After all the hosannas about infrastructure’s importance, it’s unsettling how quickly faith falters when it comes to paying. For a future where we have a thriving, viable infrastructure-supported economy, the best idea is to pay for it using every means we can think of. That includes corporate income taxes and gas taxes to meet the demands of the moment and adding clauses to the legislation to create new sources of revenue, such as a coordinated vehicle-miles- traveled initiative and an infrastructure bank.
The Biden administration’s infrastructure plan would cost about $2 trillion and proposes increasing the corporate tax rate halfway back to its level before the 2017 tax cut, raising it from 21% to 28%. In theory, that would cover costs over an eight- to 10-year span.