Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton released her plan Monday to spend $275 billion over five years to improve America's decaying infrastructure and create jobs.
Phase one of the plan includes proposals to invest in roads, bridges, ports, waterways, airports, electric grids, energy systems and transit systems, reported the Hill.
Along with the $250 billion federal investment, Clinton's plan calls for establishing a $25 billion national infrastructure bank to encourage private investments.
The bank would leverage its $25 billion in funds to provide up to an additional $225 billion in direct loans, loan guarantees and other types of credit enhancement for infrastructure projects, "meaning that Clinton's infrastructure plan would in total result in up to $500 billion in federally supported investment," according to Clinton's fact sheet.
"Investing in infrastructure makes our economy more productive and competitive across the board. It cuts costs for families and businesses. It spurs more private investment. It boosts wages up and down the supply chain and throughout the economy," said Clinton while previewing the plan Sunday in Boston, reported Think Progress.
"To build a strong economy for our future, we must start by building strong infrastructure today. I want our cities to be in the forefront of cities anywhere in the world. I want our workers to be the most competitive and productive in the world. I want us, once again, to think big and look up, beyond the horizon of what is possible in America."
The White House Council of Economic Advisers has estimated that every $1 billion in public infrastructure spending creates 13,000 jobs, suggesting that Clinton's plan could, by conservative estimates, create in excess of three million jobs.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the U.S. infrastructure a D+ grade and said it needs an estimated $3.6 trillion investment by 2020 to bring it up to par.
"I don't have to tell you what a sorry state we're in," said Clinton in Boston. "Our roads and bridges are potholed and crumbling. Families endure blackouts because our electric grid fails in extreme weather. Beneath our cities, our pipeline infrastructure — our water, our sewer, you name it — is up to a century or more old. Our airports are a mess. Our ports need improvement. Our rail systems do as well."
As part of her plan, Clinton, a former secretary of state, also pledged to have 100 percent of American households connected to broadband Internet by 2020.
Much of the additional federal spending on infrastructure would be paid for by business tax reforms, such as closing corporate tax loopholes, including tax inversion provisions that major corporations use to skirt high U.S. tax rates by moving their home offices overseas while keeping their material operations in the U.S., according to the Fiscal Times.
