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President Biden unveiled a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan centered on fixing roads and bridges, expanding broadband internet access and boosting funding for research and development, plus higher corporate taxes to pay for the package. The Democratic president cast his plan as a fundamental shift in economic thought away from the small-government, tax-cutting approach embraced decades ago under Ronald Reagan, a Republican.
Mr. Biden's infrastructure proposal faces hurdles, including GOP (Republican Party) opposition to significant tax increases, disagreements among Democrats about how to pay for the package and progressives' concerns that it isn't ambitious enough.
The plan would cost about $2.3 trillion over eight years and be paid for over 15 years by raising the corporate tax rate and increasing taxes on companies' foreign earnings. The tax changes would revamp or replace much of the international tax structure congressional Republicans established four years ago in the law signed by then-President Donald Trump.
Mr. Biden's proposal includes $621 billion to modernize transportation infrastructure, $400 billion to help care for the aging and those with disabilities, $300 billion to boost the manufacturing industry, $213 billion on retrofitting and building affordable housing, and $100 billion to expand broadband access. The plan calls for modernizing 20,000 miles of roadway; building 500,000 electric-vehicle charging stations; replacing the country's existing lead pipes and service lines; repairing aging schools; expanding home care for the elderly and disabled; and investing billions of dollars in domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Mr. Biden also proposes mandating that more of the nation's electricity be generated from low-carbon sources.
The rollout of the proposal will kick off months of negotiations between the White House and Capitol Hill, as well as a wave of lobbying by business and industry groups. White House officials acknowledged that the shape of the package could change as lawmakers-eager to put their stamp on it and score victories for constituents-offer up their own proposals. Mr. Biden's advisers hope Congress will pass it this summer.
Republicans and Democrats have struggled in recent years to pass major infrastructure legislation, disagreeing over how much to spend and how to finance it. Republicans are especially unlikely to agree to reverse the 2017 tax law that they supported enthusiastically. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the chamber's GOP leader, said Mr. Biden called him Tuesday to discuss the plan, which Mr. McConnell said appeared to be only nominally about infrastructure. In his speech in Pittsburgh, Mr. Biden said he plans to invite Republicans to the Oval Office to discuss the proposal. “If it's a Trojan horse for a massive tax increase, put me down as highly skeptical,” Mr. McConnell said Wednesday at an event in Kentucky.
[A] the only reason for raising corporate taxes
[B] a deep adjustment of economic policy
[C] an inheritance of the Reagan-era approach
[D] the support for small-government measures
[A] carrying out tax reforms
[B] eliminating social concerns
[C] abolishing international taxes
[D] getting support in his own party
[A] charging stations
[B] affordable housing
[C] semiconductor production
[D] low-carbon electricity plants
[A] will be replaced by other plans
[B] will be passed in this summer
[C] may cause huge social unrest
[D] may undergo some changes
[A] Because he questioned its legitimacy.
[B] Because he considered it as deceptive.
[C] Because he was against increasing taxes.
[D] Because he refused to go to the Oval Office.
Scholars are often greatly excited by “natural experiments”, events that end up separating two groups of people, allowing wonks to compare their subsequent behaviour. Much like the study of twins adopted into different households , the postwar division and eventual reunification of Germany could be seen as such an experiment. A report by the German Institute for Economic Research on working mothers reveals the interplay between policy and attitudes that influences the decision to work.
When the German Democratic Republic in the east united with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, the mothers of young children led very different lives. Eastern mothers were almost as likely to work as fathers, and most worked full-time. In the west, where state and church encouraged mums to stay at home, less than half were in paid employment, and most of those worked part-time.
Three decades on, how has the picture changed? Two things stand out. First, behaviour has changed drastically since unification: the share of eastern women with young children working full-time fell from over half in 1990 to just under a third in 2018. More women across Germany are working part-time. Second, east-west differences still exist. The share of eastern mums in full-time work is more than double that in the west.
