Having reviewed how the four proposals answer the three core questions of (1) what should be included, (2) how much to spend, and (3) how to pay for it, we turn in this final section to considering the packages overall.
Considering the Proposed Infrastructure Packages Overall
President Biden’s Updated American Jobs Plan
As discussed, President Biden’s modified American Jobs Plan proposed $170 billion per year for ten years in new federal spending. He proposed funding it with increases in corporate taxes, including closing the tax gap. The modified American Jobs Plan includes all 11 categories at the levels of spending reviewed in the brief. It also includes four more categories that we did not review because they are not included in the Common Sense Coalition plan that President Biden now supports. We describe these four additional categories briefly here to help inform your view of the modified American Jobs Plan package overall.
The first of the four additional categories included new investments in building, preserving, and retrofitting two million new homes and commercial buildings. At $22.3 billion in new spending per year, this category would get the third-highest level of investment in the modified American Jobs Plan.
Second, the modified American Jobs Plan proposed $9.7 billion in new spending per year for school facilities.
Third, it called for $2.8 billion of annual new investments to modernize and upgrade federal buildings in poor repair, with a particular focus on making Veterans Affairs hospitals state-of-the-art.
Fourth, the modified American Jobs Plan proposed investing in high-quality professional home and community-based care for aging Americans and those with disabilities. At $40 billion per year in new funding, the caregiving category would get by far the most proposed funding of any of the 15 categories in the modified American Jobs Plan.