US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the historic investments in the American Jobs Plan
we'll be open to good ideas and good faith negotiations but here's what we won't be open to we will not be open to doing nothing inaction simply is not an option now since i announced this plan i've heard from my republican friends uh say that it's many of them say it's too big they say why not focus on traditional fix what we've already got the roads and the highways that exist and the bridges i'm happy to have that debate but i want to tell you my view we are america we don't just fix for today we build for tomorrow 200 years ago trains weren't traditional infrastructure either until america made a choice to lay down tracks across the country highways weren't traditional infrastructure until we allowed ourselves to imagine that roads could connect our nation across state lines the idea of infrastructure has always evolved to meet the aspirations of the american people and their needs and it's evolving again today we need to start seeing infrastructure through its effect on the lives of working people in america what is the foundation today that they need to carve out their place in the middle class to make it to live to go to work to raise their families with dignity to ensure that good jobs will be there for their kids no matter who they are or what zip code they live in that's what infrastructure means in the 21st century it still depends on roads and bridges ports and airports rail and mass transit but also depends on having reliable high-speed internet in every home because today's high-speed internet is infrastructure it depends on the electric grid a grid that won't collapse in a winter storm or be compromised by hackers at home or abroad it depends on investing in made in america goods from every american community including those that have historically been left out black latino asian american native americans rural communities talk to folks around the country about what really makes up the foundation of a good economy ask a teacher or a child care worker if having clean drinking water non-contaminated drinking water in our schools and our child care centers is part of that foundation when we know that the lead in our pipes slows a child's development when they drink that water as the entrepreneur whose small business was destroyed by the second 100 year flood in the last 10 years in iowa or wildfires in the west that burned five million acres last year an area roughly the size of the entire state of new jersey more fires than ever or the devastating damage seen more frequently more intense hurricanes and storms on the east and gulf coast ask all those farmers and small business owners and homeowners whether investing in clean energy to fight the effects of climate change is part of infrastructure ask folks in rural america where more than 35 percent of the people lack a reliable high-speed internet limiting their ability to conduct business or engage in remote learning for their schools ask them whether investing in internet access will lead to better jobs in town new markets for farmers and better opportunities for their kids and i'm serious about this ask the moms and dads in the sandwich generation the folks carrying an enormous personal financial strange trying to raise their children and care for their parents their elderly parents or members of their families with a disability ask them what sort of infrastructure they need to build a little better life to be able to breathe a little bit it's expanded services for seniors it's home care workers go in and cook their meal help them get around and live independently in their home allowing them to stay in their homes and i might add saving medicaid hundreds of millions of dollars in the process it's better wages and benefits and opportunities for caregivers who are disproportionately women women of color and immigrants ask our wounded warriors and military families to my republican colleagues in congress should we modernize va hospitals update them many of them are more than 50 years old how about the estimate 450 000 post 911 veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder when they make that emergency call or their husband wife son daughter makes that call to the housemate dad needs help we have to bring him in and they hear we have to wait we don't have room now come back call me back in eight days ten days twelve days look at the sewer more suicides in the military than people getting shot is it really your position my friends that our veterans don't deserve the most modern facilities they could catch that cancer diagnosis quicker with access to better roads cleaner water high-speed internet that delivers information faster and more of it above all infrastructure's about meeting the needs of a nation and putting americans to work and being able to do and get paid for doing having good jobs plumbers and pipefitters replacing those literally thousands of miles of of of dangerous lead pipes they're still out there everybody remembers what happened in flint there's hundreds of flints all across america how many of you know when you send your child to school the fountain they're drinking out of is not fed by a lead pipe how many of you know the school your child is in still has asbestos in the