Business group pushes back on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's infrastructure pitch

Corporations should help pay for infrastructure in a return to historic levels of taxation, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday, in remarks met with immediate pushback from the country's biggest business lobbying group. 

Yellen pushed the Biden administration's American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, which include more than $4 trillion for infrastructure, education and other provisions to help American families and workers, in her address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global forum on Economic Recovery. Yellen said the United States has not maintained its infrastructure, let alone modernized it, sufficiently supported public research and development to maintain a technological edge, invested in education and training or built the support systems families need.  "We believe the corporate sector can contribute to this effort by bearing its fair share: We propose simply to return the corporate tax toward historical norms," Yellen said.