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How The Clinton And Sanders Infrastructure Plans Measure Up

Clinton's $275 billion infrastructure plan released Monday offers modest spending and contains few specifics. Contrast that with candidate Bernie Sanders, who has proposed a highly detailed, $1 trillion plan.
How The Clinton And Sanders Infrastructure Plans Measure Up

"Investing in infrastructure makes our economy more productive and competitive across the board."
- Hillary Clinton



Clinton's Infrastructure Plan

Clinton on Monday announced a plan for investing in infrastructure improvements. Meteor Blades laid out the need for infrastructure investment at Daily Kos in "Clinton proposes $275 billion spending for infrastructure":


Clinton's infrastructure plan is detailed at her website in "Hillary Clinton’s Infrastructure Plan: Building Tomorrow’s Economy Today." Here is a distillation:



● Spending priorities include "smart investments in ports, airports, roads, and waterways"; "giving all American households access to world-class broadband and creating connected 'smart cities'"; "building airports and air traffic control systems"; "a smart, resilient electrical grid"; "safe and reliable sources of water"; "a national freight investment program"; "upgrade our dams and levees to improve safety and generate clean energy"; safe, smart roads and highways that are ready for the connected cars of tomorrow" and "the new energy sources that will power them."

● A promise of "a faster, safer, and higher capacity passenger rail system." But the plan does not mention high-speed rail. (Note that a single high-speed rail system from Los Angeles to San Francisco is expected to cost up to $60 billion, which alone is almost one-fourth of Clinton's entire five-year infrastructure investment for all infrastructure needs.)

Sanders' Infrastructure Plan





● $12.5 billion to improve airports across the country.

● $17.5 billion to upgrade air traffic control systems.







Warren's Key Tests For Corporate Tax Plans

Clinton's infrastructure plan says only that it will be paid for through "business tax reform." It does not detail the nature of the reforms that would pay for this spending. Similarly, Sanders does not yet have a specific individual and corporate tax proposal, but he has proposed a financial transaction tax and says he will close loopholes.

As we wait for the candidates' plans for raising revenue through individual and corporate taxes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has recently outlined a set of principles that we can use to judge the plans the candidates eventually offer.

Earlier this month Warren gave a speech laying out key tests for a progressive approach to corporate tax "reform." The post "Must Watch – Warren’s Warning About The Coming Corporate Tax Giveaway" covers this speech. She says that "the problem with our corporate tax code" is "not that taxes are far too high for giant corporations, as the lobbyists claim. No, the problem is that the revenue generated from corporate taxes is far too low."





How will Clinton and Sanders' plans measure up to Warren's tests?

Do They Offer Corporations A "Repatriation" Tax Break?

Here's one key point to pay attention to regarding any plan for corporate tax "reform": There is a huge pot of money sitting offshore that giant corporations have moved out and kept out of the country thanks to a loophole that allows them to avoid paying the taxes due on those profits until it is "repatriated" – brought back to the US. The amount being kept out of the country is now over $2.1 trillion, with $620 billion of taxes due. Another $90 billion is added to this pot of taxes due each year.


1) The corporations can be told to bring it back and pay the taxes they owe on these "offshore" profits. This brings $620 billion of revenue to the government immediately, and another $90 billion each year thereafter.

2) Politicians can offer an "incentive" to bring the money back, in the form of a cut in the taxes due. This is a trick because it "generates" revenue but actually brings less than the $620 billion owed, the rest being pocketed by the corporations.

This is the key point to watch for in Clinton and Sanders' plans for funding infrastructure. Do they require the corporations to pay what they owe now or do they hand them tens or hundreds of billions by letting them repatriate the profits at a lowered tax rate?

The Politics Of Passing Anything

It is interesting to examine the Clinton and Sanders' infrastructure plans in light of what is needed by the country, and the fact that a Republican Congress is unlikely to allow any infrastructure plan (or anything else) to pass.

Republicans on Monday immediately came out in opposition to Clinton's proposal, calling it more government spending. The Republican National Committee called it a "spending binge" and said Clinton "wants to treat Americans’ tax dollars like every day is Black Friday."

With Republicans opposed to any investment in America's infrastructure, the proposals are measures of political positions, not measures of what the country should be able to do.


Sanders proposes $1 trillion towards this, Clinton proposes $275 billion, plus loans generated by both candidates' infrastructure bank plans.

Why So Little?

Why does Clinton propose spending so much less than the needed amount? The second paragraph of her plan says, "Estimates of the size of our 'infrastructure gap' register in the trillions of dollars." Following the fourth paragraph, a new section begins, "That’s why Hillary Clinton is announcing a five-year $275 billion dollar infrastructure plan." That sums up Clinton's less-than-courageous proposal.




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