Construction groups and congressional Democrats are praising President Joe Biden’s $2-trillion jobs proposal for its massive infrastructure spending. But contractor groups and Republicans are criticizing its recommended “pay-for”—an increase in the corporate tax rate. That opposition may make the proposal’s path through Congress narrow and rocky. Some construction organizations are recommending a user fee instead of a tax boost to raise funds for the infrastructure proposal—presumably to include increasing federal gasoline and diesel fuel taxes. But the Biden administration has put a fuels-tax hike off-limits.
Biden, introducing his jobs proposal in a March 31 speech at a carpenters’ union training center near Pittsburgh, called the package “a once-in-a-generation investment in America.” He said the spending in the proposal, which the administration calls the American Jobs Plan, would generally be spread over eight years.