|
THE DON JONES INDEX… |
GAINS
POSTED in GREEN LOSSES
POSTED in RED |
|
|
5/7/21… 14,234.68
4/30/21… 14,210.23 6/27/13…
15,000.00 |
DOW JONES INDEX: 5/7/21…34,548.43; 4/30/21…32,862.30; 6/27/13…15,000.00)
LESSON for May 7, 2021 – “JOE does TAXES!”
On
March 31st and April 18th, President Biden announced the two core
components of his economic recovery machine… a so-called “infrastructure package” split into two portions: the $1.8 trillion
American Families Plan and the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan.
Critical
to the New Normalcy – at least to President Biden and the Democrats (and
approximately two-thirds of Americans, as polls would have you believe) are
these Plans
The
jobs, Uncle Joe explained in his White House briefing (See Attachment One), are
infrastructure jobs… the “good paying, union jobs” bipartisanly
touted; the jobs that were a cornerstone in moving out-of-work and endangered
blue collar workers, especially in the blue states, to red, Republican politics
according to former President Trump, who made the long-delayed basic repairs
and improvements a key selling point in his first, successful election. Their failure to thrive, in all probability,
led to his own failure to win re-election (despite the ongoing accusations of
fraud such as were even launched, this week, by otherwise sane… if not sober…
G.O.P. officials.
The
Jobs Plan, if passed by Congress, would…
Fix highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports
and transit systems,
Deliver clean drinking water, a renewed electric grid,
and high-speed broadband to all Americans,
Build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million
homes and commercial buildings, modernize our nation’s schools and child care
facilities, and upgrade veterans’ hospitals and federal buildings,
Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by
creating jobs and raising wages and benefits for essential home care workers,
Revitalize manufacturing, secure U.S. supply chains,
invest in R&D, and train Americans for the jobs of the future, and
Create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in
safe and healthy workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice
to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers.
Even
G.O.P. hardliners accept the reality that the plague has killed off millions of
jobs that will not be coming back, and that the best way to put money in the
pockets of the dis-employed will be a comprehensive initiative to repair,
replace and upgrade America’s physical infrastructure of roads, bridges and
pipelines (the so-called “hard infrastructure.”
(Tuesday’s rail disaster in Mexico City cannot be far from their
thoughts.) Education, home and
healthcare and unionization, however, appear to be headed for choppier waters.
So,
too, the American Families Plan (Attachment Two) which would…
Calling education “a down payment on the future of
America”, “invest” in two years of free Pre-K and two years of free college, as
well as allocating other education monies,
Provide direct support to children and families
(including a cap on childcare expenses, paid family leave and nutrition
assistance,
Extend tax cuts for families with children and
American workers through the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit,
the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit and by extending the expanded health
insurance tax credits in the American Rescue Plan.
A week prior to the unveiling of the Jobs Plan, Jim
Tankersley of the New York Times stated that the
president’s two-part plan would (A) center on physical infrastructure, “like
bridges and airports, along with other provisions such as home care for older
and disabled Americans”, and (B) focus on what administration officials call
“human infrastructure” — helping Americans gain skills and the flexibility to
contribute more at work.
“The challenges for Mr. Biden are
apparent,” acknowledged the Times, which added that the administration had
already disappointed key Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of
California. “Lowering health costs and prescription drug prices will be a top
priority for House Democrats to be included” in the plan, she said.
Upon
their release, CBS News (See Attachment Three) summarized the outlays as
follows:
American Families
Plan
The plan includes $1 trillion in spending on families
and education while also providing $800 billion in tax cuts in an effort to
promote economic prosperity and security.
·
$200 billion for
universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds
·
$225 billion for
child care including subsidies for low-and middle income families and money for
providers and workers
·
More than $100
billion for two years of free community college for all
·
$225 billion for a
national paid family and medical leave program
·
Extends the
expanded Child Tax Credit, which means families will receive monthly checks
totaling $3,600 for children under six and $3,000 for kids ages six through 17
through 2025
·
Makes the
increased Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit as well as the Earned Income Tax
Credit permanent
·
Make recently
expanded premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act permanent
·
Also includes
scholarships for teachers, increased Pell Grants, expanded nutrition programs
and more
American Jobs Plan
The proposal calls for more than $2 trillion to
rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure including roads, bridges and
airports, as well as spending on what the administration calls "care"
infrastructure a focus on long-term care for the elderly and disabled:
·
$621 billion for
infrastructure like roads, bridges, rails and airports, as well as electric
vehicles
·
$50 billion to
improve infrastructure to withstand climate change
·
$111 billion for
replacing lead pipes and upgrading drinking water systems
·
$100 billion for
broadband
·
$213 billion to
build and update affordable housing
·
$100 billion would
go toward building and upgrading public schools
·
$400 billion for
home and community care and industry workers
·
$180 billion in
spending in research and development
·
$300 billion for
manufacturing including strengthening supply chains
·
$100 billion for
workforce development
“All
together, the administration claims it would be fully paid for with the passage of
the Made in America Tax plan.”
The
White House has maintained that it wants to see (well, is at least willing to
see) counteroffers to Biden's $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan by the middle of
this month, NBC reports, and if progress isn't being made by Memorial Day,
“officials will reassess their strategy of trying to build bipartisan support,”
a person “familiar with the negotiations” told the network.
Republicans, who have floated a
slimmer $568 billion package (about twelve percent of the anticipated costs of
AFP and AJB), told the media that they wondered whether the White House is
willing to limit a bill to narrower measures, “like roads and bridges”, while
cutting out pieces they oppose, “like elder care subsidies”.
“Joe Biden’s
‘infrastructure’ plan is not really about infrastructure,” a RNC email
circulated, “it is another multi-trillion dollar far left wish list. Just take
a look at the actual bill. Only 7% of the bill’s spending is for what Americans
traditionally think of as infrastructure.”
“I think it’s worth talking about,” Senate minority leader Mitch
McConnell scoffed, “but I don’t think there’ll be any Republican senators… none,
zero… for the $4.1 trillion grab bag, which has infrastructure in it, but a
whole lot of other stuff.”
Perhaps the divide could be defined as linguistic… what exactly is
“infrastructure” (which both parties define as a good thing) and what constitutes
less salable (though, to some Congresspersons and Senators mindful of their
states and district) items as might be called “handouts”, “giveaways” and the
inevitable “pork”.
Central
to the issue of both Plans (aside, of course, from the petty political perversities
as hold the goring of enemy initiatives more important than the welfare of
America) is the particulars of “infrastructure”. Must it be, as it has been traditionally
considered, the bricks and mortar, steel and asphalt erection of massive edifices
and boulevards as have been applicable to 20th century technology,
or the newer forms of manufacture and consumption that draw upon newer
technologies – electrified, even self-operable vehicles, broadband internet and
the myriad medical applications already or soon to emerge (whether one wishes
them to, or not)? Or, beyond even these,
is the concept of “human infrastructure” viable, such as the aforesaid elder
care subsidies, government-funded pre-K and college education, childcare for
working women and, according to Sen. Bernie Sanders, any major infrastructure
bill which would include significant funding for roads and bridges, would also
allocate funding “for climate change (presumably anti-), for affordable housing
and certainly for human infrastructure, as well."
“President Joe Biden is giving
himself lots of latitude when he defines infrastructure for the purpose of
spending money on it,” assert Calvin Woodward and Hope Yen for the Associated
Press. “It’s not just steel, but home health care workers. Not just excavating
dirt, but building dignity.”
The Republican Party says if it’s not
a pothole, port, plane or bridge, forget about it. “Never mind that Donald
Trump, like Biden, wanted schools to get a piece of an infrastructure pie.
“At least in theory, everyone likes
infrastructure and is willing to spend big on it. That’s why the definition of
infrastructure matters as Biden tries to sell the country and Congress on the
largest such package in generations.”
What do the
dictionaries say about all of this? Traditional definitions envisage
facilities, not programs like job training or home health care aides.
“A substructure or underlying foundation;
especially, the basic economic, social, or military facilities and
installations of a community, state, etc.” says Webster’s New Universal
Unabridged Dictionary, from 1983.
From 1887, according to the Online Etymology
Dictionary: “The installations that form the basis for any operation or
system. Originally in a military sense.”
In short, claims the Associated
Press, “the bulk of Biden’s plan does not fit the traditional understanding of
infrastructure, meaning below the structure, or foundational. Biden and his
team have performed rhetorical gymnastics to make almost everything in the
package sound infrastructure-ish.”
In Washington, though,
such things aren’t defined by dictionaries but by who wins the argument.
Biden’s definition: the
foundation that people need “to live, to go to work, to raise their families
with dignity, to ensure that good jobs will be there for their kids, no matter
who they are or what ZIP code they live in. That’s what infrastructure means in
the 21st century.”
He asserted: “Two
hundred years ago, trains weren’t traditional infrastructure, either, until
America made a choice to lay down tracks across the country.”
Biden’s point was
rhetorical. Noah Webster’s first comprehensive American Dictionary
of the English Language, from 1828, doesn’t address infrastructure at
all.
For too long, podcasted Matt Breunig
on Deconstruct, “Progressives (i.e.
liberals) “failed to use the most important word when it comes to meeting the
climate crisis: jobs. Jobs. Jobs.
“The
American Jobs Fund is going to create millions of good-paying jobs,” he
predicted, “jobs that Americans can raise a family on. As my dad would then
say, with a little breathing room.”
Citing
the President’s address to Congress, a sort of State of the Union message
without specifically saying so, Breunig opined that
the President’s proposals are “a textbook example of what progressive,
multiracial populism can sound like — populism that doesn’t rely on demonizing
immigrants or welfare queens are thugs or whatever epithet a lazy right-wing
populist needs to rally a narrow section of the country around him.”
Another
talking left lip, Stuart Varney,
interviewed Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tn), asking: “Senator, the
President’s plan directs trillions of dollars to families and children. So why are you calling it the anti-family
plan?”
“Stuart, it is the anti-family plan,” Blackburn
responded. “What this would do is incentivize women to rely on the federal
government to organize their lives. It takes away from them the ability to
organize their family life as they would like to organize it.”
Investopedia
(Attachment Four) stepped in after the Plans were introduced, advising Don
Jones… especially those Dons as follow the Dow more closely, what might lie in
store for them. They broke down the
debit side of the AFP and AJP as follows…
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·
The
top individual federal income tax rate would rise from 37% to the pre-Trump
rate of 39.6%.
·
The
corporate rate would rise from 21% to 28%; a 15% minimum tax would apply to
corporate book income.
·
American
corporations' foreign income generally would be subject a tax of 21%.
·
The
top individual income tax rate would increase to 39.6%.
·
Taxpayers
with incomes over $1 million would pay a tax of 43.4% on capital gains.
·
An
extension through 2025 is proposed for the 2021 increase in the fully
refundable child tax credit from $2,000 per child to $3,600 for children under
age 6 and $3,000 for children ages 6 through 17.
