Klobuchar makes infrastructure pitch as first 2020 policy proposal

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, one of over a dozen Democrats running for president in 2020, on Thursday unveiled a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, the first major policy proposal from the Minnesota Democrat since she announced her campaign. 

Klobuchar said the money will go to repairing roads, bridges and highways, protecting against flooding, expanding public transportation, rebuilding schools and expanding internet access to every American household by 2020.

{mosads}The plan also includes priorities in line with the Democratic Party’s progressives, including ensuring clean drinking water and investing in green infrastructure to transform the economy “from one reliant on fossil fuels to one that depends on clean energy.” 

“President Trump is asking Congress for $200 billion for infrastructure in his budget proposal that will somehow support an over a trillion-dollar investment, but his plan is a mirage and he leaves the details up to lawmakers,” Klobuchar’s campaign said in a Medium post. “In contrast, Amy has a concrete, commonsense proposal that will invest in our future and make sure our country’s infrastructure is second to none.”

“Amy’s infrastructure plan will be her top budget priority, and she will work to get it done during the first year of her presidency,” the post continued, highlighting Klobuchar’s efforts to get funding to rebuild the I-35W bridge in Minnesota, which collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007, killing 13 people.

The infrastructure proposal intends to leverage $650 billion through public-private partnerships, bond programs and clean-energy tax incentives and revive the Obama-era Build America Bonds program that was instituted during the recession to rejuvenate the economy. 

Billions of dollars would come from closing tax loopholes, imposing a “financial risk fee” on large banks and boosting the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 25 percent.

Klobuchar, who has often spoken of economic struggles rural communities in Minnesota face, said that she is “committed to ensuring that there is public engagement and transparency in the infrastructure planning process” and intends to aid “parts of our country where communities are not as densely populated or former hubs still adjusting to the loss of manufacturing jobs.”

The Minnesota Democrat is expected to expand more on her plan during campaign stops in Iowa Friday and Saturday as she tours areas damaged by recent flooding and struggling with a lack of clean drinking water.