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President Biden Pushes Infrastructure Bill. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 16, 2021 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Soon, President Biden will make his latest case for that $3.5 trillion economic agenda.

Here is the president now.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... House committees for working hard this week to advance critical components of the economic plan that I have put before the Congress.

I know we still have a long way to go, but I'm confident the Congress will deliver to my desk both the bipartisan physical infrastructure plan and the Build Back Better plan that I have proposed.

I have said many times before I believe we are at an inflection point in this country, one of those moments where the decisions we're about to make can change, literally change the trajectory of our nation for years and possibly decades to come.

Each inflection point in this nation's history represents a fundamental choice. I believe that America at this moment is facing such a choice, and the choice is this.

Are we going to continue with an economy where the overwhelming share of the benefits go to big corporations and the very wealthy, or are we going to take this moment right now to set this country on a new path, one that invests in this nation, creates real, sustained economic growth, and that benefits everyone, including working people and middle-class folks?

That's something we haven't realized in this country for decades. The data -- excuse me -- the data is absolutely clear. Over the past 40 years, the wealthy have gotten wealthier and too many corporations have lost their sense of responsibility to their workers, their communities and the country.

Just look at the facts. CEOs used to make about 20 times the average worker in the company that they ran. Today, they make more than 350 times what the average worker in their corporation makes.

Since the pandemic began, billionaires have seen their wealth go up by $1.8 trillion. That is, everyone who was a billionaire before the pandemic began, the total accumulated wealth beyond the billions they already had has gone up by $1.8 trillion.

It's simply not fair. And it's -- how is it possible that 55 of the largest corporations in this country paid zero dollars in federal income taxes? They made over $40 billion in the year 2020 and they paid zero. Think about that. Zero dollars in federal taxes on $40 billion in profits.

How is it possible that the wealthiest billionaires in the country can entirely escape paying income tax on what they have made? How is it possible for millionaires and billionaires that can pay a lower rate of tax than teachers, firefighters or law enforcement officers?

Here is the simple truth. For a long time, this economy has worked great for those at the very top, while ordinary hardworking Americans, the people who built this country, have been basically cut out of the deal.

And I have said this from the time I announced I was going to run. I believe this is a moment of potentially great change. This is our moment to deal working people back into the economy. This is our moment to prove to the American people that their government works for them, not just for the big corporations and those at the very top.

When I was sworn in as president, the nation was struggling to pull out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Job growth was anemic, with just over 60,000 new jobs per month in the three months before I was sworn in.

Then we went to work and passed the American Rescue Plan back in March. And it worked. It is still working. Over the last three months, we have been creating on average 750,000 new jobs per month. Our economy is growing at the fastest rate we have seen in nearly 40 years.

Our recovery is unique in the world. We are the only developed country in the world whose economy is now bigger than it was before the pandemic.

While this is all good news, I know many Americans are still struggling to make it through each and every day. For too many, it is harder and harder to pay the bills, food, gas, rent, health care. I get it. We still have a long way to go to get the economy where it needs to be.

As I have said for a long time, coming out of this economic crisis as deep as the one we're in was never going to be easy, but we're doing it, and we can continue to do it. COVID, supply chain issues, bad actors seeking to profit off the pandemic are all contributing to the challenges we're facing.

[14:05:03]

That's why I have made getting COVID under control my top priority from my first day as president. Everything, everything, from our public health to our economy, depends on this. We have made enormous progress against the virus through the summer,

and now we have put ourselves in a strong position to battle this Delta variant. That's why the actions I proposed on vaccines last week are so critical.

I'm requiring federal workers to get vaccinated, requiring health care workers to be vaccinated, requiring employers with over 100 employees to institute vaccine and/or test protocols, calling on for them to be able to know what their employers -- their employees are doing before they walk through the door, calling for vaccine or test requirements to enter big venues, and a whole series of steps I proposed to protect our kids in schools.

