Analysis: Bumpy road ahead for Biden's infrastructure plan

Infrastructure was a road to nowhere for former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama. But Joe Biden believes he can use it to drive America to the future after a dozen years of false starts.

The trip is unlikely to be smooth.

Biden's $2.3 trillion infrastructure package, released Wednesday, would go well beyond the usual commitments to roads and bridges. It's a down payment on combating climate change, a chance to take on racial inequities, an expansion of broadband, an investment in manufacturing and a reorienting of corporate taxes to pay for everything. To succeed where his predecessors stalled, Biden will have to navigate a conflicting set of political forces with winners and losers all around.

“It’s going to create the strongest, most resilient, innovative economy in the world,” the president said in a Wednesday afternoon speech in Pittsburgh. “It’s big, yes, it’s bold, yes, and we can get it done.”

Biden sees infrastructure as a fundamental promise to the entire country that must be honored before Democrats face voters in 2022.

The president resisted calls by business groups to pay for his plan with higher gas taxes and tolls, since the costs would be borne by working Americans and Biden had promised no tax hikes on anyone making less than $400,000. That's according to an administration official who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Yet the decision to keep that particular promise likely dooms any chance of wider bipartisan unity.

Biden's proposal would gut the core of Trump's 2017 tax cuts — an affront to many Republican lawmakers, who would also prefer that infrastructure stay in a narrow lane. The corporate tax rate would jump to 28% from 21% under Biden's plan, and a global minimum tax would be charged to prevent...