“Build Back Better” or how to “build back better”. US President Joe Biden’s gigantic $ 1.8 trillion social and environmental reform plan was adopted by the House of Representatives on Friday, November 19.
This vote comes three days after the signing by the Democratic Head of State of the first part of his great economic plan. Its infrastructure act is the largest public works program in the United States since Dwight Eisenhower created the interstate highway system in 1956.
Next step for the “Build Back Better” plan, the Senate, where its examination and adoption promises to be more difficult, before a return to the lower house of Congress, probably in December or January. This is what the text contains.
Substantial social advances
The gigantic social component of this plan provides for free access to a school structure for children aged 3 and 4. An envelope of 109 billion dollars has been allocated to this program which could benefit some 6 million children, according to the newspaper USA Today.
The “Build Back Better” plan also provides for an investment of around 276 billion over 6 years for the care of children under 6 years old. The measure provides for childcare expenses to be capped at 7% of a family’s income for households with low or moderate incomes.
The text also includes four weeks of paid family and medical leave for American workers. The original 12-week proposal, brought by Joe Biden, was dropped during negotiations. The current law provides for leave of up to 12 weeks, but without pay.
With this plan, Medicare, a public health insurance system for those over 65 and on the lowest incomes, would cover the costs of hearing care. The proposal, defended in particular by Bernie Sanders, to extend it to dental and ophthalmic care was not retained. The text now also allows the government to negotiate the prices of certain drugs with pharmaceutical companies.
Access to housing, including in rural areas, would be extended with the construction of more than a million houses for rent, assistance for the payment of rent and for a mortgage. An envelope of 150 billion is provided for these purposes. The plan should also make it possible to extend the distribution of free meals in public American schools to students from low-income families.
Measures for the environment
The bill includes more than $ 550 billion in spending in favor of “clean” energies and to fight against climate change. He promises to replace school buses and postal service trucks with electric models. It must also finance the restoration of ecosystems, including those of the Great Lakes, in the northeast of the United States. It must also ban offshore oil drilling, authorized by Donald Trump.
A Civilian Climate Corps would emerge, endowed with 30 billion dollars. It would be an army of young activists, paid at least $ 15 an hour, to fight against the effects of climate change, by planting trees or helping communities to carry out their ecological transition.
Future tax revenues
This plan “will reduce the deficit by more than $ 100 billion over ten years”, assured Joe Biden on Twitter, and he will “lower costs, create jobs and rebuild our economy”. The White House promises that its ambitious social reforms will create millions of jobs.
The Build Back Better Act will lower costs, create jobs, and cut taxes, while tackling the climate crisis and growing the economy from the bottom up and middle out.
With its passage in the House, we’re one step closer to making a historic investment rebuilding the middle class.
– Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 19, 2021
Republicans see an example of what they denounce as the spending madness of their Democratic opponents. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that Joe Biden’s plan will increase the deficit by $ 367 billion over ten years. But for the White House, the estimate does not take into account possible savings related to taxation.
The plan also intends to strengthen the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the American tax authorities, by granting it an additional 80 billion, in particular in order to hunt down wealthy fraudsters. The Treasury Department estimates that this effort will translate into $ 479.6 billion in additional tax revenue. But the Congress expects a projection of around $ 207 billion.