·
Extensions
beyond 2021 also are proposed for the increase in the maximum Child and
Dependent Tax Credit from $3,000 to $8,000 ($16,000 for more than one
dependent); the expansion of, and increase in, the earned income tax credit for
younger workers; and the premium tax credits that reduce ACA health insurance
premiums.
·
The
step-up in basis on death and carried interest loopholes would be eliminated.
·
Caps
would limit tax deferral for realty exchanges and deductions for excess business
losses
Speaking
of caps, as in capital gains, Reuters explained the White House's push for a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax system to make
rich people and big companies pay more and help foot the bill for Biden's
ambitious economic agenda as being highest tax rate on investment gains, which
are mostly paid by the wealthiest Americans, since the 1920s. The rate has not
exceeded 33.8% in the post-World War Two era.
Further, Biden is
proposing an extra $80 billion for the I.R.S. to catch tax
evasion by high earners.
News of the proposal - which was a staple of Biden's
presidential campaign platform - triggered sharp declines on Wall Street, with
the benchmark S&P 500 index (.SPX) down 1% in early afternoon, its
steepest drop in more than a month. "If (Biden’s Terrible Two) had a
chance of passing, we'd be down 2,000 points," said Thomas Hayes, chairman
and managing member at hedge fund Great Hill Capital LLC, referring to stock
market indexes.
Them slimy Socialists over at
Jacobin, on the other hand, pointed out that: “if
business were paying taxes at 2007 rates, another $162 billion a year would be
flowing into the Treasury, enough to cover the $2 trillion price tag on the
infrastructure bill in twelve years. Take corporate taxes back to 1950s rates —
not exactly a time when the capitalist class was suffering — and you could pay
the entire infrastructure tab in five years.”
(The Dow, for its part, has recovered admirably, hitting new
records this week.)
Breuning (above) singled out President Joe’s threat to
enhance IRS hounding of capital gains tax cheats… exclaiming that “…having banks report certain kinds of information to
the IRS that currently they don’t have to report could help with a lot of this
stuff. Because a lot of capital income that you receive is not reported to the
IRS in the same way that wage information is. And so you have to self-report,
or they give you a form at the end of the year — that’s just ripe for evasion,
if you can get that info directly to the IRS, and that could help with a lot of
this stuff as well.”
As
opposed to the Socialists, a gen-you-wine Professor of Philosophy at Fredonia
College in New York would have preferred to see Biden (or, perhaps, somebody
else) pivot rightwards… not only to the fabled nine-nine-nine flat tax or even
Maggie Thatcher’s poll tax, but all the way into the wilderness. qq
“In
the long run, productivity is more important than diminishing marginal
utility,” maintains Stephen Kershnar. “This is
especially true given that government skims off a lot of the money that is
being transferred and spends it on itself. Worse, the government often
transfers money in ways that make things worse (for example, by subsidizing
fatherless households). Because economic freedom correlates with happiness,
income, and political freedom, lowering taxes on the most productive citizens
would probably make the American people happier, richer, and freer.”
In
general, then, Kershnar philosophizes, “…progressive
taxes would be replaced with a flat rate, if not a flat amount. It would also
be better to transfer some of the taxes the rich currently pay to the poor and
middle class. In a democracy, when some people can vote themselves other
people’s money, irresponsible spending is sure to follow. Joe Biden’s fevered
spending dreams are a case in point.”
(See more and the reaction of the Fredonia peanut gallery as Attachment
Five)
“Whether it’s $500 billion or $600 billion …
or $1 trillion, we have to pay for it,” Manchin told the right-wing New York Post. “And we have
to make sure that we don’t continue to add on to this crippling debt and pass
it on to future generations.”
The federal deficit and
debt are a concern for the country, according to thebalance.com because the debt is held by those that have
purchased Treasury notes and other securities. A continuous deficit adds to the
national debt, increasing the amount owed to security holders.
The concern is that the
country will not be able to pay. “When that happens, debt holders demand higher
interest to compensate for the higher risk. That increases the cost of all
interest rates and can cause a recession.”
See a line item
breakdown posited by Kimberly Amadeo and Roger Wohlner two weeks before the
election, comparing Biden’s in utero
plans with Trump’s FY 2021 budget as Attachment Seven.
President
Joe has proposed that the top
tax bracket for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, those making over
$400,000 or more, be lifted back up to where it was when George W. Bush was
president, when he started: 39.6 percent.
Government
help for young parents might seem like an obviously good thing to most people.
But folks like Blackburn see it as a threat to traditional patriarchal family
values. Breunig,
above, added “We’re gonna get rid of the loopholes that allow Americans to make
more than $1 million/year and pay a lower tax rate on their capital gains than
Americans who receive a paycheck.”
Who
are these people talking about?
Households with more than roughly $540,000 of income fall among
the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers, according to Garrett Watson, a senior policy
analyst at the Tax Foundation.
Investments account for more than 40% of income for taxpayers who
make at least $1 million a year, according to a Tax Foundation analysis. The
other sources (business income and wages) account for respectively smaller
portions.
By comparison, Americans who make less than $50,000 a year get
around 5% of their income from investments. Wages account for more than 80%.
“It will make people think a little harder when they decide they
want to sell and reallocate toward some other opportunity because of that tax
bite,” Watson told CNBC.
“This isn’t the estate tax,” Gordon Mermin,
a principal research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said
of Biden’s plan. “It’s just taxing those gains that were never taxed.”
But financial experts say the measure may impact more families
than just affluent ones, according to an unusual source from the
usually-liberal CNBC.
“I think it could become a quagmire from a couple of different
fronts,” said certified financial planner Ken Van Leeuwen, founder and managing
director of Van Leeuwen & Company in Princeton, New Jersey. (See Attachment
Six)
Business lobbyists and conservative think tanks, who are not big
fans of President Biden’s proposed tax increases on the wealthy, pounced.
The Tax Foundation said that
Biden wanted to raise the capital gains tax to “highs not seen since the
1920s.”
“Biden
wants higher taxes than (in) China,” shrieked the Wall Street Journal.
Suzanne Clark of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called
plans “outrageous” and starred in a You Tube video which won plaudits and a few
Oscar nominations from eager peanuts in the Chamber’s Gallery (See Attachment
Twelve).
Jay Timmons of the
National Association of Manufacturers called the
proposed increase in the corporate tax rate “archaic.” And Brendan Bechtel, the
chief executive of the construction company that bears his family name, said that “it
doesn’t feel fair.”
Such
was the dogma being propounded by the usual right-wing suspects… the National
Review, perhaps stung as being lumped in with the RINOs by Djonald
Unmerciful, slunk back to their base of wealthy money movers – calling the
Capital Gains tax hike “vindictive”.
“(T)here is a certain
perverse logic to its proposal to fund, at least in part, the newest proposed
spending spree with a dramatic increase in the capital-gains
tax rates paid by — a bit of class warfare always
helps — “the rich.” To believe that this will not discourage investment is to
believe that those investors who are subject to the tax disregard
post-tax returns. That’s not likely.”
The concept driving President Biden’s tax proposals
for individuals is that the long-term capital gains and dividends of wealthy
investors should be taxed as ordinary income. If the concept becomes law, the
WSJ predicted, America “will have hamstrung itself economically by impairing a
key engine of growth—the individual risk-taking needed to start companies and
create jobs.”
“Turning
to the grim details,” the Nat Review warned that, if the proposal is approved,
“those earning more than $1 million a year will face a top tax rate on
long-term capital gains of 43.4 percent (once the Obamacare surtax on net
investment income is thrown in), compared with 23.8 percent today. That would
be a top rate higher — generally much higher — than anywhere in Europe, and
that’s before considering what state and local taxes can do to the math.
Stating
that the U.S. income-tax system is already too sharply progressive, the Nat Rev
mused that, rather than the increase leading to a “fairer” tax system, “some
defenders”… had Trump been re-elected, would prefer even further rollbacks.
Re-enter
Kershnar: “We might evaluate these taxes in terms of
fairness or goodness (making the world a better place),” he argues. “First, consider fairness. As University of
Colorado philosopher Michael Huemer points out,
progressive taxation is unfair. He notes that if five friends go out to dinner
and later receive the bill, no one would suggest that the person with the most
money should pay for the everyone else’s dinners or even most of the cost of
their dinners. Instead, the friends would insist that each person pay the cost
of his own dinner. Fairness, then, requires that a person pay for his cost.
“If
we apply this sense of fairness to taxpayers, Huemer
notes, we should eliminate progressive taxation. The poor likely cost more and
should thus pay more than the rich. The poor get free or subsidized food,
housing, medical care, and schools as well as welfare. They also cost more
because there is more crime in poor areas. If taxes cannot be a flat amount
(for example, $10,000), then they should be a flat rate (for example, 25% of
income).
Interviewed by Ryan Grim of Deconstructed, Matt Breunig
(founder of the progressive think tank People’s Policy Project) brought up
President Joe’s contention that, “According
to one study, CEOs make 320 times what the average worker in their corporation
makes. The pandemic has only made things worse: 20 million Americans lost their
job in the pandemic, working and middle class Americans. At the same time,
roughly 650 billionaires in America saw their net worth increased by more than
$1 trillion — in the same exact period… My fellow Americans, trickle-down
economics has never worked, and it’s time to grow the economy from the bottom
and the middle out.
Grim
then replayed Biden’s warning that “…the IRS is going to crack down on
millionaires and billionaires who cheat on their taxes. It’s estimated to be
billions of dollars by think tanks on the left, right and center.
“I’m not looking
to punish anybody,” Joe demurred. “But I
will not add a tax burden — an additional tax burden — to the middle class in
this country. They’re already paying enough.”
“Progressive
taxation likely makes the American people worse off,” Kershnar
responds. “Progressive taxation transfers money from people who benefit less
from a given amount of money (for example, $10,000) to people who benefit more
from it. This is diminishing marginal utility. However, progressive taxation
also reduces the incentive for the rich to engage in productive activities such
as starting new businesses, expanding existing ones, or investing their money
in other people’s businesses.
Joe’s plans have
reaped blowback from the left, as well.
“Whatever the size and shape of Joe Biden's proposed infrastructure
bill, you can be sure to hear corporate weeping and gnashing of teeth about how
they can't afford a tax hike, Jacobin’s Doug Henwood dismissed the plutocrats’
pain. “The truth: they’ve got the money — they just don’t want to share.
“In 2020,”
according to Jacobin’s math, “firms paid 16.8 percent of their profits in
taxes, about the same as 2019 and up slightly from 2018’s 15.0 percent. That
rate, as the dotted trend line shows, has been declining steadily for decades,
though the Trump tax cuts took it to fresh lows. As recently as 2005–7, firms
were paying almost 30 percent. In the 1970s, the average tax rate was over 40
percent; in the 1950s, almost 50 percent.”
A kinder and
gentler compromise was offered by Kevin Robillard and Tara Golshan
of the liberal HuffPost… tax the rich, but spend the swag on education so that
more poor children can grow up to be rich.
Of course, just as there’s always going to be someone on top, someone’s gotta be on the bottom.
Migrants? Robots? Who knows?
