Democrats Unveil A Good Infrastructure Plan

And they didn’t half-ass it either (boldface mine):

The proposal unveiled by Democratic leaders Wednesday would plow just over $1 trillion into a wide range of infrastructure needs, including $140 billion for roads and bridges, $115 billion for water and sewer infrastructure and $50 billion to rebuild schools.

The spending would be offset by clawing back two-thirds of the revenue lost in the Republican tax bill by reinstating a top income tax rate of 39.6 percent, restoring the individual alternative minimum tax, reversing cuts to the estate tax, and raising the corporate income tax from 21 percent to 25 percent.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in an interview Tuesday that the plan sets up a stark contrast for voters ahead of the midterm elections.

“We believe overwhelmingly the American people will prefer building infrastructure and creating close to 15 million middle-class jobs than giving tax breaks for the wealthy,” he said…

Although much of the Democratic plan would send money to traditional infrastructure priorities like highways, transit and waterways, Schumer highlighted less conventional spending priorities, including $40 billion to build high-speed Internet connections in rural areas and $80 billion to upgrade the country’s energy grid.

Of course, the Democrats’ deficit hysteria is nipping at their heels:

Republicans dismissed the Democratic proposal Wednesday. Aides said it was hypocritical for Democrats, after months of complaining about the $1.5 trillion deficit impact of the tax bill, to take two-thirds of that cost and devote it to infrastructure.

Nonetheless, the plan (pdf) would also devote $115 billion to public transit.

Now just remind people that they can nice things or those shitheads, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, can laugh all the way to the bank.

Aside: Until the Budget Control Act is repealed, there are constraints, as fucking moronic as they are, on federal spending.

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1 Response to Democrats Unveil A Good Infrastructure Plan

  1. Joe Shelby says:

    They have me on everything but reversing the AMT change. The AMT is a disasterous thing that, while meant for CEOs, ends up only targeting the middle class, those just getting simple stock options and stock grants as part of their work compensation but mostly live off a salary. I’ve been dinged on it twice now, and it requires me to upgrade to the ULTRA level turbo-tax in order to be able to spread the loss across the subsequent years’ taxes. It is simply a huge accounting nightmare that only serves to, well, keep accountants and turbo tax in business. The actual gains from it are, in a nickel-and-dime perspective, negligible.

    The really rich will be able to account their way out of that with trivial ease. The rest of us pay more than we have to (and more than they do) instead.

    That thing can just stay rotting in bad idea hell.

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