By The Numbers: Here’s What’s In President Biden’s $2 Trillion Infrastructure Proposal

By NPR News April 1, 2021

BY BENJAMIN SWASEY & CLAIRE OBY

President Biden this week unveiled a massive infrastructure proposal that he says would deliver a “once-in-a-generation investment” in the United States.

Here are six key numbers from the wide-ranging measure:

$2 trillion

The plan’s overall estimated price tag.

13

The U.S. ranks 13th in the world in overall infrastructure, according to a World Economic Forum report in 2019. The Biden administration is using the ranking to emphasize the need to rebuild and upgrade roads, bridges and much more.

28%

The proposal would be paid for with a slew of tax increases on corporations. The main corporate tax rate would be raised to 28%, which would be about half as high as what it was before the Republican tax cuts of 2017 that lowered the rate to 21%.

15

While the plan would spend most of the one-time funding over eight years, the corporate tax changes would raise the estimated $2 trillion over 15 years.

$400 billion

The proposal seeks to spend hundreds of billions on what are traditionally considered infrastructure projects, but it would do a lot more — including putting $400 billion toward expanding access to home- or community-based care for the elderly and people with disabilities.

500,000

Among the plan’s investments in electric vehicles and their infrastructure are grants and incentives for public and private entities to build a network of 500,000 charging stations by 2030.

Amtrak’s response to the Biden infra plan: https://t.co/b8qRz4LIve
Proposes:
-30+ new routes
-20+ enhanced existing routes
-20m more annual riders
-Better service to cities like HOU, ATL, Cincy
-New service to unserved cities like Las Vegas, Nashville, Columbus, Phoenix pic.twitter.com/Di9BmnCsfr
— Yonah Freemark (@yfreemark) March 31, 2021

And here are some highlights from the plan’s spending provisions:

Transportation:

$174 billion in electric vehicle investments
$115 billion for bridges and roads
$20 billion to improve road safety
$85 billion for existing public transit
$80 billion for railways
$50 billion to improve infrastructure resilience
$25 billion for airports
$17 billion for waterways and ports of entry
$20 billion to reconnect urban neighborhoods cut off by highways

Water, Internet, electric:

$45 billion to remove lead pipes
$56 billion for modernizing water systems
$100 billion for high-speed broadband
$100 billion for the electric grid and clean energy
$16 billion for putting “hundreds of thousands [of people] to work in union jobs” plugging oil and gas wells and restoring and reclaiming abandoned mines
$10 billion for a Civilian Climate Corps

Homes, schools, buildings:

$213 billion for affordable housing
$100 billion for school construction
$12 billion for community colleges
$25 billion for child care facilities
$18 billion for VA hospitals
$10 billion for federal buildings

Workforce, innovation:

$400 billion for home- or community-based care for the elderly and people with disabilities
$180 billion for research and development, including investing $50 billion in the National Science Foundation and $35 billion “to achieve technology breakthroughs that address the climate crisis”
$300 billion for manufacturing and business, including $50 billion for semiconductor research and manufacturing, $30 billion for pandemic preparedness and $52 billion for domestic manufacturers
$100 billion in workforce development programs targeted at underserved groups, including $5 billion for violence prevention programs

Claire Oby is an NPR Politics intern.