Wall Street firms have analyzed the impact of these plans, and they're projecting that these new requirements will help 12 million more Americans get vaccinated, which will help more businesses stay open and more Americans back to work.

The data shows the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with my proposal. That is no surprise, given that 76 percent of American adults have already gotten at least one shot.

But we're facing a lot of pushback, especially from some of the Republican governors. The governors of Florida and Texas are doing everything they can to undermine the lifesaving requirements that I have proposed. And some of the same governors attacking me are in states with the strictest vaccine mandates for children attending school in the entire country.

For example, in Mississippi, children are required to be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, hepatitis B, polio, tetanus and more. These are state requirements.

But in the midst of a pandemic that has already taken over 660,000 lives, I propose a requirement for COVID vaccines, and the governor of that state calls it -- quote -- "a tyrannical-type move, a tyrannical- type move"?

This is the worst kind of politics, because it is putting the lives of citizens of their states, especially children, at risk. And I refuse to give into it.

These policies are what the science tells us we need to do. They're going to save lives. And it will protect our economic recovery as well and allow the economy to continue to grow.

We're also going after the bad actors and pandemic profiteers in our economy. There's lots of evidence that gas prices should be going down, but they haven't. We're taking a close look at that. Taxpayers in this country also have paid for extraordinary effort to keep our country going over the past year or so.

Unlike the last administration, which resisted oversight and allowed taxpayers to be victimized by fraud, we are working hard to protect vulnerable Americans from having their identity stolen, as a consequence, their unemployment check stolen as well. And we are going to offer organized criminals -- we are going to go

after organized criminals that defraud America or misuse COVID funds.

Look, we're also taking a closer look at places in our economy where fewer and fewer corporate giants are controlling more and more of the marketplace in the areas they work. Just look at agriculture and the food industry.

A very small number of giant corporations now dominate the market, which gives them the ability to drive up prices, because they face so little competition.

As we work to build health care competition in our economy and crack down on bad actors, the American Rescue Plan, which we passed in March, is still working to give hardworking Americans, hardworking people some relief.

One of the best examples of that relief is the expansion of the child tax credit, which, in effect, is essentially a historic tax cut for families with children. Just yesterday, 39 million working moms and dads got their direct payment.

That money is going to help cover groceries, the mortgage, new pairs of shoes, all of the things that kids need. It is a tax cut for working families. So, we're working to provide as much relief as we can right now to American families.

But here is the truth. Yes, the pandemic has caused a lot of economic problems in the country, but the fact is, our economy faced challenges long before the pandemic struck.

Working people were struggling to make it long before the pandemic arrived. Big corporations and the very wealthy were doing very well before the pandemic.

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That's why I have said starting back in my campaign for president that it is not enough to just build back. We have to build back better than before.

And that's how it all begins. Big corporations and the super wealthy have to start paying their fair share of taxes. It is long overdue.

I'm not out to punish anyone. I'm a capitalist. If you can make a million or a billion dollars, that's great. God bless you. All I'm asking is, you pay your fair share. Pay your fair share, just like middle-class folks do.

But that isn't happening now. Today, in this country right now, the top 1 percent, for example, evade an estimated $160 billion in taxes that they owe each year, not new taxes, taxes that they owe.

And the way it works is this. If you are a typical American, like I suspect most of the press people sitting in front of me here, you pay your taxes. Why? Because you get a W-2 form. It comes in the mail every year. The IRS gets that information as well.

Your taxes get deducted from your paycheck. And you pay what is owed beyond that. That's why 99 percent of working people pay the taxes they owe.

But that's not how it works for people with tens of millions of dollars. They play by a different set of rules, and they're often not employees themselves. So, the IRS can't see what they make and can't tell if they're cheating.

That's how many of the top 1 percent get away with paying virtually no in. It is estimated by serious economists that that number is about $160 billion collectively owed each year that doesn't get paid. It is not an even playing field.

