Let’s Rebuild our Infrastructure, Not Provide Tax Breaks to Big Corporations and Wall Street

Our infrastructure is collapsing, and the American people know it. Every day, they drive on roads with unforgiving potholes and over bridges that are in disrepair. They wait in traffic jams and ride in overcrowded subways. They see airports bursting at the seams. They see the need for a modern rail system. They worry that a local levee or dam could fail in a storm.

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump correctly talked about rebuilding our country’s infrastructure. But the plan he offered is a scam that gives massive tax breaks to large companies and billionaires on Wall Street who are already doing phenomenally well. Trump would allow corporations that have stashed their profits overseas to pay just a fraction of what the companies owe in federal taxes. And then he would allow the companies to “invest” in infrastructure projects in exchange for even more tax breaks. Trump’s plan is corporate welfare coming and going.

In 2015, I introduced the Rebuild America Act to invest $1 trillion over five years to modernize the physical infrastructure that our economy depends on. In January, I will reintroduce that legislation to directly invest in our roads, bridges, water systems, rail, airports, levees and dams. Importantly, at a time when we need to reverse the 40-year decline of the American middle class, this legislation would create and maintain at least 13 million good-paying jobs, while making our country more productive, efficient and safe.

Unlike Trump’s plan, which creates new tax loopholes and is a corporate giveaway, my Rebuild America Act would be paid for by eliminating tax loopholes that allow hugely profitable multinational corporations to stash their profits in offshore tax havens around the world.