Here’s what’s in the bipartisan infrastructure package By Katie Lobosco and Tami Luhby, CNN, November 15, 2021 It will deliver $550 billion of new federal investments in America’s infrastructure over five years, touching everything from bridges and roads to the nation’s broadband, water and energy systems. Experts say the money is sorely needed to ensure safe travel, as well as the efficient transport of goods and produce across the country. The nation’s infrastructure system earned a C- score from the American Society of Civil Engineers earlier this year. Democrats claim the legislation pays for itself through a multitude of measures and without raising taxes.

1. The involved federal agencies will send instructions, in the form of checks or wires, to the federal government’s creditors’ banks, instructing these banks to increase the balances in the creditor’s checking accounts.
2. At the instant the banks obey those instructions, new dollars are created, deposited in checking accounts, and added to the M1 money supply.
3. To balance their books, the banks then clear these deposits through the Federal Reserve which debits the federal government’s infinite supply of dollars. Thus federal deficit spending adds growth dollars to the economy.
4. Had the federal government levied an equal amount of taxes, these tax dollars would not have “paid for” what was owed — the instructions already paid for it — but the taxes would have removed growth dollars from the economy.

The Congressional Budget Office brushed aside several of those pay-for provisions, ultimately finding the package would add $256 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

The legislation calls for investing $110 billion for roads, bridges and major infrastructure projects. That’s significantly less than the $159 billion that Biden initially requested in the American Jobs Plan.

Included is $40 billion for bridge repair, replacement and rehabilitation, $16 billion for major projects that would be too large or complex for traditional funding programs, $11 billion for transportation safety, $1 billion to reconnect communities, and $39 billion to modernize public transit, according to the text. That’s less than the $85 billion that Biden initially wanted to invest in modernizing transit systems and help them expand to meet rider demand.

The legislation provides a $65 billion investment in improving the nation’s broadband infrastructure, according to the text. Biden initially wanted to invest $100 billion in broadband.

How Congress will pay for it The legislation includes a multitude of measures to pay for the proposal — none of which would raise taxes. But while lawmakers claim the package pays for itself, the CBO score found it would instead add billions of dollars to the deficit over 10 years and that many of the pay-for provisions would not raise as much money as Democrats said they would.

The bottom line is that the legislation would directly add roughly $350 billion to the deficit, when taking into account $90 billion of spending in new contract authority, said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that tracks federal spending.

According to the text and a 57-page summary of the legislation, lawmakers leaned heavily on repurposing unused Covid-19 relief funds to pay for the legislation. 

Another item in the text is $53 billion that stems in part from states opting to terminate the pandemic unemployment benefits early in hopes of pushing the jobless to return to work. Some 24 states stopped at least one of the federal unemployment programs before they officially ended in early September.

The agency also found that the Federal Communications Commission’s spectrum auctions would generate far less than the $87 billion originally claimed by lawmakers.

The CBO also said that the legislation will raise about $50 billion by imposing new Superfund fees and changing the tax reporting requirements for cryptocurrencies, among other measures.

The package leaves out Biden’s proposal to spend $400 billion to bolster caregiving for aging and disabled Americans — the second largest measure in the American Jobs Plan.

His proposal would have expanded access to long-term care services under Medicaid, eliminating the wait list for hundreds of thousands of people. It would have provided more opportunity for people to receive care at homethrough community-based services or from family members. It would also have improved the wages of home health workers, who now make approximately $12 an hour, and would have put in place an infrastructure to give caregiving workers the opportunity to join a union.

Also left on the sideline: $100 billion for workforce development, which would have helped dislocated workers, assisted underserved groups and put students on career paths before they graduate high school.

The legislation also leaves out the $18 billion Biden proposed to modernize Veterans Affairs hospitals, which are on average 47 years older than private-sector hospitals.

What’s also out is a slew of corporate tax hikes that Biden wanted to use to pay for the American Jobs Plan. Biden’s original proposal called for raising the corporate income tax rate to 28%, up from the 21% rate set by Republicans’ 2017 tax cut act, as well as increasing the minimum tax on US corporations to 21% and calculating it on a country-by-country basis to deter companies from sheltering profits in international tax havens.

CNN’s Manu Raju contributed to this report.

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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

1. Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
2. Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

1. Eliminate FICA
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
3. Social Security for all
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
5. Salary for attending school
6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
9. Federal ownership of all banks
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY