{"id":117471,"date":"2021-04-08T08:04:32","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T15:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=117471"},"modified":"2021-04-08T08:04:32","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T15:04:32","slug":"president-biden-delivers-remarks-on-the-american-jobs-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=117471","title":{"rendered":"President Biden Delivers Remarks on the American Jobs Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Good afternoon, everyone.  Last weekend, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I announced my plan to rebuild what I refer to as the \u201cbackbone of America\u201d through the American Jobs Plan.  It\u2019s not a plan that tinkers around the edges; it\u2019s a once-in-a-generation investment in America unlike anything we\u2019ve done since we built the Interstate Highway System and won the Space Race decades ago.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dlwiynorFg8\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the single largest investment in American jobs since World War Two, and it\u2019s a plan that puts millions of Americans to work to fix what\u2019s broken in our country: tens of thousands of miles of roads and highways, thousands of bridges in desperate need of repair.<\/p>\n<p>But it also is a blueprint for infrastructure needed for tomorrow \u2014 not just yesterday; tomorrow \u2014 for American jobs, for American competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, I said that once Congress is back from recess, I\u2019d get to work right away because we have no time to lose.  So here we are. <\/p>\n<p>Democrats, Republicans will have ideas about what they like and what they don\u2019t like about our plan.  That\u2019s \u2014 that\u2019s a good thing.  That\u2019s the American way.  That\u2019s the way democracy works.  Debate is welcome.  Compromise is inevitable.  Changes are certain. <\/p>\n<p>In the next few weeks, the Vice President and I will be meeting with Republicans and Democrats to hear from everyone.  And we\u2019ll be listening.  We\u2019ll be open to good ideas and good-faith negotiations. <\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s what we won\u2019t be open to: We will not be open to doing nothing.  Inaction simply is not an option. <\/p>\n<p>Now, since I announced this plan, I\u2019ve heard from my Republican friends say that it\u2019s \u2014 many of them say it\u2019s too big.  They say, \u201cWhy not focus on traditional infrastructure, fix what we\u2019ve already got \u2014 the roads and the highways that exist and the bridges?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m happy to have that debate.  But I\u2019d like to tell you my view.  We are America.  We don\u2019t just fix for today; we build for tomorrow. <\/p>\n<p>Two hundred years ago, trains weren\u2019t \u201ctraditional\u201d infrastructure either until America made a choice to lay down tracks across the country.  Highways weren\u2019t \u201ctraditional\u201d infrastructure until we allowed ourselves to imagine that roads could connect our nation across state lines.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of infrastructure has always evolved to meet the aspirations of the American people and their needs, and it\u2019s evolving again today.<\/p>\n<p>We need to start seeing infrastructures through its effect on the lives of working people in America.  What is the foundation today that they need to carve out their place in the middle class to make it \u2014 to live, to go to work, to raise their families with dignity, to ensure that good jobs will be there for their kids, no matter who they are or what ZIP Code they live in? <\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what infrastructure means in the 21st century.  It still depends on roads and bridges, ports and airports, rail and mass transit, but it also depends on having reliable, high-speed Internet in every home.  Because today\u2019s high-speed Internet is infrastructure. <\/p>\n<p>It depends on the electric grid \u2014 a grid that won\u2019t collapse in a winter storm or be compromised by hackers at home or abroad.  It depends on investing in \u201cMade in America\u201d goods from every American community, including those that have historically been left out \u2014 Black, Latino, Asian American, Native Americans, rural communities.<\/p>\n<p>Talk to folks around the country about what really makes up the foundation of a good economy.  Ask a teacher or a childcare worker if having clean drinking water \u2014 non-contaminated drinking water in our schools, in our childcare centers is part of that foundation \u2014 when we know that the lead in our pipes slows a child\u2019s development when they drink that water. <\/p>\n<p>Ask the entrepreneur whose small business was destroyed by the second 100-year flood in the last 10 years in Iowa \u2014 or wildfires in the West that burned 5 million acres last year, an area roughly the size of the entire state of New Jersey.  More fires than ever.  Or the devastating damage \u2014 seeing more frequent and more intense hurricanes and storms on the East and Gulf Coasts.<\/p>\n<p>Ask all those farmers and small-business owners and homeowners whether investing in clean energy to fight the effects of climate change is part of infrastructure. <\/p>\n<p>Ask folks in rural America, where more than 35 percent of the people lack a reliable, high-speed Internet, limiting their ability to conduct business or engage in remote learning for their schools.  Ask them whether investing in Internet access will lead to better jobs in town, new markets for farmers, and better opportunities for their kids. <\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m serious about this.  