ASU economist talks Build Back Better Plan

Congress and President Biden continue to push for the Build Back Better Plan, a sweeping program that will include everything from efforts to mitigate climate change to expanding medicare. We spoke to Arizona State University economist Dennis Hoffman about what’s in the package.

“About half of the 3.5 trillion expenditure plan is still viable as of today,” Hoffman said.  He added that there was not a lot of capital expansion in 2017-2018 in major corporate tax cuts that was enacted substantially. “Raising minimums up to 15 percent wouldn’t leave that much of a mark,” he mentioned.

Hoffman added that his preference is to tax everyone according to their means to pay for government services. “The cool thing is this does stretch over the next decade and I think that’s important.” He said the benefits include human and physical infrastructure that are going to flow out over the next decade.