总统乔·拜登将在可靠的共和党路易斯安那州推动他的2.3万亿美元基础设施计划，直接挑战共和党议员，他们说对公司和富人的低税收将推动经济增长。
拜登周四倾向于总统的舞台艺术，选择在查尔斯湖市一座70岁的桥前发表演讲，这座桥已经超过了设计寿命20年。
尽管拜登在华盛顿与共和党人接触，但他正试图说服他们的选民，让他们相信更高的企业税可以为道路和桥梁提供1150亿美元，并为升级电网、使供水系统更加安全、重建家园和启动电动汽车制造提供数千亿美元。
一名坚持匿名的白宫官员表示，拜登将向选民提出一个基本问题，即对大公司和首席执行官减税是否会使美国比旨在扶持中产阶级的项目更强大。
拜登周三在白宫发表演讲后回答记者提问时暗示了这一主题，他还强调了他通过对最富有的美国人征收更高的税收来资助教育和儿童的1.8万亿美元的单独计划。
“什么会让美国变得更强大?”拜登说。“有什么能更好地帮助你和你的安全?超级富豪必须少交3.9%的税，还是整整一代美国人都有副学士学位?”
拜登随后开始小声说道:“你猜怎么着。它增长经济。惠及所有人。不会伤害任何人。”
共和党议员已经将低税收作为他们意识形态和党派身份的核心支柱。几位共和党参议员赞成在五年内花费5680亿美元用于基础设施建设，这只是民主党总统提议的一小部分——这表明一项协议可能有多困难。
肯塔基州参议院少数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)表示，共和党人宁愿通过通行费和汽油税等使用费来资助基础设施，但他拒绝具体说明他将支持哪些费用。
“我们愿意做大约6000亿美元的一揽子计划，该计划涉及我们所有人都同意的基础设施，并讨论如何以任何方式支付费用，而不是重新开放2017年税收改革法案，”麦康奈尔周一在路易斯维尔大学表示。
拜登政府相信，它的信息可以在路易斯安那州发挥作用，路易斯安那州上次支持民主党总统候选人是在1996年。在过去的十年里，路易斯安那州遭受了30次极端天气事件的袭击，造成了价值500亿美元的损失。拜登正在寻求500亿美元，以使基础设施能够更好地抵御风暴、大风和洪水。
飓风袭击了拥有78，000居民的查尔斯湖，在过去的六周里，去年两次。拜登还计划参观新奥尔良的一家水厂。
他的基础设施计划在上周的一篇报纸社论中得到共和党人查尔斯湖市长尼克·亨特和民主党人什里夫波特市长阿德里安·珀金斯的支持。
“不幸的事实是，我们老化的基础设施和地方政府预算无法承受日益频繁的暴风雨的压力，”他们写道。"作为美国南方大城市的市长，我们晚上睡不着觉，害怕每一场预报的暴风雨。"
华盛顿的民主党人和共和党人普遍同意基础设施支出的必要性。但是拜登的提议要获得共和党的支持有两个重大障碍。
首先，共和党议员更喜欢基础设施的狭义定义，即集中于道路、桥梁、机场、交通和宽带，而不是可再生能源和护理人员的准入。其次，他们反对拜登的提议，即通过取消唐纳德·特朗普总统签署成为法律的2017年减税计划来支付他的计划。拜登正在寻求将公司税率从21%提高到28%。
Biden ready to sell $2.3T infrastructure plan in Louisiana
PresidentJoe Bidenwill push the case for his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan in the reliably Republican state of Louisiana — directly challenging GOP lawmakers who say that low taxes for corporations and the wealthy will fuel economic growth.
Biden is leaning into the stagecraft of the presidency on Thursday by choosing to speak in the city of Lake Charles in front of a 70-year-old bridge that is 20 years past its designed lifespan.
Even as he engages with Republicans in Washington, Biden is trying to sell their voters on the idea that higher corporate taxes can provide $115 billion for roads and bridges and hundreds of billions of dollars more to upgrade the electrical grid, make the water system safer, rebuild homes and jump-start the manufacturing of electric vehicles.
A White House official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the speech ahead of delivery, said Biden would pose a basic question to voters about whether tax cuts for big companies and CEOs will make the country stronger than programs designed to bolster the middle class.
Biden hinted at the theme when answering questions from reporters after a Wednesday speech at the White House that also emphasized his separate $1.8 trillion plan for education and children to be funded by higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
“What’s going to grow America more?” Biden said. “What’s going to help you and your security more? The super wealthy having to pay 3.9% less tax or having an entire generation of Americans having associate degrees?”
Biden then began to whisper: “Guess what. It grows the economy. Benefits everybody. Hurts nobody.”
Republican lawmakers have doubled down on low taxes as a core pillar of their ideology and partisan identity. Several GOP senators favor spending $568 billion on infrastructure over five years, a small fraction of what the Democratic president has proposed — a sign of how difficult a deal might be.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that Republicans would rather finance infrastructure through user fees such as tolls and gasoline taxes, though he declined to specify which fees he would back.
“We’re open to doing a roughly $600 billion package, which deals with what all of us agree is infrastructure and to talk about how to pay for that in any way other than reopening the 2017 tax reform bill,” McConnell said Monday at the University of Louisville.
The Biden administration is banking that its message could play in Louisiana, which last backed a Democratic presidential candidate in 1996. Louisiana has been barraged by 30 extreme weather events over the past decade that caused $50 billion worth of damage. Biden is seeking $50 billion to make infrastructure better able to withstand storms, winds and flooding.
Hurricanes battered Lake Charles, a city of 78,000 residents, twice last year over the course of six weeks. Biden also plans to tour a water plant in New Orleans.
His infrastructure package received support in a newspaper editorial last week by Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter, a Republican, and Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins, a Democrat.
“The unfortunate truth is that our aging infrastructure and local government budgets cannot withstand the strain of increasingly frequent storms,” they wrote. “As mayors of great American cities in the South, we lie awake at night dreading each forecasted storm.”
There is general agreement among Democrats and Republicans in Washington about the need for infrastructure spending. But there are two significant hurdles for Biden's proposal to garner Republican backing.
First, Republican lawmakers would prefer a narrower definition of infrastructure that is concentrated on roads, bridges, airports, transit and broadband rather than renewable energy and access to caregivers. Second, they object to Biden's proposal to pay for his plan by undoing the 2017 tax cuts signed into law by President Donald Trump. Biden is seeking to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.