walls and likes the ventilation is that not infrastructure line workers electricians laying transmission lines for a modern grid providing over 500 000 charging stations on the highways we are going to build to accommodate electric vehicles so we can own the future construction workers and engineers building moderate hospital modern hospitals and homes for american families health care workers steel workers folks who work in the cutting edge labs nearly 90 percent of the infrastructure jobs created by our american jobs plan can be filled by people who don't have a college degree 75 percent don't need an associate's degree as i said last week this is a blue-collar blueprint for increasing opportunity for the american people it also includes the biggest investment in non-defense research and development on record i promise you it's not part of my speech but i promise you you're all going to be reporting over the next six to eight months how china and the rest of the world are racing ahead of us and the investments they have in the future attempting to own the future the technology quantum computing investing significant amount in dealing with cancer and alzheimer's that's the infrastructure of a nation there's a new book out about how we've fallen behind america is no longer the leader of the world because we're not investing it used to be we invested almost 2.7 percent of our gdp in infrastructure now it's about point seven percent when we were investing in it we were the leader in the world i don't know why we don't get this one of the only a few major economies in the world whose public investment and research and development has declined as a percentage of gdp in the last 25 years declined the united states of america that led the world why does this matter investing in research and development helped lead to lithium batteries led technology the internet itself it helped lead the vaccine breakthroughs that are helping us beat covet 19. to the human genome project which has led to breakthroughs and how we understand and fight cancer and other diseases government meaning the taxpayers funded this research government we stop investing in research we stop investing in the jobs of the future and we give up leading the world when we do invest in research we're really doing is raising the bar on what we can imagine imagine a world where you and your family can travel coast to coast without a single tank of gas or in a high-speed train close to as fast as you can go across the country in a plane imagine your children growing up to work in innovation good paying jobs in fields that haven't even been invented yet like the parents of every computer programmer every graphic designer every renewable energy worker once did imagined we invest today so that these jobs will be here in america tomorrow so america can lead the world that is as is historically done that's why i brought back scientists into the white house we need to think look do we think the rest of the world's waiting around we're not going to make those kind of investments the rest of the world's saying take a look do you think china is waiting around to invest in this digital infrastructure or in research and development i promise you they are not waiting but they're counting on american democracy to be too slow too limited and too divided to keep pace you've heard me say it before i think this generation can be marked about a competition between democracies and autocracies because the world is changing so rapidly the autocrats are betting on democracy not being able to generate the kind of unity needed to make decisions to get in that race we can't afford to prove them right we have to show the world much more important we have to show ourselves that democracy works that we can come together on the big things that's the united states of america for god's sake of course building the infrastructure of tomorrow requires major investments today as i said last week i'm open to ideas about how to pay for this plan with one exception i will not impose any tax increases on people making less than four hundred thousand dollars a year if others have ideas out there on how to pay for this investment without violating that rule they should come forward there's all kinds of opportunities just list all the tax breaks that i find difficult to explain wealthy deductions 360 billion dollars recap recapping top rate of 39 which it used to be for 100 for years all the way to the bush administration almost a quarter of a trillion dollars corporate minimum tax and the fossil fuel giveaways 40 billion dollars that said i could go on but let me tell you what i proposed how to do it we're going to raise the corporate tax rate it was 35 for the longest time which was too high barack and i thought it was too high during our administration we all agreed five years ago that it should come down somewhat but the previous administration reduced it all the way down to 21 what i'm proposing is that we meet in the middle 28 28 would still have lower corporate rates than any time between world war ii and 2017 and will generate over a trillion dollars in taxes over 15 years new independent study put out last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations lose the very use the various loopholes to pay zero federal tax income tax in 2020.