Biden,
according to NBC, will meet on May 12 with the top Republican and Democratic
leaders from the House and the Senate. Previous versions of Mr. Biden’s plan, circulated inside the
White House, called for raising revenues by enacting measures to reduce the
cost of prescription drugs bought using government health care programs. That
money would have funded a continued expansion of health coverage subsidies for
insurance bought through the Affordable Care Act, which were also temporarily
expanded by the economic aid bill this year.
“Mr. Biden’s team was under pressure from Senator Bernie
Sanders, independent of Vermont and the chairman of the Budget Committee,”
whispered the April 22nd New York Times “to instead focus his health
care efforts on a plan to expand Medicare. Mr. Sanders has pushed the
administration to lower Medicare’s eligibility age and expand it to cover
vision, dental and hearing services.”
But the plan will not include the once-projected up to $700 billion
effort to expand health coverage or reduce government spending on prescription
drugs. “Officials have decided to instead pursue health care as a separate
initiative, a move that sidesteps a fight among liberals on Capitol Hill but
that risks upsetting some progressive groups.
And
what comes next?
“I don’t think there’ll be
any Republican senators, none, zero, for the $4.1 trillion grab bag,” said
Minority Leader McConnell.
“I don’t think that we should have a $2.3 trillion bill with all
different subject matters in it,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D, W.Va.) said.
If Manchin
holds to his promise/threat to sink the S.S. Biden, Democrats are left with
several increasingly unpleasant options.
They can, in effect, allow him to write the bills. Perhaps (as a weapon of their own) they can
lobby some of the moderate Republicans…Murkowski, Mitt and Collins come to
mind… and maybe get a better deal. They
can scratch out a 50th vote, let the G.O.P. filibuster the Plans
into ashes, refuse to compromise, let the economy (and country) go to Hell and
plot revenge for November, 2022. Or they
can go nuclear and try to abolish the filibuster entirely.
Cinco
de Mayo arrived – and Joe floated a deal (See Attachment Eight) on a tsunami of
tequila and a pińata of dreams. “We’re not going to deprive any of these
executives of their second or third home, travel privately by jet. It’s not
going to affect their standard of living at all, not a little tiny bit,” Biden
said.
Behind the scenes, said NBC, the President and senior
administration officials have been meeting with lawmakers. The efforts are
expected to ratchet up this week, White House officials murmur. (See Attachment Nine) Moderates on both sides (as well as a
majority of Americans) are hoping that the so-called Gang of Ten will militate
for at least something before 11/22. (See
Attachment Ten)
If
Apollo Eleven had its Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, can the AFP and AJP have
their Murkowski, Mitt and Collins?
Biden’s plan to host top
congressional leaders from each party at the White House on May 12 is something
he didn’t do for the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package that passed with no
Republican support. Whether a bipartisan deal can be done on a portion of his
plans may hinge on whether the GOP abandons what puntit and former candidate
Mike Bloomberg terms “the comprehensive obstructionist model it used against
President Barack Obama.”
The strengthening U.S.
economic recovery poses another dynamic that could make it tougher to argue for
trillions of dollars more in spending -- something Republicans are sure to
highlight. “Friday’s monthly jobs report is forecast to show a 980,000 increase
in jobs for April,” bloomberg.com added.
Then, as the week
stumbled on to its close, the piñata broke and showere Don Jones with
accusations, apologies and excuses.
Any bipartisan deal would
likely be limited to spending items, Bloomberg had opined on Monday, with
Republicans widely panning the tax increases the White House has pushed for
companies and wealthy Americans. GOP members haven’t proposed any specific
funding measures.
Maybe they can borrow
more from China…
APRIL 30 – MAY 6
|
Friday, April 30, 2021 Infected: 32,345,062 Dead: 575,921 Dow: 33,868.25 |
Fully vaxxed
US adults pass 100M threshold. 26
states report declines in new cases. Disneyland opens today after a year in
the dark. TV’s Dr. Jah says the full
reopening of more large events requires 80% vaxx
immunity. “I think the worst is behind us,” he says, “barring some crazy new
variant.” Said ultra-deadly Indian
variant shows up in Memphis and Michigan; fire in plague hospital in Bharuch,
India kills 15. The Centner Private School in Miami bans masks and vaxxes for students and teachers.
Crimestoppers in LA arrest five for Lady
Gaga dognapping and attempted murder.
Eight fratboys arrested in deadly Bowling
Green (Ohio) hazing and reality star Josh Duggan arrested for child
porn. 45 killed in Israeli religious
stampede. First Dog Major is out of
rehab and said to be behaving himself.
His Master, Amtrack Joe, takes a train to
Philadelphia to tout his infrastructure plan; Mike Pence, unhanged, hints at
2024 run for the roses on the issue of too much debt. Their mutual nemesis, The Donald, calls the
FBI raid on his lawyer, Rudy G. unfair; then Biden kills off the remainder of
His Beautiful Wall, sending $14B back to the Pentagon for wussy Democratic
things like childcare. (So what will
happen to the Wall now? Graffiti –
lots of it! – and then panels will be sold to non-fungible collectors.) |
|
Saturday, May
1, 2021 Infected:
32,392,001 Dead: 576,722 |
CDC’s
Walensky pushes up Joe’s Fourth of July reopening
of America by three days. Dr. Paul Offitt of CHOP (Children’s
Hospital of Pennsylvania) calls the plague a “winter virus” – sweltering
from-India Indians skeptical. Delta
stops blocking the middle seats on its planes. NASDAQ hits record high on fat Amazon
profits, while Apple wields its legal sabers in fighting two-front legal war
against Fortnite and Facebook. Economists say the economy is crawling back
to normalcy, but heavily subsidized workers are sitting on their butts
collecting unemployment subsidies.
Particularly impacted is the trucking industry, (where a shortage of
drivers is leading to shortages of everything from gasoline to chickens to
Mother’s Day flowers) and a post-plague construction boom raises prices for
labor, lumber and appliances. Violent
Mayday labor rallies erupt in France, Turkey and… of course… Portland, OR. More violent anti-Asian hate crimes: hammer
attacks in NYC, stabbings in San Francisco; and police assaults: 64 year old
librarian dragged out of her car in North Carolina and beaten up for driving
ten mph over speed limit, Mario Gonzalez knee-strangled in Alameda, Ca.,
becoming the new George Floyd. Military
police relieved to report that the Fort Hood officer who murdered Spc. Vanessa Guillan was a different perpetrator from the officer
who had previously harassed her. |
|
Sunday,
May 2, 2021 Infected:
32,421,641 Dead: 577,045 |
More and more Covid regulations
being rolled back (in America).
Recovering job categories led by healthcare and computers. Varying
colleges propose various restrictions on graduation ceremonies. Some of the exceptions are in the NW…
Portland plague up 123%, ten percent of the population of Republic, WA gets
it. Worst case republics include
India, Brazil, Iran and Turkey; worst case Republican, Ted Nugent, recovering
from the cat
scratch fever. Boatload of boat
people being smuggled into US crashes onto reefs by San Diego. Several killed, more taken into custody (as
is the Captain). On the other coast,
Coast Guard vessel rescues five fishermen from swamped boat near Cape Cod. Active shooter
kills two at Wisconsin casino before being shot by police. Asian-haters with hammers in NYC strike
Sikh man, Chinese woman. |
|
Monday,
May 3, 2021 Infected:
32,472,201 Dead: 577,528 Dow: 34,113.23
|
Doctors trying to coax more hardline anti-vaxxers into
compliance with prizes and language… not prohibitions. Surplus doses piling up, some of which will
be on their way to India – where the death toll is widely believed to have
been greatly undercounted.
Nonetheless, victims and their families are taking out their anger on
Prime Minister Modi. Dr. Jah asserts
that the existing vaxxes will stop those variants
coming out of India (so far) and researchers believe that CV-19 will
eventually become a “winter virus” here.
Connecticut leads
with over 50% fully vaxxed; Florida still below 30%
but discards all regulations anyway.
Trump cultists in high places pretzel vaxx/anti
issue to seem to have it both ways.
Governor (and putative heir of Putin’s weirdly-haired poodle doesn’t
run in ’24) Ron deSantis (R-Fl) justifies his
refusal to support mask and vaxx mandates by
claiming “if you are policing people, you are saying that they don’t believe
the vaccines are working,” instead of that you believe Bill and Melissa
Gates, have been injecting nanochips into the shots (and, now that they are
divorcing, who will get custody of which of their millions of mind-slave
sheeple here in America, billions worldwide)? Proof: owner of a
Massachusetts pizza parlour (all them thar alien atrocities occur in pizza parlours!)
accused of diverting Covid relief funds to buy an
alpaca farm. (And what are all them thar alien Democrat Satanists doing with all those
alpacas?) |
|
Tuesday, May 4, 2021 Infected: 32,504,546 Dead: 578,499 Dow: 34,133.03 |
It’s Star Wars Day.
(May the Fourth be with you…) Space Dragon
capsule Resilience returns four astronauts to Earth in midnight splashdown
after having spent six months on the ISS.
The capsule is scorched, but will be cleaned up and recycled. Kroger will also go high-tech, delivering
potato chips and frozen pizzas by drone. Homeland Security
will allow from-India Indians with relatives here to visit for… you know… a
few days (or years) until the corpse-fires die down over there because… as
you also know… having an American cousin or grandfather confers full and
complete immunity. The furor in
Florida ratchets up as old video emerges of a teacher paddling (gasp!) a disruptive
student for “being a brat” but the good news is that more White Castles are
opening and are so busy that patrons must adhere to a strict limit of sixty
sliders per capita. And, yes, the Gateses are splitsville. Melissa hires divorce lawyer for Mike
Bloomberg, Ivana Trump and the like to pursue her share of their $124B
fortune (and at least a few hundred million nanochip mind slaves). A TV legal expert predicts: “It’s pretty
sure she’ll have enough to survive on.”
|
|
Wednesday, May 5 , 2021 Infected: 32,557,440 Dead: 579,176 Dow: 34,230.34
|
Facebook High Star Chamber panel
convenes and extends Djonald’s suspension, leaving
him no recourse but to have his attorneys use the Chauvin defense – that one
of the twenty Illumined judges had been photographed in a “Biden for
President” T-shirt, necessitating a
do-over trial. Possible precedent: a
court rules that SnapChat can be sued for the
damages caused by its distracted driver-users.
Pfizer rolls out the authorizations for vaxxing
kids over twelve, and hints that that age limit may drop to two by
September. But NIH warns that anti-vaxxing diehards and hotheads may be “stepping into the
zone of complaining.”
New antifungal tokens and
crypto-currencies keep sprouting up like toadstools; Dogecoin (an
alternate-reality money with a picture of a dog which, however, is pronounced
“doge”… as in the Department of Justice or Vatican elites, or secret Vatican
elite police) returns 2,300 percent to initial investors. |
|
Thursday, May 6, 2021 Infected: 32,604,495 Dead: 580,061 Dow: 34,548.53 |
It’s National Nurses’ Day. Grateful patients, public shower them with
applause and prizes.