My plan would help solve that. For example, it would give the IRS the resources it needs to keep up with the lawyers and accountants of the super wealthy. It would ask just for two pieces of information from the banks of these folks, the amounts that come into their bank accounts and what amounts go out of their bank accounts, so that the wealthy can no longer hide what they're making.

And they can finally begin to pay their fair share of what they owe. That isn't about raising their taxes. It is about the super wealthy finally beginning to pay what they owe, what the existing tax code calls for, just like hardworking Americans do all over this country every Tax Day.

Look, and like I said just a few minutes ago, 55 of the most profitable corporations in America paid zero in federal income taxes on what amounted to $40 billion in profit, not a penny.

That's not right. My economic plan will change that, not punish anybody, just make them pay their fair share.

But my Republican friends in Congress don't want to change the law, so what are they doing? They're attacking me and my plan, which is fine. But if you're going to have a debate, let's have an honest debate.

My Republican friends are attacking my plan, saying it is big spending. Let me remind you these are the same folks who just four years ago passed the Trump tax cut totaling almost $2 trillion in tax cuts, a giant giveaway to the largest corporations and the top 1 percent.

And listen to this. Almost none of that $2 trillion tax cut was paid for. It just ballooned the federal deficit. In fact, the unpaid bills ranked up -- racked up by the last administration are projected to increase the national debt by more than $8 trillion over time.

What I'm proposing is totally different from that approach, for three reasons. First, my plan is paid for. It is fiscally responsible, because our investments are paid for by making sure the corporations and wealthy Americans pay their fair share.

Second, we're not going to raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000. That's a lot of money. Some of my liberal friends are saying it should be lower than that. But only corporations and people making over $400,000 a year are going to pay any additional tax.

And, third, not only will no one making under $400,000 see their taxes go up. The middle class are going to get some tax cuts, some breaks.

[14:15:06]

My plan benefits ordinary Americans, not those at the top who don't need the help. It is a historic middle-class tax cut, cutting taxes for over 50 million families.

My Republican friends are making a different choice, though. They would rather protect the tax breaks of those at the very top than give tax breaks to working families. It is that simple.

But let me ask you this. Where is it written all of the tax breaks in the American tax code go to corporations and the very top? I think it is enough. I'm tired of it.

For me, it is pretty simple. It is about time working people got the tax breaks in this country. That's what my plan does.

And here is what it also does. By asking big corporations and the very wealthy to pay their fair share, it makes it possible to invest in America, to invest in the American people.

According to leading economists, forecasters like Moody's and major international financial institutions, my plan will create -- make us -- create jobs, make us more competitive, and grow our economy, and lessen, lessen, not increase, inflationary pressure.

I don't know what has been handed out today, but, by the way, 15 Nobel laureates in economics released a letter yesterday arguing that same -- that exact same point.

They said -- and I quote -- and this is from 15 Nobel laureates in economics -- quote -- "Because this agenda," the one I'm talking about, mine, "Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease long-term inflationary pressures."

It will ease it.

Let me highlight a few provisions of my plan. I know this is long, and I apologize, but it is important, I think.

My plan lowers the cost of day care and childcare and eldercare for families, and the added benefit of allowing millions of people, mostly women, who are not able to go back to work because of very young family members or elderly people they're taking care of, allow them to go back to work.

It is estimated in the millions can't go back. It lowers health care premium it for millions of families. It lowers prescription drug costs by giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices. And it strengthens Medicare by adding dental, vision and hearing coverage for -- if you are on Medicare.

It also extends a tax cut for families with kids that we passed in the American Rescue Plan in March. All of this will mean thousands of dollars in savings for the average American family on some of the toughest and most important bills they have to pay every month.

My Republican friends talk a lot about inflation, but if you want to talk about actually lowering the cost of living for people in this country, my plan does just that by strengthening the capacity of our economy, while also reducing inflationary pressures over the long run.

Here is something else my plan does. It confronts the crisis of extreme weather events that we're seeing around us and around the world, not just here in America. We see it everywhere. We know it is real.