it's just not fair it's not fair to the rest of the american taxpayers we're we're going to try to put an end to this not not fleece them 28 if a mom and dad a cop firefighter police officer etc you're paying cost of that in your income tax i've also proposed the global minimum tax which is being proposed around the world for u.s corporations at 20 let me tell you what that means it means that companies aren't going to be able to hide their income in places like the cayman islands and bermuda and tax statements will also eliminate deductions used by corporations for offshoring jobs and shifting assets overseas they offshore the jobs shift the ads overseas and then don't have to pay taxes on all they make there and we'll significantly ramp up is irs enforcement against corporations and the super wealthy who either failed to report their income or underreported estimated that would raise tens of billions of dollars and it adds up to more than what i proposed in just 15 years it's honest it's fair it's fiscally responsible and it pays for what we need and reduces the debt over the long haul and by the way i didn't hear any of our friends were criticizing this plan say that the corporate tax cut which added two trillion dollars of the debt the trump tax cut two trillion 1.9 trillion dollars in debt wasn't paid for the vast majority of which went to the top one percent of the wage earners i hear anybody hollering in this recovery the so-called before we i became president this k-shape recovery where billionaires made 300 billion more dollars during this period where's the outrage there i'm not trying to punish anybody but damn it maybe it's because i come from a middle-class neighborhood i'm sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced let me close by saying this whatever part of partisan divisions there are around other issues there don't have to be around this one the divisions of the moment shouldn't stop us from doing the right thing for the future these aren't republican bridges democratic airports republican hospitals or democratic power grid think of the transcontinental railroad interstate highway system or the space race we're one nation united and connected as i said last week i'm going to bring republicans to the white house and invite them to come we'll have good faith negotiations and any republican who wants to get this done i invite i invite them we have to get this things done we're at an inflection point american democracy this is a moment where we prove whether or not democracy can deliver whether can lay the foundation for an economy and build from the bottom up in the middle out not trickle down economics on the very top whether it can lay a good foundation for good jobs in a 21st century economy i tell the kids the young people who work for me control my kids but i go on college campuses they're going to see more change in the next 10 years than we've seen in the last 50 years we're going to talk about commercial aircraft flying at subsonic speeds supersonic speeds be able to figuratively if you may if we decided to do it traverse the world in about an hour travel 21 000 miles an hour so much is changing we have got to lead it i believe democracy can come through when the american people come together we saw it in the american rescue plan we're seeing it with the jobs plan the american rescue plan which got so badly criticized how many of our republican colleagues you've seen gone on your stations or your newspapers and say boy people in my state really like it because it'd be improper i haven't asked permission the number of republicans and democrats who are hesitant call me saying god this really works overwhelming majority of the american people democrats republicans independents support infrastructure investments that meets the moment so i urge the congress listen to your constituents and together we can lay a foundation for an economy that works for everyone and allows america to remain the world leader when we do that i believe as i said last week that in 50 years from now when people look back they'll say this was the moment together that we won america's future i really believe that thank you all may god bless you and may god protect our troops thank you mr president are you willing to go lower than the 28 corporate tax rate i'm willing to listen to that i'm william wide open too but we got to pay for this we got to pay there's many other ways we can do it but i'm willing to negotiate that i've come forward the best most rational way in my view the fairest way to pay for it but there are many other ways as well and i'm promise of open if you don't get republicans on board with this plan your first plan passed along look what i said was i would try to work with my friends on the other side there are things we're working on together some of which we pass and some we will pass but the last plan i laid out what was available what i was suggesting and how i deal with it and a bipartisan group came to see me and then the republican group came to see me and they started off at 600 billion and that was it if they'd come forward with a plan that did the bulk of it it was a billion three or four two or three that allowed me to have pieces of all that was in there i would have i would have been prepared to compromise but they didn't they didn't move an inch not an inch but for example i am dealing with a bipartisan group that came to see me now it's about what three four weeks ago when they came about computer chips and about and they said look we we have to have our own supply we have to work together we're working on that chuck schumer and and i think mcconnell are about to introduce a bill along those lines so i'm prepared to work i really am but to automatically say that the only thing that's infrastructure is a highway a bridge or whatever that's just not rational it really isn't i think the vast majority of americans think everything from the sewer pipes to the to the uh uh the sewer facilities to the water pipes i think their infrastructure anyway thank you all so very much mr president i'll be talking to you about that link today if you want ghost guns can you tell us what you told the king of north mr president are you concerned about the situation there no i'm not actually called to tell him that he has a friend in america stay strong um you
2021-04-10 17:01
