Joe Biden’s $1.75 Billion Investment social safety net There will be changes in the US Senate as the president comes under pressure to refocus his administration to curb inflation.
Biden has struggled for months with a drop in public approval ratings, which have fallen to lows in recent weeks amid discontent over rising prices, supply chain disruptions and the Covid-19 pandemic. lengthen.
A CBS News/YouGov poll on Sunday found that two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of inflation. Eighty-two percent of respondents said the items they usually buy are “more expensive than they are.”
The issue has prevented Biden from getting a boost from two legislative victories in weeks – the US House of Representatives passed both his top $1.2 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Build package. Back Better is worth a bigger $1.75 billion. But while Biden has signed the infrastructure bill into law, the social spending package – including subsidies for early childhood education, tax credits for families with children, expansion of public health care for the elderly and about $550 billion in programs against climate change Facing tougher times in the Senate.
Jon Tester, a Democratic senator from Montana, acknowledged on Sunday that the Senate would make “some changes” to the House bill. “But, look, we’re working with the right people here,” Tester told NBC News. “I think we can come up with a bill, a very, very effective bill.”
Democrats plan to pass the bill before Christmas without Republican support. But the sweeping spending package is likely to be subject to weeks of bipartisan controversy within Congress, in part to get the attention of two of the most conservative Democratic senators: West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Both lawmakers raised concerns about the size and scope of the bill, echoing Republican arguments that the package would unnecessarily increase the federal deficit at a time when more and more Americans worry about rising consumer costs.
Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, argued on Sunday that Build Back Better would actually reduce inflation if it became law. “Experts worldwide reviewed [Build Back Better] Deese said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. “But what it will do is it will reduce costs.”
However, the independent Congressional Budget Office, which provides cost estimates for key pieces of legislation, said last week that the bill would add $367 billion to the federal deficit over the decade. coming, while the White House’s own proposals to strengthen Internal tax enforcement. The Internal Revenue Service will reduce the deficit by $127 billion over the same period.
The White House has denied the assessments, arguing that the CBO underestimated the revenue the tax changes would bring to the Treasury Department. The administration released its own estimates saying that Build Back Better and the IRS changes would reduce the federal deficit by $112.5 billion.
“This bill will be the biggest cost-cutting bill for working-class American families in decades in this country, and it will come at the expense of persistent problems for the American people. in their lives,” Deese said, pointing to provisions in the bill that would lead to lower prescription drug costs for seniors and subsidized child care for low- and middle-income Americans. than.
Some elements of the legislation are likely to be introduced in the Senate. House Democrats have introduced into the bill a tax change favoring wealthy homeowners that has been opposed by progressive senator, and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House, pressed for a new plan to provide four weeks of paid parental and family leave for all workers in the face of Manchin’s objections .
Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democratic senator from New York who has pushed for 12 weeks of paid leave, told CBS News on Sunday that she is “optimistic” that she can “continue to talk” with Manchin on how to include paid leave in the final package. . She added that the West Virginia senator was “in the driver’s seat about how to pay for these proposals.”
