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Analysis: Corporations, wealthy pay in Biden infrastructure plan, not drivers and riders

Published 03/30/2021, 06:07 AM
Updated 03/31/2021, 12:36 AM
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Biden delivers remarks after a meeting with his COVID-19 Response Team at the White House campus in Washington

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Biden delivers remarks after a meeting with his COVID-19 Response Team at the White House campus in Washington

By Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's plans to spend billions of dollars on the United States' crumbling roads and mass transit include a novel twist - making companies and wealthy households, rather than drivers and riders, pay the cost.

Biden will unveil more details about the first stage of his infrastructure plan, which could be worth as much as $4 trillion, in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

Business groups and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been pushing Biden to raise U.S. fuel taxes, some of the lowest in the world, for the first time since 1993. They also want a new mileage tax that would sweep in electronic vehicles to plug holes in the national highway fund.

But the White House has rejected those ideas, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN on Monday. A gas tax is politically risky and would weigh more heavily on lower-income Americans, who often travel longer distances for work.

Instead, Biden is expected to propose the biggest federal tax increase in decades, according to two sources familiar with the plan. It includes raising corporate income to 28%, and increasing the marginal tax rate on high-earners, according to two sources familiar with the plan.

White House aides say that Biden may also rely on some federal borrowing to fund the package, given historically low interest rates.

Whatever the plan, it is likely to inspire heated debate among Republicans, Democrats, economists and academics about the right way to plug the holes in the U.S. economy opened by the vast spread of COVID-19.

"The president has a plan to fix the infrastructure of our country… and he has a plan to pay for it,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday. If members of Congress don’t like it, "we’re happy to look at their proposals,” Psaki added.

THE IMMENSE U.S. HIGHWAY SYSTEM The nation's nearly 50,000 miles https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.cfm#:~:text=Currently%2C%20the%20Interstate%20System%20is,41%2C000%20miles%20at%20the%20time) of interstate highways were considered one of the world's cutting-edge infrastructure projects when they were constructed. But the national piggy bank for funding road and mass transit projects since 1956, the Highway Trust Fund, has been in the red since 2008.

Congressional budget forecasters warn it could have a $207 billion shortfall by 2031 without new sources of revenue.

The fund is fed by an 18.4 cent per gallon tax on gasoline and a 24.4 cent tax on diesel, both of which have not been raised in nearly three decades, even as fuel efficiency standards have improved.

That makes fuel cheap. German drivers paid $6.12 per gallon of fuel in 2019, versus $2.87 in the United States, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. In Britain, taxes account for 63% of the fuel price at the pump, versus 19% in the United States.

Biden has vowed not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 a year, which includes the overwhelming majority of the country.

Influential trade groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have failed to convince lawmakers to raise the fuel tax to pay for roads. "We believe in a user-based system for roads, bridges and transit" said Ed Mortimer, its vice president of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Senate committee leaders John Barrasso, of Wyoming, and Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, floated the idea of tying the fuel tax to inflation and a national electric vehicle fee to pay for a five-year, $287 billion highway bill sought last year.

The purchasing power of the U.S. fuel tax has declined by 43 percent since 1993 due to inflation, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Some sort of compromise on funding is necessary.

"If the White House and lawmakers can't find agreement on the Highway Trust Fund, then it doesn't bode well for the rest of the package,” said Quincy Krosby, chief markets strategist at Prudential Financial (NYSE:PRU), who consults on transportation financing.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES GET A BREAK

Biden is also expected to ignore calls from lawmakers for a new way to tax motorists based on how far they drive, not how much fuel they use, a third source familiar with the plan told Reuters.

A vehicle's miles traveled, or VMT, tax would mean electric car owners help pay for the nation’s infrastructure and help to offset rising fuel efficiency standards that have led to declining trust fund revenues.

Just about 2% of cars sold in the United States in 2020 were electric, according to S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI) Platts. Biden's plan calls for a nationwide network of charging stations, but no additional taxes for drivers of those vehicles.

"We offer tax incentives for electric vehicles, so it seems counterproductive then to tax them," said a Democratic legislative aide engaged in the talks.

A VMT tax could take years to implement fully, but it does have bipartisan support. "As a conservative, I strongly believe in the user-pays principle, and I believe that we need to start ensuring that all users pay their fair share for the roads they’re using," said Sam Graves, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Biden delivers remarks after a meeting with his COVID-19 Response Team at the White House campus in Washington

The committee's chairman, Peter A. DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, has supported raising the gas tax but also wants to provide seed money to experiment with a VMT system, which he calls inevitable. (This story corrects to eliminate reference to 2017 tax rate in the fifth paragraph)

Latest comments

No matter how you tax road usage, construction companies will raise their bids accordingly. The only way to keep that to a minimum is to not give away how much you have to spend on your infrastructure.
Cali said the same thing last time but they raised car registration 3x and in the end the roads have more potholes.
Yes, for sure. Let's see who pays more in the end. A corporation or the little guy when corporations start raising prices.
OK, Plans A & B are tax the corporations, tax the rich.  Now, after THAT doesn't raise enough $$ to pay for this slush fund, what's Plan C? Taxing cow farts?
Cow farts should be made illegal.
Inflation is a tax on all
This is a great plan if you want to make the poor poorer and more become poor... democrats trying to increase their base
lol exactly
Corporations get taxed they dont just pay it and say ok... they pass it down to everyone... they hite less people... they go lean... are people really dubb enough to believe these lies??
Hahaha, so how will corporations pass down the tax on profits?
such obvious lies lol
Dude! Putting more burden on corporations will make everything more expensive, which means drivers will pay more again.
And in exchange, hundreds of thousands of cheap labour migrants handed over to these companies, while generation more unenployment for "drivers". No big deal for companies or riders, but drivers get the toll.
Japan has higher tax, QE and stimulus plans but produced deflationary weak economy for decades. Japan govt uses the money to buy bonds and etf equities are useless because nobody wants to spend money. Learn from Americans, spend on infrastructures, spend now pay later policy!
f off. paid troll
Well, this would make real inflationary pressure on economy (increased taxation of corporations will be transfered to consumers sooner or later via higher price of goods/services)
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