Ask the moms and dads in the \u201csandwich generation\u201d \u2014 the folks carrying enormous personal and financial strains trying to raise their children and care for their parents \u2014 their elderly parents or members of their families with a disability.  Ask them what sort of infrastructure they need to build a little better life, to be able to breathe a little bit.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s expanded services for seniors.  It\u2019s homecare workers, who go in and cook their meal, help them get around and live independently in their home, allowing them to stay in their homes \u2014 and I might add, saving Medicaid hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s better wages and benefits and opportunities for caregivers, who are disproportionately women, women of color, and immigrants.  Or ask our wounded warriors and military families.<\/p>\n<p>To my Republican colleagues in Congress, shouldn\u2019t we modernize VA hospitals, update them?  Many of them are more than 50 years old.<\/p>\n<p>How about the estimated 450,000 post-9\/11 veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, who, when they make that emergency call \u2014 or their husband, wife, son, daughter makes that call to the VA hospital \u2014 \u201cDad needs help, we have to bring him in.\u201d  And they hear, \u201cYou have to wait.  We don\u2019t have room now.  Come back.  Call me back in 8 days, 10 days, 12 days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Look at the sui- \u2014 more suicides in the military than people getting shot.  Is it really your position, my friends, that our veterans don\u2019t deserve the most modern facilities?  We could catch that cancer diagnosis quicker, with access to better roads, cleaner water, high-speed Internet that delivers information faster and more of it.<\/p>\n<p>Above all, infrastructure is about meeting the needs of a nation and putting Americans to work and being able to do and get paid for doing \u2014 having good jobs.  Plumbers and pipefitters replacing those, literally, thousands of miles of \u2014 of dangerous lead pipes.  They\u2019re still out there.<\/p>\n<p>Everybody remembers what happened in Flint.  There\u2019s hundreds of Flints all across America.  How many of you know, when you send your child to school, the fountain they\u2019re drinking out of is not fed by a lead pipe?  How many of you know the school your child is in still has asbestos in the walls and lacks the ventilation?  Is that not infrastructure? <\/p>\n<p>Line workers and electricians laying transmission lines for a modern grid, providing over 500,000 charging stations on the highways we are going to build to accommodate electric vehicles so we can own the future. <\/p>\n<p>Construction workers and engineers building modern hospital \u2014 modern hospitals and homes for American families.  Healthcare workers, steelworkers, folks who work in the cutting-edge labs.  Nearly 90 percent of the infrastructure jobs created by our American Jobs Plan can be filled by people who don\u2019t have a college degree.  Seventy-five percent don\u2019t need an associate\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n<p>As I said last week, this is a blue-collar blueprint for increasing opportunity for the American people.  It also includes the biggest investment in non-defense research and development on record.<\/p>\n<p>I promise you \u2014 this is not part of my speech \u2014 but I promise you, you\u2019re all going to be reporting over the next six to eight months how China and the rest of the world is racing ahead of us in the investments they have in the future, attempting to own the future.  The technology, quantum computing, investing significant amounts of money and dealing with cancer and Alzheimer\u2019s \u2014 that\u2019s the infrastructure of a nation. <\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a new book out about how our \u2014 we\u2019ve fallen behind.  America is no longer the leader of the world because we\u2019re not investing.  It used to be we invested almost 2.7 percent of our GDP in infrastructure.  Now it\u2019s about 0.7 percent.  When we were investing in it, we were the leader in the world. <\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know why we don\u2019t get this.  One of the only \u2014 a few major economies in the world whose public investment in research and development has declined as a percentage of GDP in the last 25 years \u2014 declined: the United States of America \u2014 that led the world.<\/p>\n<p>Why does this matter?  Investing in research and development help lead to lithium batteries, LED technology, the Internet itself.  It helped lead to vaccine breakthroughs that are helping us beat COVID-19; to the Human Genome Project, which has led to breakthroughs in how we understand and fight cancer and other diseases. <\/p>\n<p>Government \u2014 meaning, the taxpayers \u2014 funded this research.  Government. <\/p>\n<p>When we stop investing in research, we stop investing in the jobs of the future, and we give up leading the world.  And when we do invest in research, what we\u2019re really doing is raising the bar on what we can imagine.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine a world where you and your family can travel coast to coast without a single tank of gas, or in a high-speed train, close to as fast as you can go across the country in a plane. <\/p>\n<p>Imagine your children growing up to work in innovation, good-paying jobs in fields that haven\u2019t even been invented yet, like the parents of every computer programmer, every graphic designer, every renewable energy worker once did \u2014 imagined. <\/p>\n<p>We invest today so that these jobs will be here in America tomorrow, so America can lead the world that is \u2014 as it\u2019s historically done.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why I brought back scientists into the White House.  We need to think. <\/p>\n<p>Look, do we think the rest of world is waiting around?  \u201cWe\u2019re not going to make those kinds of investments,\u201d the rest of the world is saying.  Take a look.  Do you think China is waiting around to invest in this digital infrastructure or in research and development?  I promise you, they are not waiting, but they\u2019re counting on American democracy to be too slow, too limited, and too divided to keep pace. <\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve heard me say it before: I think this generation is going to be marked by the competition between democracies and autocracies, because the world is changing so rapidly.  The autocrats are betting on democracy not being able to generate the kind of unity needed to make decisions to get in that race.  We can\u2019t afford to prove them right.  We have to show the world \u2014 and much more importantly, we have to show ourselves \u2014 that democracy works; that we can come together on the big things.  It\u2019s the United States of America for God\u2019s sake. <\/p>\n<p>Of course, building the infrastructure of tomorrow requires major investments today. <\/p>\n<p>As I said last week, I\u2019m open to ideas about how to pay for this plan, with one exception: I will not impose any tax increases on people making less than $400,000 a year.  If others have ideas out there on how to pay for this investment without violating that rule, they should come forward. <\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s all kinds of opportunities.  Just list all the tax breaks that I find difficult to explain: wealthy deductions, $360 billion if you cap them; top rate of 39 percent, which it used to be for a hundred \u2014 for years, all the way to the Bush administration; almost a quarter of a trillion dollars, corporate minimum tax; and the fossil fuel giveaways at $40 billion, et cetera.  I could go on. <\/p>\n<p>But let me tell you what I proposed, how to do it.  We\u2019re going to raise the corporate tax rate.  It was 35 percent for the longest time, which was too high.  Barack and I thought it was too high during our administration.  We all agreed five years ago that it should come down somewhat, but the previous administration reduced it all the way down to 21 percent. <\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019m proposing is that we meet in the middle: 28 percent.  Twenty-eight percent \u2014 we\u2019ll still have lower corporate rates than any time between World War Two and 2017.  It will generate over a trillion dollars in taxes over 15 years. <\/p>\n<p>A new, independent study put out last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations lose the very \u2014 use the various loopholes to pay zero federal tax \u2014 income tax \u2014 in 2020.  It\u2019s just not fair.  It\u2019s not fair to the rest of the American taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re going to \u2014 we\u2019re going to try to put an end to this.  Not fleece them \u2014 28 percent.  If you\u2019re a mom, a dad, a cop, firefighter, police officer, et cetera, you\u2019re paying close to that in your income tax. <\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve also proposed a global minimum tax, which is being proposed around the world for U.S. corporations, of 21 percent.  Let me tell you that means.  It means that companies aren\u2019t going to be able to hide their income in places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, in tax havens.  We\u2019re going to also eliminate deductions used by corporations for offshoring jobs and shifting assets overseas.  They offshore the jobs, shift the assets overseas, and then don\u2019t have to pay taxes on all they make there. <\/p>\n<p>And we\u2019ll significantly ramp up IS \u2014 IRS enforcement against corporations and the super wealthy who either failed to report their income or underreported.  Estimated, that would raise tens of billions of dollars.  It adds up to more than what I proposed in just 15 years.  It\u2019s honest.  It\u2019s fair.  It\u2019s fiscally responsible.  And it pays for what we need and reduces the debt over the long haul. <\/p>\n<p>And, by the way, I didn\u2019t hear any of our friends, who are criticizing this plan, say that the corporate tax cut, which added $2 trillion to the debt \u2014 the Trump tax cut, $2 trillion \u2014 $1.9 trillion in debt \u2014 wasn\u2019t paid for, the vast majority of which went to the top 1 percent of the wage earners.  I didn\u2019t hear anybody hollering in this recovery \u2014 the so-called \u2014 before I became President \u2014 this \u201cK-shaped\u201d recovery, where billionaires made $300 billion more dollars during this period.  Where\u2019s the outrage there?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not trying to punish anybody.  But damn it, maybe it\u2019s because I come from a middle-class neighborhood, I\u2019m sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced. <\/p>\n<p>Let me close by saying this: Whatever part- \u2014 partisan divisions there are around other issues, there don\u2019t have to be around this one.  The divisions of the moment shouldn\u2019t stop us from doing the right thing for the future.  These aren\u2019t Republican bridges, Democratic airports, Republican hospitals, or a Democratic power grid. Think of the transcontinental railroad, Interstate Highway System, or the Space Race.  We\u2019re one nation, united and connected.<\/p>\n<p>As I said last week, I\u2019m going to bring Republicans to the White House.  I invite them to come.  We\u2019ll have good-faith negotiations.  And any Republican who wants to get this done, I invite.  I invite them.  We have to get this \u2014 things done.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re at an inflection point in American democracy.  This is a moment where we prove whether or not democracy can deliver.  