CDC has good news on plague, nearly 150 million Americans have had at
least one vaxx, and it will be lessening by July
given the usual trinity of masks, vaxxes and social
distancing. Some doctors admit Covid, like the flu, will require yearly booster shots
until 20… something?... but the Moderna vaxx seems to be effective against the Brazilian, Indian
and newer strains. President Joe says
he supports easing patent protections to allow competitors to make generic
versions, but vaxxes are dropping, owing to the
hard-core of Trump faithful who believe it all a conspiracy.
Ol’ 45 receives the bended knee from Caitlyn
Jenner and tnewly re-educated Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca)
prosecutes his war against Liz Cheney with vim and vigor as well as accusing
Facebook of “acting like Democrats”.
The implied threat impels its Cancel Board to tell The Donald he can
re-apply in six months.
Facebook rival, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, says he’ll auction off seats on
his Blue Origen rocketship so that space tourists
can fly up and return a few minutes later.
Space X starship successfully lands on its fifth try and will be ready
for recycling, but a Chinese rocket fail will have it plunging to earth to strike…
somebody… on Mother’s Day.
Heroic nurse and bus driver join nurses… the former talking a school
shooter (a twelve year old female from gun-happy Idaho) into giving up her
gun, the latter organizing an orderly evacuation of kiddie hostages from the
school bus being commandeered by a psycho soldier who then drives the bus
around awhile before getting off, walking some more and then being captured. |
|
The media have made a much of a muchness about America’s
return to the New Normal – supposedly including a booming economy that will
generate jobs and justify President Joe’s new taxing and spending
initiatives. But, at least for this
week, the performance of the markets was anaemic. Employers now say that lazy Americans would
rather sit on their ass and collect kited unemployment handouts than go back
to work – labor sorts that more and
more of the good jobs are going bye bye and the bad
jobs that replace them… at minimum wage or worse… can’t feed their
families. Everybody says that the
solution is a more competent, motivated and educated workforce, but Democrats
say this can’t happen without more handouts for schooling from the cradle to
(if not the grave that our climate is digging) than at least into their late
20s or thirties. So jobs from healthcare
to truck driving to Governorships are going unfilled and the military
drawdown means that Army training is on the chopping block too. Whether or not the cost of re-educating Don Jones for the jobs
of the future is worth the cost will be a part and parcel of next week’s
Lesson on taxes and their benefits (or lack) but while Republicans vow to
destroy the Biden agenda by claiming that the borrowing will come from China…
some will, some won’t… inflation is also a reality. While the general state of the Jones was
another more or less break-even wash, the statistics that stood forth were on
housing… higher prices, fewer sales.
As for inflation, those numbers are on the way. They won’t be pretty. THE DON JONES INDEX CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to
EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000 (REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX
of June 27, 2013) See a further
explanation of categories here… ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)
The Don Jones Index for the week
of April 30th through May 6th, 2021 was UP 24.45 points. The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition
for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate
Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan,
Administrator/Editor. The CNC denies,
emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its
officers (including former Congressman Parnell,
environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna
Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The
Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial
“Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against
parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders. Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC
donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com |
|
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ATTACHMENT
ONE – from the White House Briefing Room
FACT SHEET:
The American Jobs Plan
MARCH 31, 2021
While
the American Rescue Plan is changing the course of the pandemic and delivering
relief for working families, this is no time to build back to the way things were.
This is the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new economy. The American Jobs
Plan is an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs,
rebuild our country’s infrastructure, and position the United States to
out-compete China. Public domestic investment as a share of the economy has
fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s. The American Jobs Plan will
invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate
highways and won the Space Race.
The United States of America is the wealthiest country in the world, yet we
rank 13th when it comes to the overall quality of our
infrastructure. After decades of disinvestment, our roads, bridges, and water
systems are crumbling. Our electric grid is vulnerable to catastrophic outages.
Too many lack access to affordable, high-speed Internet and to quality housing.
The past year has led to job losses and threatened economic security, eroding
more than 30 years of progress in women’s labor force participation. It has
unmasked the fragility of our caregiving infrastructure. And, our nation is
falling behind its biggest competitors on research and development (R&D),
manufacturing, and training. It has never been more important for us to invest
in strengthening our infrastructure and competitiveness, and in creating the
good-paying, union jobs of the future.
Like
great projects of the past, the President’s plan will unify and mobilize the
country to meet the great challenges of our time: the climate crisis and the ambitions
of an autocratic China. It will invest in Americans and deliver the jobs and
opportunities they deserve. But unlike past major investments, the plan
prioritizes addressing long-standing and persistent racial injustice. The plan
targets 40 percent of the benefits of climate and clean infrastructure
investments to disadvantaged communities. And, the plan invests in rural
communities and communities impacted by the market-based transition to clean
energy. Specifically, President Biden’s plan will:
Fix highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports and transit systems. The
President’s plan will modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and
main-streets. It will fix the ten most economically significant bridges in the
country in need of reconstruction. It also will repair the worst 10,000 smaller
bridges, providing critical linkages to communities. And, it will replace
thousands of buses and rail cars, repair hundreds of stations, renew airports,
and expand transit and rail into new communities.
Deliver clean drinking water, a renewed electric grid, and high-speed
broadband to all Americans. President Biden’s plan will eliminate all
lead pipes and service lines in our drinking water systems, improving the
health of our country’s children and communities of color. It will put hundreds
of thousands of people to work laying thousands of miles of transmission lines
and capping hundreds of thousands of orphan oil and gas wells and abandoned
mines. And, it will bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every
American, including the more than 35 percent of rural Americans who lack access
to broadband at minimally acceptable speeds.
Build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million homes and commercial
buildings, modernize our nation’s schools and child care facilities, and
upgrade veterans’ hospitals and federal buildings. President Biden’s
plan will create good jobs building, rehabilitating, and retrofitting
affordable, accessible, energy efficient, and resilient housing, commercial
buildings, schools, and child care facilities all over the country, while also
vastly improving our nation’s federal facilities, especially those that serve
veterans.
Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by creating jobs and raising
wages and benefits for essential home care workers. These workers –
the majority of whom are women of color – have been underpaid and undervalued
for too long. The President’s plan makes substantial investments in the
infrastructure of our care economy, starting by creating new and better jobs
for caregiving workers. His plan will provide home and community-based care for
individuals who otherwise would need to wait as many as five years to get the
services they badly need.
Revitalize manufacturing, secure U.S. supply chains, invest in R&D, and
train Americans for the jobs of the future. President Biden’s plan will
ensure that the best, diverse minds in America are put to work creating the
innovations of the future while creating hundreds of thousands of quality jobs
today. Our workers will build and make things in every part of America, and
they will be trained for well-paying, middle-class jobs.
Create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in safe and healthy
workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join
a union, and bargain collectively with their employers. By ensuring
that American taxpayers’ dollars benefit working families and their
communities, and not multinational corporations or foreign governments, the
plan will require that goods and materials are made in America and shipped on
U.S.-flag, U.S.-crewed vessels. The plan also will ensure that Americans who
have endured systemic discrimination and exclusion for generations finally have
a fair shot at obtaining good paying jobs and being part of a union.
Alongside his American Jobs Plan, President Biden is releasing a Made in
America Tax Plan to make sure corporations pay their fair share in taxes and
encourage job creation at home. A recent study found that 91 Fortune 500
companies paid $0 in federal taxes on U.S. income in 2018. Another study found
that the average corporation paid just 8 percent in taxes. President Biden
believes that profitable corporations should not be able to get away with
paying little or no tax by shifting jobs and profits overseas. President
Biden’s plan will reward investment at home, stop profit shifting, and ensure
other nations won’t gain a competitive edge by becoming tax havens.
The President’s American Jobs Plan is a historic public investment – consisting
principally of one-time capital investments in our nation’s productivity and
long-term growth. It will invest about 1 percent of GDP per year over eight
years to upgrade our nation’s infrastructure, revitalize manufacturing, invest
in basic research and science, shore up supply chains, and solidify our care
infrastructure. These are investments that leading economists agree will give
Americans good jobs now and will pay off for future generations by leaving the
country more competitive and our communities stronger. In total, the plan will
invest about $2 trillion this decade. If passed alongside President Biden’s
Made in America corporate tax plan, it will be fully paid for within the next
15 years and reduce deficits in the years after.
BUILD WORLD-CLASS TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE: FIX HIGHWAYS, REBUILD
BRIDGES, AND UPGRADE PORTS, AIRPORTS AND TRANSIT SYSTEMS
President Biden is calling on Congress to make a historic and overdue
investment in our roads, bridges, rail, ports, airports, and transit systems.
The President’s plan will ensure that these investments produce good-quality
jobs with strong labor standards, prevailing wages, and a free and fair choice
to join a union and bargain collectively. These investments will advance racial
equity by providing better jobs and better transportation options to
underserved communities. These investments also will extend opportunities to
small businesses to participate in the design, construction, and manufacturing
of new infrastructure and component parts. President Biden’s plan will deliver
infrastructure Americans can trust, because it will be resilient to floods,
fires, storms, and other threats, and not fragile in the face of these
increasing risks. President Biden is calling on Congress to:
Transform our crumbling transportation infrastructure:
Decades of declining public investment has left our roads, bridges, rail, and
transit systems in poor condition, with a trillion-dollar backlog of needed
repairs. More than 35,000 people die in traffic crashes on U.S. roads each
year, and millions more are seriously and often permanently injured. The United
States has one of the highest traffic fatality rates in the industrialized
world, double the rate in Canada and quadruple that in Europe. Across cities,
suburbs, and rural areas, President Biden’s plan will help parents get to work
reliably and affordably, reduce the impacts of climate change for our kids, and
make sure fewer families mourn the loss of a loved one to road crashes. His
investments will use more sustainable and innovative materials, including
cleaner steel and cement, and component parts Made in America and shipped on
U.S.-flag vessels with American crews under U.S. laws. And, his infrastructure
investments will mitigate socio-economic disparities, advance racial equity,
and promote affordable access to opportunity.
The President’s plan invests an additional $621 billion in transportation
infrastructure and resilience. It will:
·
Repair American
roads and bridges. One in five miles, or 173,000 total miles, of our highways
and major roads are in poor condition, as well as 45,000 bridges. Delays caused
by traffic congestion alone cost over $160 billion per year, and motorists are
forced to pay over $1,000 every year in wasted time and fuel. The President is
proposing a total increase of $115 billion to modernize the bridges, highways,
roads, and main streets that are in most critical need of repair. This includes
funding to improve air quality, limit greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce
congestion. His plan will modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and main
streets, not only “fixing them first” but “fixing them right,” with safety,
resilience, and all users in mind. It will fix the most economically
significant large bridges in the country in need of reconstruction, and it will
repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, including bridges that provide
critical connections to rural and tribal communities. The plan includes $20
billion to improve road safety for all users, including increases to existing
safety programs and a new Safe Streets for All program to fund state and local
“vision zero” plans and other improvements to reduce crashes and fatalities,
especially for cyclists and pedestrians.