Policy seems to play a powerful role in explaining the collapse in full-time employment in the east. Despite some recent changes, the policies of unified Germany, like those of the FRG, still assume that women are wives and mothers first. Joint taxation of married couples, free co-insurance for spouses and tax breaks for “mini jobs”, or low-hours contracts, probably did little to encourage women in the west to up their hours, and put those in the east off full-time work.
Attitudes, meanwhile, may help explain part of the lasting hours gap between east and west: 30 years after unification, eastern women are still more likely to approve of full-time working mums. This is consistent with the earlier findings that east Germans are more likely to have an egalitarian view of the roles of the sexes. Attitudes have also changed over time, though. Strikingly, women born after 1975 in both the east and west are more likely to disapprove of mothers in full-time work than older ones, putting paid to the idea that younger women are keener on work. Perhaps women's views are shaped by the policies they face.
The unification “experiment” hardly took place in laboratory conditions. Many women migrated from east to west. The regions differ in many other respects-incomes per head are lower in the east, for instance-that also affect the number of hours women work. But the episode still says something about the power of policy and the endurance of attitudes, long after the Berlin Wall was torn down.
[A] the divided Germany and the reunited Germany
[B] the two groups of people in research
[C] the scholars conducting natural experiments
[D] the interplay between policy and attitudes
[A] stick to their full-time jobs
[B] be influenced by the church
[C] embrace the national policy
[D] start choosing part-time work
[A] eastern women are now willing to return to their families
[B] western women's attitudes towards work remain unchanged
[C] mothers' attitudes to job selection may change with policies
[D] young women are more eager to work full-time
[A] This study is not as rigorous as laboratory experiments.
[B] The influencing factors of social research are complex.
[C] The change of attitudes needs the guidance of policies.
[D] The Berlin Wall in people's mind has not yet collapsed.
[A] Why do eastern and western German women still work different hours?
[B] What are the limitations of natural experiments in social science?
[C] How has the postwar division influenced the German women?
[D] Which exerts more effect on work choice, policy or attitudes?
More than six months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, one question remains decidedly unanswered: How will it come to an end? It seems safe to say that someday, somehow, it will end. After all, other viral pandemics have.
Take, for example, the flu pandemic of 1918–19. That earlier pandemic was the deadliest in the 20th century; it infected about 500 million people and killed at least 50 million, including 675,000 in the US. And while science has advanced significantly since then, the uncertainty felt around the world today would have been familiar a century ago. In fact, even after that virus died out, it would be years before scientists better understood what had happened, and some mystery still remains.
Here's what we do know: in order for a pandemic to end, the disease in question has to reach a point at which it is unable to successfully find enough hosts to catch it. In the case of that pandemic, though it's famous for sweeping the world in 1918 and 1919, cases spiked again in early 1920.
“The end of the pandemic occurred because the virus circulated around the globe, infecting enough people that the world population no longer had enough susceptible people in order for the strain to become a pandemic once again,” says medical historian J. Alexander Navarro. Eventually, with “fewer susceptible people out and about and mingling,” Navarro says, there was nowhere for the virus to go-the “herd immunity” talked about today. All told, a whopping third of the world's population had caught the virus. Today, about half a percent of the global population is known to have been infected with the novel coronavirus.
The end of the 1918 pandemic wasn't, however, just the result of so many people catching it. Social distancing was also key to reducing its impact. Public-health advice back then was strikingly similar to that of today-urging mask wearing, frequent hand-washing, quarantining and isolating of patients, and the closure of schools and public spaces. In fact, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2007 found that US cities that implemented more than one of these control measures earlier and kept them in place longer had better, less deadly outcomes than cities that implemented fewer later.
Today, scientists are still learning how COVID-19 behaves, but they expect the pandemic won't really end until there's both a vaccine and a certain level of exposure in the global population. “We're not certain,” Markel says, “but we're pretty darn sure.” In the meantime, people can help the effort to limit the impact of the pandemic. A century ago, being proactive about public health saved lives-and it can do so again today.
[A] There are still mysteries about it.
[B] It is the deadliest epidemic to date.
[C] It forced science to develop rapidly.
[D] It had the biggest impact on Americans.
[A] appeared
[B] dispersed
[C] rocketed
[D] fluctuated
[A] the “herd immunity” occurred
[B] there were no susceptible people
[C] it reached each corner of the world
[D] the world's birth rate declined sharply
[A] Forbidding people to gather together.
[B] Taking proper public health measures.
[C] Teaching people how to wash hands.
[D] Encouraging people to get vaccinated.
[A] introducing background knowledge
[B] comparing various opinions
[C] analyzing the cause behind
[D] referring to a similar event
Since the EU launched its carbon emission trading system in 2005, industries have followed different greenhouse-gas trajectories. The power sector has cut them by half. Among cement-and steel-industries, which got free carbon emission allowances for four-fifths of their exhausts to stop the shift of production abroad, they have made few concessions.
The European Commission wants to end this handout. Last month the EU's executive arm proposed new rules to help the bloc meet its goal of cutting emissions by 55% from levels in 1990 by 2030. One proposal would withdraw free allowances for producers of aluminium, cement, fertiliser, iron and steel, and levy import tariffs on these products based on their carbon content. This “carbon border adjustment mechanism” (CBAM) aims to level the playing field. If Europe's steel mills must pay for the carbon they spew, so will their rivals selling to the EU.
The EU plan is just that for now. It needs the nod from the European Parliament and member states. Other countries may challenge it. If enacted, CBAM would not start until 2026 and take a decade to roll out. Still, it is a test case that governments and firms elsewhere will study.
Heavy industry may pass the costs of CBAM to EU firms that use the carbon-intensive inputs. The commission estimates this impact to be modest, with a slight dip in employment. Not everyone agrees. Farmers and unions are furious. The CBAM would thus make them harder to compete with cheaper foreign grain. And the costs will be hard to pass on, because consumers are reluctant to pay more for low-carbon products.
Firms' reaction has been mixed. Many profess to support the energy transition but gripe about the rules. Others, including LafargeHolcim, a Swiss cement giant, say they welcome them. Still, Cedric de Meeus of LafargeHolcim notes that although cement-makers do not now pay for all their pollution, the rising price of carbon in Europe makes EU-made cement pricier than foreign stuff. As a result, the bloc imported 25% more cement in 2020 than in 2019.
Some trade groups are responding by lobbying lawmakers. With some success: in March the European Parliament passed a non-binding vote to keep the free allowances. Others will hedge by buying extra allowances when carbon prices are low, as power companies now do routinely.
A few are reacting as the plan intended: by trying to decarbonise. However, decarbonisation is costly. Mr. de Meeus says that making cement with a third less carbon adds some 15% to the cost. Other corporations call for infrastructure, such as pipelines to funnel captured carbon dioxide from factories, as well as financial aid. The EU may need more carrots to go with its new stick.
[A] significantly reduced their carbon emissions
[B] are unwilling to shift their production abroad
[C] often vary their emission reduction strategies
[D] didn't achieve ideal emission reduction effect
[A] It passes the costs of emissions reduction to its rivals.
[B] It raises import tariffs on heavy industrial products.
[C] It will have a serious impact on employment.
[D] It will be enacted and implemented within a decade.
[A] Because it may force consumers to pay for the low-carbon products.
[B] Because it may raise the cost of agricultural production.
[C] Because it will greatly reduce grain yield.
[D] Because it will import more cheaper grain from abroad.
[A] the retention of free allowances
[B] the increase in financial assistance
[C] a policy of incentives and penalties
[D] a large scale infrastructure construction
[A] The reactions to a new proposal.
[B] The reasons for amending a bill.
[C] The obstacles to a new mechanism.
[D] The costs of EU emission reduction.