Significance
Democrats see infrastructure spending as driving both the post-pandemic recovery through job creation and the transition to green energy needed to meet climate mitigation goals. Given broad acknowledgement that US competitiveness is damaged by ageing and poorly maintained infrastructure, Biden hopes for bipartisan support in Congress.
Impacts
Biden will use infrastructure investment to increase domestic procurement and so generate US industrial jobs.
Additional infrastructure investment could give a renewed boost to regional and local economic development programmes.
US voters remain reluctant to meet the cost of using, maintaining and improving infrastructure through user-based fees or taxes.