Houston Republic

As President Joe Biden draws comparisons between the $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan he has proposed and the space race, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner indicated he believes Houston is well-placed to participate.

Turner recently took to Twitter to show his support for Biden’s proposal, both for the potential economic impact and the expected environmental benefits.

“Today @POTUS laid out a bold plan to build clean energy infrastructure and create jobs,” Turner said. “We need to build forward with a focus on #climateaction, resilience, and equity.”

He also championed the position Houston is in as a participant in future recovery.

“#Houston is ready to #BuildBackBetter with investments in clean energy and transportation to put people back to work,” Turner said.

Presented as the American Jobs Plan, Biden’s proposed spending would be paid for by reversing corporate tax cuts created under former President Donald Trump, according to coverage by Reuters. It would include government investments in roads, low-emissions energy and providing human services such as elderly care, but raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.

“It’s a once-in-a-generation investment in America, unlike anything we’ve seen or done since we built the interstate highway system and the space race decades ago,” Biden said.

Yet, with the combination of programs so far under the Biden administration reaching 20% of annual economic output for the nation, critics question the wisdom of giving the U.S. government a larger role in the nation’s economy than it has had in generations, Reuters reported.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said that the plan to increase taxes to pay for the program would actually ultimately slow job and wage growth across the economy, according to Reuters. 

Neil Bradley, U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief policy officer, echoed McConnell’s sentiments. He said that while the nation’s largest trade group agrees that the U.S. has infrastructure needs to be addressed, the taxes Biden wants to implement to pay for it would ultimately do more harm than the program would offset.