[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 63 (Tuesday, April 13, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S1881]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             INFRASTRUCTURE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on one final matter, $865,000 dollars--
$865,000. That is roughly the cost of every new job the White House 
claims their so-called American Jobs Plan would create, $865,000.
  This is how the math shakes out if you use the most favorable 
estimates that the Biden administration itself prefers. Figures 
reported by Bloomberg News come out to about $865,000 per job. Other 
analyses have found numbers actually north of $860,000.
  Here is where the number comes from. The White House has tried to 
claim their spending plan would create 19 million jobs over the next 
decade. That is completely false. The Washington Post Fact Checker gave 
Democrats multiple Pinocchios for this false claim.
  Nineteen million jobs is one estimate of the total number of jobs the 
entire country would add over the next decade, from all sources--all 
sources. The same estimate says we are on track to add more than 16 
million of those same jobs without the bill.
  So this proposal to tax, borrow, and spend $2.25 trillion would only 
create 2.6 million new jobs. And remember, these are the rosiest--
rosiest--best-case estimates that the White House itself has been 
pushing.
  Now, I know a whole lot of Kentucky entrepreneurs and business owners 
who create more than one job if we gave them $865,000 to invest and 
expand.
  Mr. President, I am sure you represent a lot of smart people who 
could turn an $865,000 investment into more than just one job.
  The awful arithmetic just underscores how disappointing the proposal 
is. When the American people think of infrastructure, they think of 
honest-to-goodness public works projects that truly invest in the 
public good--things that build our Nation's backbone. And when Congress 
tackles real, tangible infrastructure issues in a smart fashion, there 
is big, broad bipartisan support.
  The 2015 highway bill, the FAST Act, was a huge bipartisan lift that 
Senator Inhofe and former Senator Boxer hammered out together. I was 
proud to play a major role in that accomplishment myself. It was the 
first full 5-year highway bill that Congress had passed in 20 years. 
And it won 83 votes in the Senate and about the same percentage over in 
the House.
  Even more recently, in 2018, the Senate passed America's Water 
Infrastructure Act, 99 to 1--the new investments in water 
infrastructure across the country to create jobs, grow the economy, and 
ensure that American families get the safe drinking water they deserve, 
99 to 1.
  Just last year, another water infrastructure package came out of the 
EPW Committee unanimously and cleared the Senate in a package that 
passed 92 to 6.
  So there is bipartisan appetite for smart infrastructure bills that 
are built the right way. The Senate has proven that over and over 
again. There isn't much appetite for using the word ``infrastructure'' 
to justify a colossal--colossal--multitrillion-dollar slush fund for 
unrelated bad ideas.
  A Harvard economist and infrastructure expert says, and listen to 
this, ``It does a bit of violence to the English language'' to call 
this an infrastructure proposal. That is a Harvard economist.
  An expert at Columbia says big chunks of the proposal are ``really 
social spending, not productivity-enhancing infrastructure of any 
kind.''
  One political analyst wrote:

       [T]he plan . . . reads like a liberal wish list for 
     everything the left has wanted.

  Less than 6--6 percent of the proposal goes to roads and bridges, 
less than 6 percent. It would send more money to just electric cars 
than it would spend on our Nation's roads, bridges, ports, airports, 
and waterways combined.
  And while this proposal chases every green fad, it would also slam 
our economy with the largest tax hikes in a generation.
  Experts at the Wharton School of Business have projected the plan 
would decrease GDP, decrease capital stock, and reduce workers' hourly 
wages 10, 20, and 30 years down the road.
  Economists at Rice University recently looked at a similar package of 
Democratic tax hikes and found it would lead to a loss of a million 
jobs here in our country over just 2 years. Exactly when American 
workers are counting on an economic recovery, Democrats want to slap 
the economy with a massive set of tax increases.
  So look, this noninfrastructure ``infrastructure'' plan is cut from 
the same cloth as the Democrats' nonvoting rights ``voting rights'' 
bill.
  Both these subjects are ripe for bipartisan work. Both are subjects 
the Senate has addressed in the past with thoughtful compromises that 
have earned broad support. And both are issues where the American 
people will reject a far-left approach that makes their lives worse.

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