House approves Build Back Better Act

After months of bargaining, the House of Representatives finally voted to pass President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and sent it to the Senate.

While several of the bold measure’s original proposals — including the Clean Electricity Performance Program — have been jettisoned due to opposition from Democratic lawmakers who rely heavily on corporate campaign contributions, the revised bill includes a large investment to address climate change and transition to a clean energy economy.

The House voted 220 to 212 to pass Biden’s Build Back Better bill, with one Democrat —Rep. Jared F. Golden of Maine—joining all Republicans in opposing the measure.

Golden said he opposed the measure because of tax giveaways to the wealthy that are in the bill at the insistence of New Jersey lawmakers, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer.

“Many of my colleagues argue this major line item is worth accepting to pass the rest of the bill. I disagree: the SALT giveaway in the Build Back Better Act is larger than the child care, pre-K, healthcare or senior care provisions of the bill. As a result, the legislation would give a millionaire nearly 20 times more money than it would provide a low-income family through the Child Tax Credit,” said Golden.

The second-biggest program in the legislation is a $285 billion tax cut that would almost exclusively benefit high-income households, but New Jersey Democrats demanded that the provision be included in the spending plan.

Representatives Josh Gottheimer, Tom Malinowski, Bill Pascrell, Jr., and Mikie Sherrill threatened to oppose the package unless the SALT deduction was included.

Raising the SALT cap will reduce revenue by $300 billion over the next five years.

The Build Back Better agenda — the unprecedented investment in our climate, is a statement on the power of the progressive movement and the first significant indication that some Democrats are prepared to reverse the disastrous ‘Reaganomics’ policies that led to a nearly $30 trillion national debt, massive inequality and a crumbling infrastructure.

The legislation could help millions of Americans recover from inequality and injustices that have resulted from discredited supply-side economic policies that have been in effect over the last 40 years– and it could figure significantly if Democratic candidates are victorious in 2022.

Earlier this week, Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law, which funds one of New Jersey’s core priorities, the Gateway Tunnel.

The bill is loaded with popular programs such as child care, universal pre-K, action to alleviate climate change, and lower-price prescriptions — all of which are paid for by taxing the ultra-wealthy and multinational corporations that have escaped the burden of paying a fair share of the cost of government since President Ronald Reagan slashed top tax rates from 70 percent to 28 percent in the mid-1980s.

Nearly three-quarters of voters think it is important for lawmakers to make progress towards Biden’s goal of cutting U.S. climate pollution in half by 2030, according to surveys.

The bill would allocate $550 billion to combat climate change, $400 billion to fund child care and universal preschool, $150 billion each for affordable housing and Medicaid’s home-care program, expanded child tax credits, and expanded Medicare provisions and subsidies, among other priorities.

Most of the programs that would be funded by the legislation are incredibly popular and make economic sense, but Democrats blundered by highlighting the $1.7 trillion cost of their social safety net and climate package.

Even as it heads to the Senate, the plan faces serious challenges in order to win the support of all 50 Democrats.

“The Senate better pass the damn bill,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement. “Progressives have made enough compromises. We’ve fought hard to defend the President’s popular agenda, while Democratic leadership allowed fossil-fuel-funded Senators Manchin and Sinema to water this bill down from its original, transformative promise.”

“President Biden and Senator Schumer must get their party in line, not cower to corporate Democrats, and pass the full Build Back Better Act through the Senate immediately. There are no excuses left,” said Prakash.

We’d be lying if we said the Build Back Better Act passing the House was not a historic moment for climate action, but it means nothing if the Senate does not pass it.

“Democrats just can’t get out of their own way,” said the liberal group Patriotic Millionaires, in a statement issued last week. “A small group of House Democrats are undermining their party’s ability to sell the legislation to the American people by including a proposal in the Act to lift the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap.”

“We welcome and applaud House Democrats’ passage of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda,” said Morris Pearl, the chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director at BlackRock. “This is a bill that will make a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans. We especially welcome the tax changes in the bill that will take a step toward ensuring that wealthy individuals and corporations finally start paying their fair share in taxes. The introduction of the millionaires’ surtax and corporate minimum tax are particularly significant and long-overdue steps forward in the fight for tax fairness.”

“While these tax changes are welcome, there is still more work to be done,” said Pearl. “We need to go much further to slow the growth of inequality by fundamentally changing the tax code in this country to tax rich Americans the same way we tax people who work for a living. House Democrats are taking a step in this regard in the Build Back Better Act, but only a very small one.”

“It is also important to note that there are a few aspects of the bill that are incontrovertible steps backward in the fight for tax fairness,” said Pearl. “The House plan to lift the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap would disproportionately benefit millionaires like us, the exact people who don’t need any more help.”

“If Democrats are committed to providing relief to middle and lower income taxpayers by altering the SALT cap, then we believe that Senators (Bernie) Sanders and (Robert) Menendez’s proposal to exempt taxpayers making under $400,000 from the cap would be a better solution,” said Pearl.

The alternate plan proposed by Sanders and Menendez would keep the $10,000 cap in place, but only for taxpayers making more than about $400,000 to $550,000, allowing low- to moderate-income homeowners to deduct high property taxes. The average property tax bill in New Jersey is over $9,000 but most working families do not itemize their federal taxes and instead take the standard deduction, which is $12,400 for single filers and $24,800 for married couples filing jointly.

“It took 10 months, 16 days, and an eight-and-a-half-hour speech from GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy but House Democrats finally passed their $1.75 trillion social welfare spending bill Friday morning,” wrote Ursula Perano and Matt Fuller in the Daily Beast.

“With over 130 different investments in climate and environmental justice on a scale never before seen in Congress and a slew of social policies, Build Back Better will make life better for people who are struggling to make ends meet by investing in childcare, education, healthcare, elder care and more,” said Morissa Zuckerman of the Sierra Club, whose organizers and volunteers hosted 177 events across the country. “This bill is a testament to the intersectional social movements that joined together to put forward this vision and fought to make it possible.”

“Generations of underinvestment, policy violence and a pandemic that has robbed us of over 760,000 lives have made one thing clear: our families and communities have been in crisis,” said Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. “I proudly cast my vote in support of the Build Back Better Act, which moves us one step closer to that goal and will begin to lay the groundwork towards a just and equitable recovery.”

“The investments in the Build Back Better Act—in housing, home and community-based services for the elderly and disabled, climate justice, universal paid leave, pre-k and childcare, lower prescription drug costs, and so much more—are the direct result of months of relentless advocacy by House progressives and will help us repair the hurt and harm felt by our communities,” said Pressley.