·
Modernize public
transit. Households that take public transportation to work have twice the
commute time, and households of color are twice as likely to take public
transportation. Our current transit infrastructure is inadequate – the
Department of Transportation estimates a repair backlog of over $105 billion, representing
more than 24,000 buses, 5,000 rail cars, 200 stations, and thousands of miles
of track, signals, and power systems in need of replacement. This translates to
service delays and disruptions that leave riders stranded and discourage
transit use. President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $85 billion to
modernize existing transit and help agencies expand their systems to meet rider
demand. This investment will double federal funding for public transit, spend
down the repair backlog, and bring bus, bus rapid transit, and rail service to
communities and neighborhoods across the country. It will ultimately reduce
traffic congestion for everyone.
·
Invest in reliable
passenger and freight rail service. The nation’s rail networks have the
potential to offer safe, reliable, efficient, and climate-friendly alternatives
for moving people and freight. However, unlike highways and transit, rail lacks
a multi-year funding stream to address deferred maintenance, enhance existing
corridors, and build new lines in high-potential locations. There are currently
projects just waiting to be funded that will give millions more Americans
reliable and fast inter-city train service. President Biden is calling on
Congress to invest $80 billion to address Amtrak’s repair backlog; modernize
the high traffic Northeast Corridor; improve existing corridors and connect new
city pairs; and enhance grant and loan programs that support passenger and
freight rail safety, efficiency, and electrification.
·
Create good jobs
electrifying vehicles. U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle (EV) sales
is only one-third the size of the Chinese EV market. The President believes
that must change. He is proposing a $174 billion investment to win the EV
market. His plan will enable automakers to spur domestic supply chains from raw
materials to parts, retool factories to compete globally, and support American
workers to make batteries and EVs. It will give consumers point of sale rebates
and tax incentives to buy American-made EVs, while ensuring that these vehicles
are affordable for all families and manufactured by workers with good jobs. It
will establish grant and incentive programs for state and local governments and
the private sector to build a national network of 500,000 EV chargers by 2030,
while promoting strong labor, training, and installation standards. His plan
also will replace 50,000 diesel transit vehicles and electrify at least 20
percent of our yellow school bus fleet through a new Clean Buses for Kids
Program at the Environmental Protection Agency, with support from the
Department of Energy. These investments will set us on a path to 100 percent
clean buses, while ensuring that the American workforce is trained to operate
and maintain this 21st century infrastructure. Finally, it will
utilize the vast tools of federal procurement to electrify the federal fleet,
including the United States Postal Service.
·
Improve ports,
waterways, and airports. The United States built modern aviation, but our
airports lag far behind our competitors. According to some rankings, no U.S.
airports rank in the top 25 of airports worldwide. Our ports and waterways need
repair and reimagination too. President Biden is calling on Congress to invest
$25 billion in our airports, including funding for the Airport Improvement
Program, upgrades to FAA assets that ensure safe and efficient air travel, and
a new program to support terminal renovations and multimodal connections for
affordable, convenient, car-free access to air travel. President Biden is calling
on Congress to invest an additional $17 billion in inland waterways, coastal
ports, land ports of entry, and ferries, which are all essential to our
nation’s freight. This includes a Healthy Ports program to mitigate the
cumulative impacts of air pollution on neighborhoods near ports, often
communities of color. These investments will position the United States as a
global leader in clean freight and aviation.
·
Redress historic
inequities and build the future of transportation infrastructure. The
President’s plan for transportation is not just ambitious in scale, it is
designed with equity in mind and to set up America for the future. Too often,
past transportation investments divided communities – like the Claiborne
Expressway in New Orleans or I-81 in Syracuse – or it left out the people most
in need of affordable transportation options. The President’s plan includes $20
billion for a new program that will reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic
investments and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity
and environmental justice, and promote affordable access. The President’s plan
will inspire basic research, like advanced pavements that recycle carbon
dioxide, and “future proof” investments that will last decades to leave coming
generations with a safe, equitable, and sustainable transportation system. And,
the President’s plan will accelerate transformative investments, from
pre-development through construction, turning “shovel worthy” ideas into
“shovel ready” projects. This includes $25 billion for a dedicated fund to
support ambitious projects that have tangible benefits to the regional or
national economy but are too large or complex for existing funding programs.
·
Invest resources
wisely to deliver infrastructure projects that produce real
results. America lags its peers – including Canada, the U.K., and
Australia – in the on-time and on-budget delivery of infrastructure, and is
falling behind countries like China on overall investment. Delivering this
historic investment will require partnership across government, unions, and
industry, to produce meaningful outcomes for the American people – reliable
transportation, safe water, affordable housing, healthy schools, clean
electricity, and broadband for all. When President Biden managed the
implementation of the Recovery Act, he insisted on the strongest possible
accountability and transparency measures to ensure public dollars were invested
efficiently and effectively. When Congress enacts the American Jobs Plan, the
President will bring the best practices from the Recovery Act and models from
around the world to break down barriers and drive implementation of
infrastructure investments across all levels of government to realize the
President’s vision of safe, reliable, and resilient infrastructure. Critically,
in order to achieve the best outcomes on cost and performance for the American
people, the Administration will support the state, local, and tribal
governments delivering these projects through world-class training, technical
assistance, and procurement best practices. In addition, the President’s plan
will use smart, coordinated infrastructure permitting to expedite federal
decisions while prioritizing stakeholder engagement, community consultation,
and maximizing equity, health, and environmental benefits.
Make
our infrastructure more resilient:
Millions of Americans feel the effects of climate change each year when their
roads wash out, airport power goes down, or schools get flooded. Last year
alone, the United States faced 22 extreme weather and climate-related disaster
events with losses exceeding $1 billion each – a cumulative price tag of nearly
$100 billion. Chronic underinvestment in resilience has harmed American
transportation infrastructure, disrupting service, making travel conditions
unsafe, causing severe damage, and increasing maintenance and operating costs.
In 2020, the United States endured 22 separate billion-dollar weather and
climate disasters, costing $95 billion in damages to homes, businesses, and public
infrastructure. In Louisiana, Hurricane Laura caused $19 billion of damage,
resulting in broken water systems and a severely damaged electrical grid that
impeded a quick recovery. Building back better requires that the investments in
this historic plan make our infrastructure more resilient in the face of
increasingly severe floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and other risks. Every
dollar spent on rebuilding our infrastructure during the Biden administration
will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand the impacts of the climate
crisis. Additionally, the President is calling for $50 billion in dedicated
investments to improve infrastructure resilience and:
·
Safeguard critical
infrastructure and services, and defend vulnerable communities. People of
color and low-income people are more likely to live in areas most
vulnerable to flooding and other climate change-related weather events. They
also are less likely to have the funds to prepare for and recover from extreme
weather events. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Black and Hispanic residents
were twice as likely as white residents to report experiencing an income shock
with no recovery support. President Biden’s plan increases resilience in the
most essential services, including the electric grid; food systems; urban
infrastructure; community health and hospitals; and our roads, rail, and other
transportation assets. His plan also targets investments to support
infrastructure in those communities most vulnerable physically and financially
to climate-driven disasters and to build back above existing codes and
standards. The President’s plan will invest in vulnerable communities through a
range of programs, including FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and
Communities program, HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program, new
initiatives at the Department of Transportation, a bipartisan tax credit to
provide incentives to low- and middle-income families and to small businesses
to invest in disaster resilience, and transition and relocation assistance to support
community-led transitions for the most vulnerable tribal communities.
·
Maximize the
resilience of land and water resources to protect communities and the
environment. President Biden’s plan will protect and, where necessary,
restore nature-based infrastructure – our lands, forests, wetlands, watersheds,
and coastal and ocean resources. Families and businesses throughout the United
States rely on this infrastructure for their lives and livelihoods. President
Biden is calling on Congress to invest in protection from extreme wildfires,
coastal resilience to sea-level rise and hurricanes, support for agricultural
resources management and climate-smart technologies, and the protection and
restoration of major land and water resources like Florida’s Everglades and the
Great Lakes. Additionally, the President’s plan provides funding for the
western drought crisis by investing in water efficiency and recycling programs,
Tribal Water Settlements, and dam safety. President Biden’s plan will empower
local leaders to shape these restoration and resilience project funds in line
with the Outdoor Restoration Force Act.
REBUILD
CLEAN DRINKING WATER INFRASTRUCTURE, A RENEWED ELECTRIC GRID, AND HIGH-SPEED
BROADBAND TO ALL AMERICANS
Too many American families drink polluted water, lack access to affordable,
high-speed internet, or experience power outages too often – all while paying
more for those services. President Biden’s plan invests in the infrastructure
necessary to finally deliver the water, broadband, and electricity service that
Americans deserve. Specifically, his plan will:
Ensure clean, safe drinking water is a right in all communities:
Across the country, pipes and treatment plants are aging and polluted drinking
water is endangering public health. An estimated six to ten million homes still
receive drinking water through lead pipes and service lines. The President’s
investments in improving water infrastructure and replacing lead service lines
will create good jobs, including union and prevailing wage jobs. President
Biden’s plan invests $111 billion to:
·
Replace 100
percent of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines. According to
the CDC, there is no safe level of lead exposure for children. Lead can slow
development and cause learning, behavior, and hearing problems in children, as
well as lasting kidney and brain damage. President Biden believes that no
American family should still be receiving drinking water through lead pipes and
service lines. To eliminate all lead pipes and service lines in the country, he
is calling on Congress to invest $45 billion in the Environmental Protection
Agency’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and in Water Infrastructure
Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN) grants. In addition to reducing lead
exposure in homes, this investment also will reduce lead exposure in 400,000
schools and childcare facilities.
·
Upgrade and
modernize America’s drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems, tackle
new contaminants, and support clean water infrastructure across rural America. Aging
water systems threaten public health in thousands of communities nationwide.
President Biden will modernize these systems by scaling up existing, successful
programs, including by providing $56 billion in grants and low-cost flexible
loans to states, Tribes, territories, and disadvantaged communities across the
country. President Biden’s plan also provides $10 billion in funding to monitor
and remediate PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in drinking water and
to invest in rural small water systems and household well and wastewater
systems, including drainage fields.
Revitalize
America’s digital infrastructure:
Generations ago, the federal government recognized that without affordable
access to electricity, Americans couldn’t fully participate in modern society
and the modern economy. With the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, the federal
government made a historic investment in bringing electricity to nearly every
home and farm in America, and millions of families and our economy reaped the
benefits. Broadband internet is the new electricity. It is necessary for
Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school learning, health
care, and to stay connected. Yet, by one definition, more than 30 million
Americans live in areas where there is no broadband infrastructure that
provides minimally acceptable speeds. Americans in rural areas and on tribal
lands particularly lack adequate access. And, in part because the United States
has some of the highest broadband prices among OECD countries, millions of
Americans can’t use broadband internet even if the infrastructure exists where
they live. In urban areas as well, there is a stark digital divide: a much
higher percentage of White families use home broadband internet than Black or
Latino families. The last year made painfully clear the cost of these
disparities, particularly for students who struggled to connect while learning
remotely, compounding learning loss and social isolation for those students.
