Daily US Times: With a badly aging bridge as his background, President Joe Biden on Thursday stood in reliably Republican Louisiana to pressure GOP lawmakers to support his $2.3 trillion massive infrastructure plan — and yet express a willingness to compromise on the corporate tax hikes he is recommending to pay the cost of the plan.
The US President leaned into the stagecraft of the presidency by choosing to speak in the city of Lake Charles, which is home to a 70-year-old bridge that is two decades past its designed lifespan. The city has been battered by historic storms.
Where to find the money for repairs and replacements here and elsewhere? Mr Biden, a Democrat, who wants to raise corporate taxes, challenged Republican dogma that low taxes for wealthy and corporations fuel economic growth.
But president Biden also said he was willing to make a deal to make the infrastructure plan going and dared them to do the same.
The president said: “I’m willing to hear ideas from both sides. I am ready to compromise. What I’m not ready to do is, I am not ready to do nothing. I am not ready to have another period where America has another Infrastructure Month and it doesn’t change a damn thing.”
Even as he engages with Republican lawmakers in Washington, Joe Biden is trying to sell their voters on the idea that higher corporate taxes can provide $115 billion for bridges and roads and hundreds of billions of dollars more to make the water system safer, upgrade America’s electrical grid, rebuild homes and jump-start the manufacturing of electric vehicles. To drive home the point, Mr Biden also toured a water plant in New Orleans.
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