07 March 2018 Senate Democratic infrastructure plan calls for TCJA rollbacks Senate Democratic leaders on March 7, 2018, unveiled a $1 trillion infrastructure plan to be funded by rolling back core provisions of the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The Senate Democratic plan, which differs substantially from President Trump's Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America released on February 12, has already drawn opposition from congressional Republican leaders. In a news conference, Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ranking Members from Senate committees with infrastructure jurisdiction — including Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Tom Carper (D-DE) — touted the Senate Democrats' Jobs and Infrastructure Plan for America's Workers bothas a more impactful alternative to the Trump infrastructure proposal and a reform measure to curb TCJA tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals. Importantly, the plan would increase the statutory corporate income tax rate from 21% to 25% (raising $359 billion over 10 years). It would also restore the 2017 parameters for the top individual rate (increasing it from 37% to 39.6%, raising $139 billion), the Alternative Minimum Tax ($429 billion), and the estate tax ($83 billion). In addition, the plan would close the "carried interest loophole" ($12 billion). "We want to roll back the Republican tax giveaways to big corporations and the wealthy and invest that money instead in job-creating infrastructure," Senator Schumer said. Referring to the economic benefits associated with the TCJA, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on the Senate floor this morning, "Repeal all these bonuses, pay raises, new jobs, and new investments? Talk about a nonstarter." The Senate Democrats' plan would allocate $1 trillion for a wide array of federally-supported infrastructure investments, which purportedly would create more than 15 million jobs. By contrast, the Trump proposal would provide $200 billion in federal spending over 10 years to spur state and private investment purportedly totaling $1.5 trillion. The President's legislative outline does not identify revenue offsets to pay for the new federal spending and, separately, the Administration's FY 2019 budget request proposes significant cuts in existing infrastructure programs. Infrastructure-related programs that would be funded above "baseline" budgets over 10 years by the Senate Democrats' $1 trillion plan include: — Repairing roads and bridges ($140 billion) Senator Schumer's remarks at the news conference made clear that Senate Democrats intend to highlight their infrastructure plan in the context of the November elections: he did not predict that it would be enacted into law. While bipartisan support exists for many if not all of the Senate Democrats' enumerated spending categories, Republicans will strongly oppose revisiting the TCJA to provide offsets. Even if a compromise between the President's legislative outline and the Senate Democrats' plan could be negotiated on the programmatic and spending level issues, the problem of identifying politically acceptable revenue offsets remains very difficult to resolve.
Document ID: 2018-0515 | |||||