The President believes we can bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband
to every American through a historic investment of $100 billion. That
investment will:
·
Build high-speed
broadband infrastructure to reach 100 percent coverage. The President’s
plan prioritizes building “future proof” broadband infrastructure in unserved
and underserved areas so that we finally reach 100 percent high-speed broadband
coverage. It also prioritizes support for broadband networks owned, operated
by, or affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and co-operatives—providers
with less pressure to turn profits and with a commitment to serving entire
communities. Moreover, it ensures funds are set aside for infrastructure on
tribal lands and that tribal nations are consulted in program administration.
Along the way, it will create good-paying jobs with labor protections and the
right to organize and bargain collectively.
·
Promote
transparency and competition. President Biden’s plan will promote price transparency
and competition among internet providers, including by lifting barriers that
prevent municipally-owned or affiliated providers and rural electric co-ops
from competing on an even playing field with private providers, and requiring
internet providers to clearly disclose the prices they charge.
·
Reduce the cost of
broadband internet service and promote more widespread adoption. President
Biden believes that building out broadband infrastructure isn’t enough. We also
must ensure that every American who wants to can afford high-quality and
reliable broadband internet. While the President recognizes that individual
subsidies to cover internet costs may be needed in the short term, he believes
continually providing subsidies to cover the cost of overpriced internet
service is not the right long-term solution for consumers or taxpayers.
Americans pay too much for the internet – much more than people in many other
countries – and the President is committed to working with Congress to find a
solution to reduce internet prices for all Americans, increase adoption in both
rural and urban areas, hold providers accountable, and save taxpayer money.
Reenergize
America’s power infrastructure:
As the recent Texas power outages demonstrated, our aging electric grid needs
urgent modernization. A Department of Energy study found that power outages
cost the U.S. economy up to $70 billion annually. The President’s plan will
create a more resilient grid, lower energy bills for middle class Americans,
improve air quality and public health outcomes, and create good jobs, with a
choice to join a union, on the path to achieving 100 percent carbon-free
electricity by 2035. President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $100
billion to:
·
Build a more
resilient electric transmission system. Through investments in the grid,
we can move cheaper, cleaner electricity to where it is needed most. This
starts with the creation of a targeted investment tax credit that incentivizes
the buildout of at least 20 gigawatts of high-voltage capacity power lines and
mobilizes tens of billions in private capital off the sidelines – right away.
In addition, President Biden’s plan will establish a new Grid Deployment
Authority at the Department of Energy that allows for better leverage of existing
rights-of-way – along roads and railways – and supports creative financing
tools to spur additional high priority, high-voltage transmission lines. These
efforts will create good-paying jobs for union laborers, line
workers, and electricians, in addition to creating demand for American-made
building materials and parts.
·
Spur jobs
modernizing power generation and delivering clean electricity. President
Biden is proposing a ten-year extension and phase down of an expanded
direct-pay investment tax credit and production tax credit for clean energy
generation and storage. These credits will be paired with strong labor
standards to ensure the jobs created are good-quality jobs with a free and fair
choice to join a union and bargain collectively. President Biden’s plan will
mobilize private investment to modernize our power sector. It also will support
state, local, and tribal governments choosing to accelerate this modernization
through complementary policies – like clean energy block grants that can be
used to support clean energy, worker empowerment, and environmental justice.
And, it will use the federal government’s incredible purchasing power to drive
clean energy deployment across the market by purchasing 24/7 clean power for
federal buildings. To ensure that we fully take advantage of the opportunity
that modernizing our power sector presents, President Biden will establish an
Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard (EECES) aimed at cutting
electricity bills and electricity pollution, increasing competition in the
market, incentivizing more efficient use of existing infrastructure, and
continuing to leverage the carbon pollution-free energy provided by existing
sources like nuclear and hydropower. All of this will be done while ensuring
those facilities meet robust and rigorous standards for worker, public, and
environmental safety as well as environmental justice – and all while moving
toward 100 percent carbon-pollution free power by 2035.
·
Put the energy
industry to work plugging orphan oil and gas wells and cleaning up abandoned
mines. Hundreds of thousands of former orphan oil and gas wells and
abandoned mines pose serious safety hazards, while also causing ongoing air,
water, and other environmental damage. Many of these old wells and mines are located
in rural communities that have suffered from years of disinvestment. President
Biden’s plan includes an immediate up-front investment of $16 billion that will
put hundreds of thousands to work in union jobs plugging oil and gas wells and
restoring and reclaiming abandoned coal, hardrock,
and uranium mines. In addition to creating good jobs in hard-hit communities,
this investment will reduce the methane and brine that leaks from these wells,
just as we invest in reducing leaks from other sources like aging pipes and
distribution systems.
·
Remediate and
redevelop idle real property, and spur the buildout of critical physical,
social, and civic infrastructure in distressed and disadvantaged
communities. In thousands of rural and urban communities around the
country, hundreds of thousands of former industrial and energy sites are now
idle – sources of blight and pollution. Through a $5 billion investment in the
remediation and redevelopment of these Brownfield and Superfund sites, as well
as related economic and workforce development, President Biden’s plan will turn
this idle real property into new hubs of economic growth and job creation. But
it’s not enough to redevelop old infrastructure. President Biden’s plan also
will bring these communities new critical physical, social, and civic
infrastructure. This means investing in the Economic Development Agency’s
Public Works program (while lifting the cap of $3 million on projects) and in
“Main Street” revitalization efforts through HUD and USDA. President Biden’s
plan also will spur targeted sustainable, economic development efforts through
the Appalachian Regional Commission’s POWER grant program, Department of Energy
retooling grants for idled factories (through the Section 132 program), and
dedicated funding to support community-driven environmental justice efforts –
such as capacity and project grants to address legacy pollution and the
cumulative impacts experienced by frontline and fenceline
communities.
·
Build next
generation industries in distressed communities. President Biden believes
that the market-based shift toward clean energy presents enormous opportunities
for the development of new markets and new industries. For example, by pairing
an investment in 15 decarbonized hydrogen demonstration projects in distressed
communities with a new production tax credit, we can spur capital-project
retrofits and installations that bolster and decarbonize our industry. The
President’s plan also will establish ten pioneer facilities that demonstrate
carbon capture retrofits for large steel, cement, and chemical production
facilities, all while ensuring that overburdened communities are protected from
increases in cumulative pollution. In addition, in line with the bipartisan
SCALE Act, his plan will support large-scale sequestration efforts that
leverage the best science and prioritize community engagement. And to
accelerate responsible carbon capture deployment and ensure permanent storage,
President Biden’s plan reforms and expands the bipartisan Section 45Q tax
credit, making it direct pay and easier to use for hard-to-decarbonize
industrial applications, direct air capture, and retrofits of existing power
plants.
·
Mobilize the next
generation of conservation and resilience workers. This $10 billion
investment will put a new, diverse generation of Americans to work conserving
our public lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, and advancing
environmental justice through a new Civilian Climate Corps, all while placing
good-paying union jobs within reach for more Americans.
BUILD,
PRESERVE, AND RETROFIT MORE THAN TWO MILLION HOMES AND COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS;
MODERNIZE OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS, COMMUNITY COLLEGES, AND EARLY LEARNING
FACILITIES; AND UPGRADE VETERANS’ HOSPITALS AND FEDERAL BUILDINGS
There is a severe shortage of affordable housing options in America, and the
American Society of Civil Engineers gives our school infrastructure a “D+.”
President Biden believes we must invest in building and upgrading modern,
resilient, and energy-efficient homes and buildings, including our nation’s
schools, early learning facilities, veterans’ hospitals and other federal
buildings, and in the process, employ American workers in jobs with good wages
and benefits. President Biden’s plan will:
Build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million homes and commercial
buildings to address the affordable housing crisis:
There is a severe shortage of affordable housing options in America. Millions
of families pay more than half their income on rent, and home energy costs are
a significant concern for American renters as well. And, across the country,
people are struggling to purchase their first home.
The President’s plan invests $213 billion to produce, preserve, and retrofit
more than two million affordable and sustainable places to live. It pairs this
investment with an innovative new approach to eliminate state and local
exclusionary zoning laws, which drive up the cost of construction and keep
families from moving to neighborhoods with more opportunities for them and their
kids. The President’s plan will help address the growing cost of rent and
create jobs that pay prevailing wages, including through project labor
agreements with a free and fair choice to join a union and bargain
collectively.
President Biden is calling on Congress to:
·
Produce, preserve,
and retrofit more than a million affordable, resilient, accessible, energy
efficient, and electrified housing units. Through targeted tax credits,
formula funding, grants, and project-based rental assistance, President Biden’s
plan will extend affordable housing rental opportunities to underserved
communities nationwide, including rural and tribal areas.
·
Build and
rehabilitate more than 500,000 homes for low- and middle-income
homebuyers. President Biden is calling on Congress to take immediate steps
to spur the construction and rehabilitation of homes for underserved
communities. Specifically, he is calling on Congress to pass the innovative,
bipartisan Neighborhood Homes Investment Act (NHIA). Offering $20 billion worth
of NHIA tax credits over the next five years will result in approximately
500,000 homes built or rehabilitated, creating a pathway for more families to
buy a home and start building wealth.
·
Eliminate
exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies. For decades,
exclusionary zoning laws – like minimum lot sizes, mandatory parking
requirements, and prohibitions on multifamily housing – have inflated housing
and construction costs and locked families out of areas with more opportunities.
President Biden is calling on Congress to enact an innovative, new competitive
grant program that awards flexible and attractive funding to jurisdictions that
take concrete steps to eliminate such needless barriers to producing affordable
housing.
·
Address
longstanding public housing capital needs. Years of disinvestment have
left our public housing in disrepair. President Biden is calling on Congress to
invest $40 billion to improve the infrastructure of the public housing system
in America. This funding will address critical life-safety concerns, mitigate
imminent hazards to residents, and undertake energy efficiency measures which
will significantly reduce ongoing operating expenses. These improvements will
disproportionately benefit women, people of color, and people with
disabilities.
·
Put union building
trade workers to work upgrading homes and businesses to save families
money. President Biden’s plan will upgrade homes through block grant
programs, the Weatherization Assistance Program, and by extending and expanding
home and commercial efficiency tax credits. President Biden’s plan also will
establish a $27 billion Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator to mobilize
private investment into distributed energy resources; retrofits of residential,
commercial and municipal buildings; and clean transportation. These investments
have a particular focus on disadvantaged communities that have not yet
benefited from clean energy investments.
Modernize
our nation’s schools and early learning facilities:
Too many students attend schools and child care centers that are run-down,
unsafe, and pose health risks. These conditions are dangerous for our kids and
exist disproportionately in schools with a high percentage of low-income
students and students of color. And even before COVID-19, 43 percent of parents
reported struggling to find an adequate child care facility for their children.
