Build Back Better bill debate begins; CBO score to be released Thursday

Build Back Better bill debate begins; CBO score to be released Thursday

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On Thursday, the House of Representatives began debate on President Joe Biden’s $1.85 trillion Build Back Better bill, a sweeping measure aimed at expanding the social safety net and devoting funds to combat climate change.


What You Need To Know

  • The House of Representatives began debate on President Joe Biden’s $1.85 trillion Build Back Better bill, the sweeping measure aimed at funding social programs and combatting climate change 
  • The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it will publish “a complete cost estimate” for the bill later Thursday afternoon; The CBO score will likely be crucial to winning the support of key moderates in the House and Senate, including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who has been critical of legislation which could add to the deficit
  • The White House has insisted the bill is fully paid for, though earlier this week it sought to downplay the head of the CBO’s assessment over how much revenue IRS enforcement will generate
  • The bill is still very popular among the American people: A recently released Quinnipiac poll, which spelled mixed results for the president’s party in other regards, found that 58% of Americans support the Build Back Better bill, compared to just 36% who oppose it

A vote on the measure could take place as early as Thursday evening, even though some moderate Democrats say they’re waiting on an score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a cost estimate of the impact of the sweeping legislation.

“As soon as we receive the final CBO estimates for Member review, we can then proceed to votes on the revised Rule with the Manager’s Amendment and final passage,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to members of her caucus Thursday.

“Build Back Better is a spectacular vision for the future, with transformational and historic action on health care, family care and climate that will make a significant difference in the lives of millions of Americans,” Pelosi wrote of the bill. “It will create millions of good-paying jobs, lower families costs and cut their taxes, while making the wealthiest few and big corporations pay their fair share.”

The CBO said in a statement that it will publish “a complete cost estimate” for the bill later Thursday afternoon. The CBO has already released “11 estimates for individual titles of the bill,” which largely line up with White House estimates.

The CBO score will likely be crucial to winning the support of key moderates in the House and Senate, including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who has been critical of legislation which could add to the deficit. (Manchin was one of the key negotiators on the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which Biden signed into law this week; the CBO estimated that bill would add $256 billion to the deficit.)

The Biden administration has insisted that the bill is “fully paid for,” though earlier this week the White House sought to downplay the head of the CBO’s assessment about a key revenue stream in paying for the president’s plan.

Phillip Swagel, director of the nonpartisan CBO, said Monday that a plan to beef up the IRS in order to crack down on tax cheats would yield about $120 billion over a decade, just a fraction of the $400 billion the Biden administration is counting on.

During a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates cast doubt on the CBO’s calculation. 

“There has been wide agreements on the part of everyone involved —  moderates, liberals, etc. — that CBO does not have experience analyzing revenue amounts gained from cracking down on wealthy tax cheats who are taking advantage of every honest taxpayer,” Bates said.

Bates added: “There’s a huge body of work from economic experts, including Republican former treasury secretaries, IRS commissioners who have served served under presidents of both parties, as well as (former Treasury Secretary and National Economic Council Director) Larry Summers, with whom we have sometimes had important differences, affirming that, if anything, our estimates lowball how much revenue can be brought in by cracking down on rich tax cheats.”

Swagel suggested the Biden administration is being overly optimistic that more aggressive auditing would deter wealthy people and corporations from seeking out new ways to avoid paying taxes.

Bates said, outside of the IRS enforcement projection, “CBO’s fiscal data so far lines up with our estimates that we released to all of you for costs, or they even come in below our estimates.”  

Manchin has also expressed concerns about inflation related to the bill, after a report emerged last week that consumer prices jumped 6.2% in October from the year prior, the largest jump in decades. Roughly half of Americans (48%) blame Biden for rising inflation, according to a recently released ABC News-Washington Post poll, though wages are up and unemployment is down significantly since the Democrat took office. Fifty percent do not blame Biden much, or at all, for inflation.

The Biden administration continually points to a letter from 17 Nobel laureats in economics, which says that because the president’s agenda “invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put it bluntly on Wednesday: “Stronger growth, less inflation. I’ll say it again: if you want to fight inflation—if you want to lower costs and grow the economy—support Build Back Better. If you want to fight inflation, support Build Back Better.”

The news comes at the bill continues to be popular among the American people. A recently released Quinnipiac poll, which spelled mixed results for the president’s party in other regards, found that 58% of Americans support the Build Back Better bill, compared to just 36% who oppose it. The bill has the support of a majority of independents, 59-37, and an overwhelming majority of Democrats, 90-6. The same poll found it was slightly more popular than the infrastructure bill, which enjoyed 57% support.

Democrats are still hammering out the final details of the bill, with a couple of sticking points, including paid family leave and the state and local tax (SALT) deduction on property taxes. The Trump administration’s 2017 tax bill, supported unilaterally by Republicans, caps that deduction at $10,000 per year.

Some Democrats argue that it’s a benefit to the wealthy, but others, many from high-income, high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, say that it disproportionately impacts their constitutents.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, called it “bad policy” and “bad politics.”

“We’ve got to demand that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes, not give them more tax breaks,” Sanders said, adding: “We have to help the middle class, not the 1%.”

Surprisingly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who shepherded the tax bill through the Senate in 2017, criticized SALT relief on Thursday, saying it benefits “the ultrawealthy out on the coast.”

But Pelosi vowed to “fight” to keep SALT relief in the bill, setting up a potential showdown as the two chambers of Congress reconcile their differences to pass the other key portion of President Biden’s economic agenda ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Members of the House Democratic caucus are confident that they have the votes to pass the bill, even though they can only afford to lose three votes with their razor-thin majority and every Republican vowing to oppose the measure.

Spectrum News’ Ryan Chatelain contributed to this report.

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