Biden's infrastructure plan could create 2.7 million new jobs despite what GOP says

Congressional Republicans have attacked President Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion infrastructure package suggesting it will eliminate 1 million jobs. But it turns out that estimate fails to take into account any of the jobs provisions of the plan.

Biden is proposing a massive investment in roads, bridges, transit water systems, broadband, clean energy, and human infrastructure like child care with his American Jobs Plan package. He would fund this package by raising $2.5 trillion more in corporate tax revenue, closing loopholes, and reversing part of Donald Trump’s 2017 corporate tax rate cuts.

Republican lawmakers have indicated they plan to unanimously oppose the package if it includes corporate tax increases. In recent days, many have cited a recent National Association of Manufacturers estimate — based on research by two Rice University economists — to suggest those increases will mean a million lost jobs.

“The real cost of Biden’s ‘infrastructure plan’ will be paid by American workers,” claimed Texas Rep. Kevin Brady on Tuesday. “New study from Rice university shows, ‘the proposed changes, including the increased corporate tax rate would cause one million job losses in the first two years.'”

“One million jobs would be destroyed from President Biden’s #TaxHike,” wrote Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler on Friday. “As American families are just getting back on their feet, the last thing they need is the federal government knocking them back down again with burdensome taxes and massive job losses.”

While some of these comments specified that this estimate was about the corporate tax increase provisions, others acted as if that would be the net loss from the entire jobs package.

“If you truly care about the American worker, 1 million jobs lost should be a non-starter. Unbelievable,” Ohio Rep. Troy Balderson tweeted Friday.

“Biden wants to raise taxes and take away 1 million jobs,” claimed Colorado Rep. Ken Buck a day earlier.

But a Washington Post fact-check on Wednesday noted that these “misleading” claims leave out a major part of the $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan: the $2.25 trillion in new spending.

“The study looks at tax increases only,” John Diamond, one of the study’s co-authors, told the Post. “And the tax increases are not exactly the tax increases in the Biden package but are very similar in many ways.” He added that the analysis does not even mention infrastructure and it was not included in their simulations.

Experts who have examined the impact of increased infrastructure spending say it will mean a lot more jobs — and would more than offset the losses forecasted by the study the Republicans are citing.

An analysis done recently at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce predicted that a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill would create or preserve 15 million jobs over the next decade. A Moody’s Analytics report said if Biden’s plan becomes law, the economy will create 19 million jobs — 2.7 million more than without the package.

The Post gave “three Pinocchios” to the claims that that the American Jobs Plan will cost a million jobs.

But Republicans have made it a major talking point. The House GOP’s press team cited the study in a Friday press release as proof that “Democrats’ newest legislative push is now estimated to eliminate 1 million jobs for hardworking Americans.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.