President Biden is calling on Congress to:
·
Modernize our
public schools. President Biden believes we can’t close the opportunity
gap if low-income kids go to schools in buildings that undermine health and
safety, while wealthier students get access to safe buildings with labs and
technology that prepare them for the jobs of the future. The President’s plan
invests $100 billion to upgrade and build new public schools, through $50
billion in direct grants and an additional $50 billion leveraged through bonds.
These funds will first go toward making sure our schools are safe and healthy
places of learning for our kids and work for teachers and other education
professionals, for example by improving indoor air quality and ventilation. As
we make our schools safer, we also will invest in cutting-edge,
energy-efficient and electrified, resilient, and innovative school buildings with
technology and labs that will help our educators prepare students to be
productive workers and valued students. Under the President’s plan, better
operating school facilities will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and also
will become environments of community resilience with green space, clean air,
and safe places to gather, especially during emergencies. Funds also will be
provided to improve our school kitchens, so they can be used to better prepare
nutritious meals for our students and go green by reducing or eliminating the
use of paper plates and other disposable materials.
·
Investing in
community college infrastructure. Investing in community college facilities and
technology helps protect the health and safety of students and faculty, address
education deserts (particularly for rural communities), grow local economies,
improve energy efficiency and resilience, and narrow funding inequities in the
short-term, as we rebuild our higher education finance system for the long-run.
President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $12 billion to address these
needs. States will be responsible for using the dollars to address both
existing physical and technological infrastructure needs at community colleges
and identifying strategies to address access to community college in education
deserts.
·
Upgrade child care
facilities and build new supply in high need areas. Lack of access to
child care makes it harder for parents, especially mothers, to fully
participate in the workforce. In areas with the greatest shortage of child care
slots, women’s labor force participation is about three percentage points less
than in areas with a high capacity of child care slots, hurting families and
hindering U.S. growth and competitiveness. President Biden is calling on Congress
to provide $25 billion to help upgrade child care facilities and increase the
supply of child care in areas that need it most. Funding would be provided
through a Child Care Growth and Innovation Fund for states to build a supply of
infant and toddler care in high-need areas. President Biden also is calling for
an expanded tax credit to encourage businesses to build child care facilities
at places of work. Employers will receive 50 percent of the first $1 million of
construction costs per facility so that employees can enjoy the peace of mind
and convenience that comes with on-site child care. These investments will
provide safe, accessible, energy efficient, high-quality learning environments
for providers to teach and care for children. Public investments in schools and
childcare improves children’s outcomes—the foundation for future productivity
gains. In classrooms with poor ventilation, for example,
student absences are 10 to 20 percent
higher.
Upgrade
VA hospitals and federal buildings:
The federal government operates office buildings, courthouses, and other
facilities in every state, where millions of workers serve the public from
outdated, inefficient, and sometimes unsafe working conditions. While the
median age of U.S. private sector hospitals is roughly 11 years, the Veterans
Affairs’ hospital portfolio has a median age of 58. The President believes our
veterans deserve state-of-the-art hospitals and care. President Biden’s plan
provides $18 billion for the modernization of Veterans Affairs hospitals and
clinics. President Biden’s plan also invests $10 billion in the modernization,
sustainability, and resilience of federal buildings, including through a
bipartisan Federal Capital Revolving Fund to support investment in a major
purchase, construction or renovation of Federal facilities. And, President Biden’s
plan utilizes the vast tools of federal procurement to purchase low carbon
materials for construction and clean power for these newly constructed VA
hospitals and federal buildings.
SOLIDIFY THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF OUR CARE ECONOMY BY CREATING JOBS AND RAISING
WAGES AND BENEFITS FOR ESSENTIAL HOME CARE WORKERS
Even
before COVID-19, our country was in the midst of a caregiving crisis. In
addition to caring for children, families feel the financial burden of caring
for aging relatives and family members with disabilities, and there is a
financial strain for people with disabilities living independently to ensure
that they are getting care in their homes. At the same time, hundreds of
thousands of people who need better care are unable to access it, even though
they qualify under Medicaid. In fact, it can take years for these individuals
to get the services they badly need. Aging relatives and people with
disabilities deserve better. They deserve high-quality services and support
that meet their unique needs and personal choices.
Caregivers
– who are disproportionally women of color – have been underpaid and
undervalued for far too long. Wages for essential home care workers are
approximately $12 per hour, putting them among the lowest paid workers in our economy.
In fact, one in six workers in this sector live in poverty. President Biden is
calling on Congress to make substantial investments in the infrastructure of
care in our country. Specifically, he is calling on Congress to put $400
billion toward expanding access to quality, affordable home- or community-based
care for aging relatives and people with disabilities. These investments will
help hundreds of thousands of Americans finally obtain the long-term services
and support they need, while creating new jobs and offering caregiving workers
a long-overdue raise, stronger benefits, and an opportunity to organize or join
a union and collectively bargain. Research shows that increasing the pay of direct
care workers greatly enhances workers’ financial security, improves
productivity, and increases the quality of care offered.
Another study showed that increased
pay for care workers prevented deaths, reduced the number of health
violations, and lowered the cost of preventative care.
President Biden’s plan will:
·
Expand access to
long-term care services under Medicaid. President Biden believes more
people should have the opportunity to receive care at home, in a supportive
community, or from a loved one. President Biden’s plan will expand access to
home and community-based services (HCBS) and extend the longstanding Money
Follows the Person program that supports innovations in the delivery of
long-term care.
·
Put in place an
infrastructure to create good middle-class jobs with a free and fair choice to
join a union. The HCBS expansion under Medicaid can support well-paying
caregiving jobs that include benefits and the ability to collectively bargain,
building state infrastructure to improve the quality of services and to support
workers. This will improve wages and quality of life for essential home health
workers and yield significant economic benefits for low-income communities and
communities of color.
INVEST
IN R&D, REVITALIZE MANUFACTURING AND SMALL BUSINESSES, AND TRAIN AMERICANS
FOR THE JOBS OF THE FUTURE
Half the jobs in our high growth, high wage sectors are concentrated in just 41
counties, locking millions of Americans out of a shot at a middle-class job.
President Biden believes that, even in the face of automation and
globalization, America can and must retain well-paid union jobs and create more
of them all across the country. U.S. manufacturing was the Arsenal of Democracy
in World War II and must be part of the Arsenal of American Prosperity today,
helping fuel an economic recovery for working families. From the invention of
the semiconductor to the creation of the Internet, new engines of economic
growth have emerged due to public investments that support research,
commercialization, and strong supply chains. President Biden is calling on
Congress to make smart investments in research and development, manufacturing
and regional economic development, and in workforce development to give our
workers and companies the tools and training they need to compete on the global
stage. Specifically, President Biden is calling on Congress to:
Invest
in R&D and the technologies of the future:
Public
investments in R&D lay the foundation for the future breakthroughs that
over time yield new businesses, new jobs, and more exports. However, we need
more investment if we want to maintain our economic edge in today’s global
economy. We are one of the few major economies whose public investments in
research and development have declined as a percent of GDP in the past 25
years. Countries like China are investing aggressively in R&D, and China
now ranks number two in the world in R&D expenditures. In addition,
barriers to careers in high-innovation sectors remain significant. We must do
more to improve access to the higher wage sectors of our economy. In order to
win the 21st century economy, President Biden believes America
must get back to investing in the researchers, laboratories, and universities
across our nation. But this time, we must do so with a commitment to lifting up
workers and regions who were left out of past investments. He is calling on
Congress to make an $180 billion investment that will:
·
Advance U.S.
leadership in critical technologies and upgrade America’s research
infrastructure. U.S. leadership in new technologies—from artificial
intelligence to biotechnology to computing—is critical to both our future
economic competitiveness and our national security. Based on bipartisan
proposals, President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $50 billion in the
National Science Foundation (NSF), creating a technology directorate that will
collaborate with and build on existing programs across the government. It will
focus on fields like semiconductors and advanced computing, advanced
communications technology, advanced energy technologies, and biotechnology. He also
is calling on Congress to provide $30 billion in additional funding for R&D
that spurs innovation and job creation, including in rural areas. His plan also
will invest $40 billion in upgrading research infrastructure in laboratories
across the country, including brick-and-mortar facilities and computing
capabilities and networks. These funds would be allocated across the federal
R&D agencies, including at the Department of Energy. Half of those funds
will be reserved for Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs) and
other Minority Serving Institutions, including the creation of a new national
lab focused on climate that will be affiliated with an HBCU.
·
Establish the
United States as a leader in climate science, innovation, and R&D. The
President is calling on Congress to invest $35 billion in the full range of
solutions needed to achieve technology breakthroughs that address the climate
crisis and position America as the global leader in clean energy technology and
clean energy jobs. This includes launching ARPA-C to develop new methods for
reducing emissions and building climate resilience, as well as expanding
across-the-board funding for climate research. In addition to a $5 billion
increase in funding for other climate-focused research, his plan will invest
$15 billion in demonstration projects for climate R&D priorities, including
utility-scale energy storage, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, advanced
nuclear, rare earth element separations, floating offshore wind,
biofuel/bioproducts, quantum computing, and electric vehicles, as well as
strengthening U.S. technological leadership in these areas in global markets.
·
Eliminate racial
and gender inequities in research and development and science, technology,
engineering, and math. Discrimination leads to less innovation: one study found that innovation in the
United States will quadruple if women, people of color, and children from
low-income families invented at the rate of groups who are not held back by
discrimination and structural barriers. Persistent inequities in access to
R&D dollars and to careers in innovation industries prevents the U.S.
economy from reaching its full potential. President Biden is calling on
Congress to make a $10 billion R&D investment at HBCUs and other MSIs. He
also is calling on Congress to invest $15 billion in creating up to 200 centers
of excellence that serve as research incubators at HBCUs and other MSIs to
provide graduate fellowships and other opportunities for underserved
populations, including through pre-college programs.
Retool
and revitalize American manufacturers and small businesses:
The U.S. manufacturing sector accounts for 70 percent of business R&D
expenditure, 30 percent of productivity growth, and 60 percent of exports.
Manufacturing is a critical node that helps convert research and innovation
into sustained economic growth. Workers on the factory floor work hand-in-hand
with engineers and scientists to sharpen and maintain our competitive edge.
While manufacturing jobs have been a ladder to middle-class life, we have let
our industrial heartland be hollowed out, with quality jobs moving abroad or to
regions with lower wages and fewer protections for workers. President Biden is
calling on Congress to invest $300 billion in order to:
·
Strengthen
manufacturing supply chains for critical goods. President Biden believes
we must produce, here at home, the technologies and goods that meet today’s
challenges and seize tomorrow’s opportunities. President Biden is calling on
Congress to invest $50 billion to create a new office at the Department of Commerce
dedicated to monitoring domestic industrial capacity and funding investments to
support production of critical goods. The President also is calling on Congress
to invest $50 billion in semiconductor manufacturing and research, as called
for in the bipartisan CHIPS Act.