Whether it can lay the foundation for an economy built from the bottom up and the middle out, not trickle-down economics from the very top.  Whether it can lay a good foundation for good jobs in a 21st century economy.<\/p>\n<p>I tell the kids \u2014 the young people who work for me and to all my kids \u2014 when I go on college campuses, they\u2019re going to see more change in the next 10 years than we\u2019ve seen in the last 50 years.  We\u2019re going to talk about commercial aircraft flying at subsonic speeds \u2014 supersonic speeds.  Be able to, figuratively, if you may \u2014 if we decided to do it, traverse the world in about an hour, travel 21,000 miles an hour.  So much is changing.  We have got to lead it. <\/p>\n<p>I believe democracy can come through when the American people come together.  We saw it in the American Rescue Plan.  We\u2019re seeing it with the Jobs Plan.  And the American Rescue Plan, which got so badly criticized \u2014 how many of my Republican colleagues have you seen gone on your stations or your newspapers and say, \u201cBoy, people in my state really like it\u201d?  Because it would be improper having permission.  The number of Republicans and Democrats who were hesitant and have called me saying, \u201cGod, this really works.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Overwhelming majority of the American people \u2014 Democrats, Republics, and independents \u2014 support infrastructure investments that meets the moment.<\/p>\n<p>So, I urge the Congress: Listen to your constituents and, together, we can lay a foundation for an economy that works for everyone and allows America to remain the world leader.  When we do that, I believe, as I said last week, that in 50 years from now, when people look back, they\u2019ll say this was the moment, together, that we won America\u2019s future.  I really believe that.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you all.  And God bless you.  And may God protect our troops.  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Mr. President, are you willing to go lower than the 28 percent corporate tax rate?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  I\u2019m willing to listen to that.  I\u2019m willing to \u2014 I\u2019m wide open to, but we\u2019ve got to pay for this.  We got to pay.  There\u2019s many other ways we can do it, but I\u2019m willing to negotiate that.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve come \u2014 I\u2019ve come forward with the best, most rational way \u2014 in my view, the fairest way, to pay for it.  But there are many other ways as well, and I\u2019m open.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Will you have failed on your promise of bipartisanship if you don\u2019t get Republicans on board with this plan?  Your first plan passed along party lines.<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Look, what I said was I would try to work with my friends on the other side.  There are things we\u2019re working on together \u2014 some of which we\u2019ve passed and some we will pass.<\/p>\n<p>But the last plan I laid out what was available, what I was suggesting, and how I\u2019d deal with it.  And a bipartisan group came to see me.  And then a Republican group came to see me.  And they started off at $600 billion, and that was it.<\/p>\n<p>If they come forward with a plan that did the bulk of it and it was a billion \u2014 three or four, two or three \u2014 that allowed me to have pieces of all that was in there, I would have been \u2014 I would\u2019ve been prepared to compromise, but they didn\u2019t.  They didn\u2019t move an inch.  Not an inch.<\/p>\n<p>But, for example, I am dealing with a bipartisan group that came to see me.  Now it\u2019s about \u2014 what? \u2014 three, four weeks ago when they came about computer chips and about \u2014 and they said, \u201cLook, we have to have our own supply.  We have to work together.\u201d  We\u2019re working on that.  Chuck Schumer and, I think, McConnell are about to introduce a bill along those lines.<\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019m prepared to work.  I really am.  But to automatically say that the only thing that\u2019s infrastructure is a highway, a bridge, or whatever \u2014 that\u2019s just not rational.  It really isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>I think the vast majority of Americans think everything from the sewer pipes, to the \u2014 to the \u2014 the sewer facilities, to the water pipes \u2014 I think they\u2019re infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway.  Thank you all so very much.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Mr. President, can you talk about Jordan, sir?<\/p>\n<p>Q    What are you going to do on guns, Mr. President?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  I\u2019ll be talking to you about that, I think, the day after tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Ghost guns?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Q    Can you tell us what you told the King of Jordan, Mr. President?  Are you concerned about the situation there?<\/p>\n<p>THE PRESIDENT:  No, I\u2019m not.  I just called to tell him that he has a friend in America.  Stay strong.<\/p>\n<p>2:30 P.M. EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Good afternoon, everyone. Last weekend, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I announced my plan to rebuild what I refer to as the \u201cbackbone of America\u201d through the American Jobs Plan. It\u2019s not a plan that tinkers around the edges; it\u2019s a once-in-a-generation investment in America unlike anything we\u2019ve done since we built the Interstate Highway System [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Fullscreen-capture-472021-103215-PM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/117476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}