AP FACT CHECK: Biden's job inflation on infrastructure

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and his team have offered a vastly inflated projection of how many jobs his infrastructure plan would create, an account his press secretary corrected Tuesday. Biden has also drifted beyond the facts when dismissing the potential downsides of the tax increases needed to pay for all those roads and bridges.

A look at the administration's infrastructure sales pitch over recent days:

CORPORATE TAXES

BIDEN, when asked if his proposed corporate income tax increase would drive U.S. companies overseas: “Not at all...because there’s no evidence to that...that’s bizarre.” — remarks to reporters Monday.

THE FACTS: Hardly bizarre. Biden's administration is aware that lower tax rates abroad could tempt U.S. companies to move. Whether the proposed tax increase would be big enough to have that effect is another matter.

The same day Biden made his comments, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen endorsed a global minimum corporate tax rate precisely to prevent countries from cutting rates to entice businesses to move.

Yellen said it was time to end a 30-year “race to the bottom” of nations cutting their corporate tax rates to secure an advantage. Her approach suggests the administration at least accepts the possibility that a corporate tax rate increase in the U.S. could result in U.S. multinationals shifting their headquarters overseas.

Biden is proposing an increase in the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, to partly pay for his infrastructure proposal. President Donald Trump cut the rate from 35% in his 2017 tax law.

___

INFRASTRUCTURE JOBS

BIDEN, on his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan: “Independent analysis shows that if we pass this plan, the economy will create 19 million jobs — good jobs, blue-collar jobs, jobs that...