Listen to or read the news right now, and you’ll probably hear about President Biden’s infrastructure bill. Biden and Democrats in Congress finally passed this huge spending package after months of negotiation. On November 15, Biden signed the $1.2 trillion bill into law. So what does that mean for Americans, specifically Marylanders?  

One of Joe Biden’s campaign slogans in 2020 was “Build Back Better.” During the race, Biden said that as president, he would help the nation recover from the pandemic and improve the economy. Recovery is slated to have a $4.5 trillion price tag. But how exactly has the Biden administration been getting to work on economic recovery and growth in its first year?

     This plan has two main parts: a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act. House Democrats made October 31 the new deadline for both packages. 

Progressive Democrats want to force Biden to pass both bills together. On October 1, they celebrated delaying a vote on the bipartisan bill so they could negotiate with other Democrats in the House on the $3.5 trillion Act. 

According to the Guardian, Biden and the Democrats “are undertaking one of the most ambitious and transformative domestic policy agendas since the Great Society of the 1960s or the New Deal of the 1930s.” 

Let’s take a step back and look at what Biden promised during his campaign about infrastructure and the nation’s economy. Biden announced his “Build Back Better” plan on the campaign trail in July 2020, including a couple different moving parts.

First, Biden wants to spend $400 billion to “modernize our infrastructure, replenish our critical stockpiles, and enhance national security.” He says, “that’s how much the federal government will spend on buying products. These funds will provide reliable, predictable demand for products made by American workers.” According to CNN, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s infrastructure a C- score, indicating that much of it greatly needs repair. He will spend the other $600 billion on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF). 

Then there’s Biden’s $2 trillion clean-energy plan. He promised that the U.S. would set an example for the world in combating climate change. He pledged that he would put the country on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. On Earth Day, he announced plans to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. So, how will emissions be cut this drastically?? Biden has earmarked $300 billion to invest in research and development for new technology and clean-energy initiatives in the U.S. 

The rest of the Build Back Better budget reconciliation plan focuses on social policies and programs like universal preschool and tax credits for low-income families. 

That $4.5 trillion number from earlier is a considerable sum of money - comparable to our national debt, which sits at $28.8 trillion. How will we finance this multi-trillion dollar investment in our nation’s infrastructure and economy? Biden plans to use more taxes. He wants to repeal specific Trump-era tax cuts, and he’ll likely raise income taxes for people making over $400,000 yearly. Biden wants to make big corporations pay for his recovery plans with corporate taxes (taxes on a corporation’s profits). Trump and Republicans in Congress cut the flat corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% in 2017. In April 2021, the Biden administration proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% and increasing the top income tax rate from 37% to 39.6%. 

But making those changes will be easier said than done, given the Democrats’ small majorities in the House and the Senate. Trying to pass both bills is not only a test for Biden but also House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When Pelosi pushed through Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010, the Democrats had a 79-seat majority in the House. Now the margin is down to eight seats, and the Senate is split 50/50 with Vice President Harris’s vote as a tiebreaker. Biden and Pelosi have to contend with Progressives who want both bills passed together, as well as the holdout Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are unconvinced with the social safety net bill. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on October 3 that “Our goal is to get it done in the next month, both bills, get them passed” (Reuters).