By Robert Kittle
Vice President Joe Biden was in Columbia Wednesday to push a federal plan to improve roads and bridges across the U.S. “The United States of America ranks 28th in the world in modern infrastructure. We shouldn’t rank 28th in the world in anything that needs to be done for our country,” he said at Owen Steel.
President Obama officially announced the plan earlier this month. It’s called “Grow America” and would spend $478 billion over six years on transportation infrastructure.
To pay for it, the plan would cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent while eliminating all loopholes. Biden says that would bring in an additional $200 billion the first year.
He says the plan would have a noticeable effect on South Carolina’s roads and bridges, but also on its economy. “Modernization of our infrastructure creates jobs, jobs you can live on, you can raise a family on, and jobs that start a virtuous cycle. They not only provide the job that builds the infrastructure, they in turn attract businesses that come because of the infrastructure, creating more jobs.”
He says the average South Carolina driver loses $1,000 a year sitting in traffic.
But state Republicans are skeptical of the plan. State GOP Chairman Matt Moore says, “Well the devil’s in the details and we’ve seen an unwillingness of this administration to go down the street to Congress and actually hash out these details. So instead they go out to the states on these taxpayer-funded political adventures and create a bunch of news and talking points and nothing ever happens.”