a share of the economy to around its 21st century average from before the 2017 tax law and well below where it stood before the 1980s,” it added, referring to Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
The White House has argued that America’s infrastructure, which ranks 13th worldwide, is obstructing its ability to have a lead over China. Trump, though, feels the opposite saying steps like tax hike would hurt the US, which is already coping with pandemic-time challenges, more. Biden's plan features boosting the market for electric vehicles, modernization of bridges and highways, promoting 'Made in America' provisions, modernizing Amtrak, improving waterways, broadband, power grid, etc.
The former president feels tax hikes would force companies to take American jobs abroad, which the current administration doesn’t. “This legislation would be among the largest self-inflicted wounds in history. If this monstrosity is allowed to pass, the result will be more Americans out of work, more families shattered, more factories abandoned, more industries wrecked, and more Main Streets boarded up and closed down - just like it was before I took over the presidency 4 years ago,” Trump added.
Meanwhile, progressive Democratic lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in the past has criticized the Biden administration, said in a tweet on Tuesday, March 30, that the infrastructure plan should have been “way bigger”. “This is not nearly enough. The important context here is that it’s $2.25T spread out over 10 years. For context, the COVID package was $1.9T for this year *alone,* with some provisions lasting 2 years. Needs to be way bigger,” AOC tweeted.
This is not nearly enough. The important context here is that it’s $2.25T spread out over 10 years.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 30, 2021
For context, the COVID package was $1.9T for this year *alone,* with some provisions lasting 2 years.
Needs to be way bigger. https://t.co/eTQ7cxuTzF