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Macungie (United States) (AFP)
After lengthy political negotiations, a grand plan to renovate and develop infrastructure dear to President Joe Biden was put on track on Wednesday, with the ambition of ensuring America’s decades of prosperity.
It is nothing less than an investment program “such as we only see once in a generation” which has found the agreement of both Democratic senators and a handful of elected officials from the United States. Republican opposition, the White House announced.
The actual legislative process could begin as early as Wednesday evening with a procedural vote.
This grand plan provides for $ 550 billion in new federal money and reaches $ 1.2 trillion – the equivalent of Spain’s 2020 Gross Domestic Product – if one takes into account the reorientation of other existing public funding.
This pharaonic amount must “create well-paid and unionized jobs, respond to the climate crisis, make the (American) economy more sustainable and fairer for decades to come”, according to a statement from the White House.
The administration announces “historic” investments in public transport, roads, bridges, drinking water, high-speed internet …
All financed by the reorientation of certain emergency funding, by targeted contributions from companies, by a more efficient taxation of cryptocurrencies and by “other measures” supported by both parties. In addition to the tax revenues that must generate the surge of economic activity that Washington promises.
“This deal shows the world that our democracy works, produces results and does great things,” Joe Biden said in a statement, making the article a program that can “transform America and propel us into the world. to come up”.
The president, who would like in a second time to pass a gigantic program of 3.500 billion dollars of social spending, also advanced Wednesday another subject which is dear to him: economic patriotism.
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– “Buy American” –
Visiting a truck factory in Pennsylvania, the president promised American companies would be better off in terms of government procurement.
“The last few years, + Buy American + has become an empty promise. But my administration is going to make it a reality,” he said, applauded by hundreds of enthusiastic people, against the background of the trucks. gleaming.
It’s hard not to see it as a pique to his predecessor Donald Trump, who had never ceased to promote economic patriotism and protectionism.
Concretely, what the team of Joe Biden foresees is quite technical.
The White House will dust off a law of 1933, which requires that all products purchased by the federal administration be manufactured “substantially” in the United States, that is to say that 55% of the value of their components was created on American soil.
Washington wants to increase this proportion to 60% immediately, then to 75% later, to prevent public money from going to goods manufactured for the most part abroad.
Another measure: set up a preferential price schedule for certain products and components deemed strategic, and produced in the United States. The aim is to avoid future shortages of imported goods as important as medical equipment or computer components.
The US federal administration reports spending $ 600 billion annually on goods and services, about half of which is on manufactured goods.
© 2021 AFP
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