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What’s in the bill?

This piece by Peter Drier at TPM talks about the inane insistence that Democrats are in disarray simply because a small handful in the House and two divas in the Senate are holding the entire Biden agenda hostage. All of what he says is true. The Democrats are actually in lockstep except for a few outliers who are gumming up the works.

But I thought this was an excellent recitation of what is contained in that agenda and it’s important that we remind ourselves of what’s at stake in all this:

Soon after Biden took office in January, he, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to draft two bills that reflected key parts of the president’s campaign promises. One involved a $1 trillion (over ten years) public-works infrastructure plan, about $550 billion of which would be new spending not previously allocated by Congress. The other focused on expanding the nation’s social safety net and addressing climate change, and would cost $3.5 trillion over ten years — though that figure is misleadingly high, as explained below.

In August, the Senate approved a $1 trillion physical infrastructure plan to rebuild roads, replace water pipes that have toxic lead, expand broadband internet, shore up coastlines against climate change, modernize the electric grid, protect public utility systems from cyber attacks, pay for new public transportation, and upgrade airports and railroads. Speaker Pelosi has postponed a vote on that bill; Biden, Schumer and Pelosi have all insisted that both bills should move in unison.

The safety net and climate change plan is stuck primarily because Manchin and Sinema won’t go along. Manchin has demanded that at least $2 trillion be lopped off Biden’s plan, which would result in a $1.5 trillion bill — an amount that Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) dismissed as “crumbs.” Sinema won’t even say what her ideal figure is.

The Build Back Better plan would expand Medicare and, for the first time, provide dental, vision, and hearing coverage to the 60 million elderly and disabled Americans who rely on it. It would expand health care for roughly four million low-income people in the states (most of which are run by Republicans) that have refused to expand Medicaid on their own. The provision to expand the Child Tax Credit to $300 a month per child under six and $250 a month per child age 6 to 17 would cut child poverty by half, according to some estimates. The Biden plan would also offer free public pre-kindergarten and two years of free community college and provides 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, which would guarantee that all Americans have the time to care for themselves and their families and loved ones.

The plan also includes provisions to deal with climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions, including a clean-electricity program designed to significantly reduce fossil fuel emissions from U.S. power plants by 2035. It would invest billions of dollars to build 500,000 electric-vehicle charging stations and update the electrical grid to make it more effective during extreme weather events.

The Republicans and the handful of Democratic dissenters typically describe the plan as “massive,” “big government,” and “unprecedented.”

In fact, the plan would only amount to roughly 1.5% of the country’s gross domestic product. This is a smaller increase than that of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal (which included Social Security and unemployment insurance) and President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs (which included Medicare and Medicaid).

Even the $3.5 trillion figure is misleading. It would stretch over ten years, a fact that many news reports ignore or downplay. One expert estimated that the total cost is less than three dollars (actually $2.88) a day.

Moreover, the $3.5 trillion would be offset by $2.9 trillion in new revenue, according to recent estimates. So the actual cost is just $0.6 trillion.

To pay for the plan, Biden proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 26.5 percent on companies’ annual income over $5 million. He’s also proposed restoring the top tax rate to 39.6 percent on individuals earning more than $400,000 — or $450,000 for couples — plus a 3 percent surtax on wealthier Americans with adjusted income over $5 million a year. As such, the plan would partially reverse the trillions that the Trump administration and the Republican Congress gave away to the wealthy and big business in tax cuts through their signature legislative achievement of the Trump era. Moreover, Biden’s plan would reduce federal taxes for eight out of 10 households.

Imagine if the Democrats get this through. Imagine the material improvement in people’s lives and the positive progress we will make in securing the planet’s future. ( If we don’t do the latter, the lives of our grandchildren will be immeasurably worse in ways I don’t even want to contemplate. )

Drier goes on to point out that if the small faction of self-serving “moderates” are able to destroy this agenda, the Democrats will have to go to the voters with nothing to show for their majority and many of them will lose their House seats while Manchin and Sinema will be pariah’s in the new minority to which they will have ensured the Democrats are consigned.

And he implores the press to accurately portray what is happening:

If Biden’s bill doesn’t make it through Congress, don’t blame “the Democrats.” Blame every Republican, and the tiny faction of Democrats, who have put their personal ambitions over the public good.

Let’s just say I’m not holding my breath.

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