In just the past few weeks, and there's more to come, I have seen the destruction of hurricanes in Louisiana, where winds got up to 100 -- gusts to 179 miles an hour, a deadly toll from flooding in New York, where 20 inches of rain in New Jersey, more than 11 inches of rain in some areas.

More than five million acres of our lands and communities have burned to the ground in wildfires just this year alone. That's more than the size of the entire state of New Jersey burned to the ground.

When I was out in California, I flew over some of these areas. In addition, there's a severe drought in the West and the Midwest. There's a blinking code red out there for the nation.

We can't wait to act. Extreme weather just last year cost the American public $99 billion in damage, $99 billion in damage last year. And, unfortunately, we're likely to break that record this year.

And the evidence is overwhelming that every dollar we invest in resilience saves $6 down the road, when the next fire doesn't spread as widely, or the power station holds up against the storm.

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We need to build with resilience, with resilience in mind, so roads are built heavy, levees are built more -- made more strong -- stronger, transmission lines are better protected, and so much more.

You know, I hope we are past debating climate change in this country. Now we have to act, and we have to act fast. And my plan does that.

Let me end with this. This pandemic has been god-awful for so many reasons, the lost lives of over 660,000, the jobs, the businesses lost, the lost time in school for our kids.

But it does present us with an opportunity. We can build an economy that gives working people a fair shot this time. We can restore some sanity and fairness to our tax code. We can make the investments that we know are long overdue in this nation.

That's exactly what my bipartisan infrastructure plan does. I should say our bipartisan infrastructure plan does, investments in roads, bridges, highways, clean water in every home and every school, universal broadband, quality, affordable places for families to live.

And we can invest in our people, giving our families a little help with their toughest expenses, like day care, childcare, eldercare, prescription drugs, health care, preparing the young people to compete against any country in the world with preschool and community college.

We can confront this crisis of extreme weather and climate change, and not only protect our communities, but create new opportunities, new industries and new jobs.

In short, this is an opportunity to be the nation that we know we can be, a nation where all of us, all of us, not just those at the top, are getting a share of the benefits of a growing economy in the years ahead.

Let's not squander this moment trying to preserve an economy that hasn't worked too well for Americans for a long time. Let's not look backward, just trying to rebuild what we had. Let's look forward together, as one America, not to build back, but to build back better.

Thank you all very much. And God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: President Biden there from the White House making another pitch for his $3.5 trillion reconciliation plan that is making its way through Congress.

Of course, we know some of the conservative, moderate Democrats are pushing back on that number. Also, as you heard there, for the bipartisan infrastructure plan, he calls this an inflection moment in the U.S., also says that this is a moment to bring working people back into the economy.

But, of course, the sausage-making, as we have talked about during this show, it continues.

CAMEROTA: So, let's talk about all of this with CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny. We also have CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Dean and Catherine Rampell, a columnist for "The Washington Post" and CNN economist and political commentator.

Jeff, I want to start with you. You're at the White House.

President Biden has been remarkably consistent on this really since taking office. He believes that the top 1 percent and corporations should, as he says, pay their fair share, which are higher taxes, he thinks, and that middle-class and working-class families are getting the basically short end of the stick with all of this.

But who is his audience? Who does he keep having to make this case to?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, he is certainly trying to reframe the conversation.

But his audience, by and large, is to the American people, but specifically to Democrats in Congress. His issue now are the Democrats who have not yet agreed to really the size or scope of this signature piece of legislation, some $3.5 trillion.

If you want to boil it down, his audience is Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of West Virginia and Arizona respectively. They were both here at the White House yesterday. They represent the view of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. They simply do not believe that this price tag is in line with what it should be.

They think it is too expensive. But what President Biden was trying to do is remind people why he was elected. This should not have come as a surprise to anyone. He ran on this, as you said. He said it endlessly on the campaign trail, so trying to refocus the conversation here about the need for this big sweeping bill, and how he believes that it ushers in economic fairness for how to pay for it.

Certainly, they're not going to get any Republican votes on this larger part of the plan. They are on the smaller infrastructure plan, but it is essentially rallying his own Democratic Party, both in the House and Senate, to get behind this bill and to do it now.

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This is a critical stretch. The next few weeks are absolutely critical for him getting this economic agenda through, so essentially trying to remind everyone of that.

BLACKWELL: Jessica Dean on Capitol Hill, this was a speech of mostly values and priorities, a few specifics, some numbers there about the plan, but not many.

As the president tries to speak to that audience of moderates, how far apart are the White House and those who are still holding out on the specifics of the plan?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have heard from Senator Joe Manchin he would like to see it at $1 trillion, $1.5 trillion, that that's a number he is more comfortable with. That's a very wide spectrum between that and $3.5 trillion.

And something else to remember, yes, the moderates are absolutely key in all of this, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema being two of the most public-facing members of that wing of the party, but also the progressives who really see this $3.5 trillion number as a huge compromise.

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs them on board. We talk about this all the time, that three-vote margin she has in the House. She needs that wing of progressives to also get on board, so it is quite the balancing act as to the size and scope of all of this and what the priorities are.

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi said to us just last week, where do we cut if we start cutting? And so they are looking at that, but it is interesting to see. Just yesterday, we saw, as these committees were marking up these bills, really putting together the nitty-gritty of this legislation, one of the key components is prescription drug prices.

And we saw moderate Democrats voting against that. That would -- that makes up about $700 billion of funding that they're looking for in this bill. That's a huge chunk of change.

And so, again, Victor and Alisyn, it's the push and pull right now between the various wings of this party. The bottom line is, they have got to be in lockstep. They need all 50 senators on board, and they, again, only have that tiny margin in the House.

So it is going to be interesting to see in the next couple of weeks as they furiously go back and forth, trying to figure out how they can get as much of the president's agenda in there and get everybody on board to get this thing through.

CAMEROTA: Catherine, back to raising taxes on who the president considers the uber wealthy and corporations, why is that such a tough sell? Why is that a tough sell for people like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema?

I mean, Arizona and West Virginia, they're not known for states that have uber wealthy. Doesn't that -- the idea of raising taxes resonate with their voters?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You would think so. And the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy is, broadly speaking, a popular idea.

Of course, the overall Democratic Party has been steadily changing the threshold for who counts as rich. Biden has said only those making over $400,000 count as rich. Obama not that long ago had said it was over $250,000. AOC, she of the infamous tax the rich ball gown, even said a couple of days ago that, no, really, the rich are only the billionaires and the hundred millionaires, few of whom presumably are in West Virginia.

They're more likely to be in places like New York and California. I think what this is about is wanting to appear as moderate. They don't -- these particular Democrats that you mentioned, Manchin and Sinema, don't want to be seen as these ultra left, soak-the-rich-type members of their party.

So they're trying to stake out some territory that makes them seem more moderate. They're not the socialists, right? They're the ones who are there for moderation.

I think what's ironic about some of this is that even some of the specific provisions that they are objecting to -- for example, Manchin has criticized the corporate tax rate -- the architect of the Trump tax cuts has said is acceptable.

Gary Cohn, the former economic adviser to President Trump, has said repeatedly that he thinks even a corporate tax rate as high as 28 percent would still be competitive in the United States. And yet Manchin has objected to it, has said that even something like 26.5 percent, which is where the House bill is right now, would be too high.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

Jeff, the context in which the president puts his plan, as he said many times, from the middle class out, that the economy will grow. And recent polling from CNN shows that this is, regardless of party affiliation, a serious concern.

Let's put up the numbers, of those asked if they're concerned about the economy in their community, 70 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of independents, 85 percent of Republicans.

So this is a significant concern, not just for the White House, but for those Democrats who will be back on the ballot in November of 2022.

ZELENY: It absolutely is.

And this is at the heart of this plan. And this is the -- of course, the Biden argument, the Biden administration's argument for why all of these plans are necessary.