·
Protect Americans
from future pandemics. This funding provides $30 billion over 4 years to
create U.S. jobs and prevent the severe job losses caused by pandemics through
major new investments in medical countermeasures manufacturing; research and
development; and related biopreparedness and
biosecurity. This includes investments to shore up our nation’s strategic
national stockpile; accelerate the timeline to research, develop and field
tests and therapeutics for emerging and future outbreaks; accelerate response
time by developing prototype vaccines through Phase I and II trials, test
technologies for the rapid scaling of vaccine production, and ensure sufficient
production capacity in an emergency; enhance U.S. infrastructure for biopreparedness and investments in biosafety and
biosecurity; train personnel for epidemic and pandemic response; and onshore
active pharmaceutical ingredients. COVID-19 has claimed over 500,000
American lives and cost trillions of dollars, demonstrating the devastating and
increasing risk of pandemics and other biological threats. Over the past two
decades, outbreaks of SARS, Ebola, influenza, Zika and others have cost
billions in lost productivity. The risk of catastrophic biological threats is
increasing due to our interconnected world, heightened risk of spillover from
animals to humans, ease of making and modifying pandemic agents, and an eroding
norm against the development and use of biological weapons. The American
Rescue Plan serves as an initial investment of $10 billion. With this new major
investment in preventing future pandemics, the United States will build on the
momentum from the American Rescue Plan, bolster scientific leadership, create
jobs, markedly decrease the time from discovering a new threat to putting shots
in arms, and prevent future biological catastrophes.
·
Jumpstart clean
energy manufacturing through federal procurement. The federal government
spends more than a half-a-trillion dollars buying goods and services each year.
As a result, it has the ability to be a first-mover in markets. This incredible
purchasing power can be used to drive innovation and clean energy production,
as well as to support high quality jobs. To meet the President’s
goals of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, the United States will need more
electric vehicles, charging ports, and electric heat pumps for residential
heating and commercial buildings. The President is calling on Congress to
enable the manufacture of those cars, ports, pumps, and clean materials, as
well as critical technologies like advanced nuclear reactors and fuel, here at
home through a $46 billion investment in federal buying power, creating
good-paying jobs and reinvigorating local economies, especially in rural areas.
·
Make it in ALL of
America. The President believes we must build social infrastructure to
support innovation and productivity across the country. He is calling on
Congress to invest $20 billion in regional innovation hubs and a Community
Revitalization Fund. At least ten regional innovation hubs will leverage
private investment to fuel technology development, link urban and rural
economies, and create new businesses in regions beyond the current handful of
high-growth centers. The Community Revitalization Fund will support innovative,
community-led redevelopment projects that can spark new economic activity,
provide services and amenities, build community wealth, and close the current
gaps in access to the innovation economy for communities of color and rural
communities that have suffered from years of disinvestment. And, President
Biden is calling on Congress to invest $14 billion in NIST to bring together
industry, academia, and government to advance technologies and capabilities
critical to future competitiveness. He is calling on Congress to quadruple
support for the Manufacturing Extensions Partnership —increasing the
involvement of minority-owned and rurally-located small- and-medium-sized
enterprises in technological advancement.
·
Increase access to
capital for domestic manufacturers. America’s manufacturing industry needs
to innovate, adapt, and scale to win the industries of the future. President
Biden is calling on Congress to invest more than $52 billion in domestic
manufacturers. The President is calling on Congress to invest in existing
capital access programs with a proven track record of success, with a focus on
supporting rural manufacturing and clean energy. The President’s plan also
includes specific supports for modernizing supply chains, including in the auto
sector, like extending the 48C tax credit program. He also will call for the
creation of a new financing program to support debt and equity investments for
manufacturing to strengthen the resilience of America’s supply chains.
·
Create a national
network of small business incubators and innovation hubs. Almost all
manufacturers (98 percent) are small- and medium-sized firms. Furthermore,
small business ownership is a cornerstone of job creation and wealth building.
However, even before the pandemic, many entrepreneurs struggled to compete in a
system that is so often tilted in favor of large corporations and wealthy
individuals. President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $31 billion in
programs that give small businesses access to credit, venture capital, and
R&D dollars. The proposal includes funding for community-based small
business incubators and innovation hubs to support the growth of
entrepreneurship in communities of color and underserved communities.
·
Partner with rural
and Tribal communities to create jobs and economic growth in rural
America. Today, despite the fact that rural and Tribal communities across
the country are asset-rich, more than 8 in 10 persistent poverty counties fall
outside of a metropolitan area. President Biden’s plan invests in rural and
Tribal communities, including by providing 100 percent broadband coverage,
rebuilding crumbling infrastructure like roads, bridges, and water systems,
providing research and development funding to land grant universities, and
positioning the U.S. agricultural sector to lead the shift to net-zero
emissions while providing new economic opportunities for farmers. President
Biden also is proposing to transform the way the federal government partners
with rural and Tribal communities to create jobs and spur inclusive economic
growth. Rural communities often don’t have the same budget as big cities
to hire staff needed to navigate and access federal programs. On top of that,
they have to navigate a myriad of programs all with different purposes and
requirements. As part of his plan to ensure that all communities recover –
regardless of geography – President Biden is proposing a $5 billion for a new
Rural Partnership Program to help rural regions, including Tribal Nations,
build on their unique assets and realize their vision for inclusive community
and economic development. This program will empower rural regions by supporting
locally-led planning and capacity building efforts, and providing flexible
funding to meet critical needs.
Invest
in Workforce Development:
As more Americans rejoin the workforce or seek out new opportunities in a
changing economy, there is a greater need for skills development opportunities
for workers of all kind. In order to ensure workers have ready access to the
skills they will need to succeed, and to improve racial and gender equity,
President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $100 billion in proven
workforce development programs targeted at underserved groups and getting our
students on paths to careers before they graduate from high school. His plan
will:
·
Pair job creation
efforts with next generation training programs. President Biden is calling
on Congress to invest in evidence-based approaches to supporting workers. This
includes wraparound services, income supports, counseling, and case management,
paired with high-quality training and effective partnerships between
educational institutions, unions, and employers. Specifically, he is calling
for a $40 billion investment in a new Dislocated Workers Program and sector-based
training. This funding will ensure comprehensive services for workers, who have
lost jobs through no fault of their own, to gain new skills and to get career
services they need with in-demand jobs. Sector-based training programs will be
focused on growing, high demand sectors such as clean energy, manufacturing,
and caregiving, helping workers of all kinds to find good-quality jobs in an
ever-changing economy.
·
Target workforce
development opportunities in underserved communities. Structural racism and
persistent economic inequities have undermined opportunity for millions of
workers. All of the investments in workforce training will prioritize
underserved communities and communities hit hard by a transforming economy.
President Biden also will call upon Congress to ensure that new jobs created in
clean energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure are open and accessible to
women and people of color. President Biden is calling on Congress to also
specifically target funding to workers facing some of the greatest challenges,
with a $12 billion investment. This includes $5 billion over eight years in
support of evidence-based community violence prevention programs. He is calling
on Congress to invest in job training for formerly incarcerated individuals and
justice-involved youth and in improving public safety. He also is calling on
Congress to tackle long-term unemployment and underemployment through a new
subsidized jobs program. And, he is calling on Congress to eliminate
sub-minimum wage provisions in section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act
and expand access to competitive, integrated employment opportunities and fair
wages for workers with disabilities.
·
Build the capacity
of the existing workforce development and worker protection systems. The United
States has underinvested in the workforce development system for decades. In
fact, we currently spend just one-fifth of the average that other advanced
economies spend on workforce and labor market programs. This lack of
investment impacts all of us: better
educated workers create spillover effects for other workers and lack of
employment has negative social impacts on communities. President Biden is
calling on Congress to invest a combined $48 billion in American workforce
development infrastructure and worker protection. This includes registered
apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships, creating one to two million new
registered apprenticeships slots, and strengthening the pipeline for more women
and people of color to access these opportunities through successful
pre-apprenticeship programs such as the Women in Apprenticeships in
Non-Traditional Occupations. This will ensure these underserved groups have
greater access to new infrastructure jobs. These investments include the
creation of career pathway programs in middle and high schools, prioritizing
increased access to computer science and high-quality career and technical
programs that connect underrepresented students to STEM and in-demand sectors
through partnerships with both institutions of higher education and employers.
The President’s plan also will support community college partnerships that
build capacity to deliver job training programs based on in-demand skills. His
plan will better tailor services to workers’ job seeking and career development
needs through investments in Expanded Career Services and the Title II adult
literacy program. The President’s plan includes funding to strengthen the
capacity of our labor enforcement agencies to protect against discrimination,
protect wages and benefits, enforce health and safety safeguards, strengthen
health care and pensions plans, and promote union organizing and collective
bargaining.
CREATE
GOOD-QUALITY JOBS THAT PAY PREVAILING WAGES IN SAFE AND HEALTHY WORKPLACES
WHILE ENSURING WORKERS HAVE A FREE AND FAIR CHOICE TO ORGANIZE, JOIN A UNION,
AND BARGAIN COLLECTIVELY WITH THEIR EMPLOYERS
As America works to recover from the devastating challenges of a deadly
pandemic, an economic crisis, and a reckoning on race that reveals deep
disparities, we need to summon a new wave of worker power to create an economy
that works for everyone. We owe it not only to those who have put in a lifetime
of work, but to the next generation of workers who have only known an America
of rising inequality and shrinking opportunity. This is especially important
for workers of color and for women, who have endured discrimination and systematic
exclusion from economic opportunities for generations. All of us deserve to
enjoy America’s promise in full — and our nation’s leaders have a
responsibility to overcome racial, gender, and other inequalities to make it
happen. To that end, the President is calling on Congress to create new,
good-quality union jobs for American workers by leveraging their grit and
ingenuity to address the climate crisis and build a sustainable infrastructure.
Increased unionization can also impact our economic
growth overall by improving productivity. President Biden’s plan will:
·
Empower Workers.
President Biden is calling on Congress to update the social contract that
provides workers with a fair shot to get ahead, overcome racial and other
inequalities that have been barriers for too many Americans, expand the middle
class, and strengthen communities. He is calling on Congress to ensure all
workers have a free and fair choice to join a union by passing the Protecting
the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, and guarantee union and bargaining rights for
public service workers. His plan also ensures domestic workers receive the
legal benefits and protections they deserve and tackles pay inequities based on
gender.
·
Create good jobs.
The President’s plan demands that employers benefitting from these investments
follow strong labor standards and remain neutral when their employees seek to
organize a union and bargain collectively. He is asking Congress to tie federal
investments in clean energy and infrastructure to prevailing wages and require
transportation investments to meet existing transit labor protections. He also is
calling for investments tied to Project Labor, Community Workforce, local hire,
and registered apprenticeships and other labor or labor-management training
programs so that federal investments support good jobs and pathways to the
middle class. Finally, he is asking Congress to include a commitment to
increasing American jobs through Buy America and Ship American provisions.
·
Protect workers.
President Biden is calling on Congress to provide the federal government with
the tools it needs to ensure employers are providing workers with good jobs –
including jobs with fair and equal pay, safe and healthy workplaces, and
workplaces free from racial, gender, and other forms of discrimination and
harassment. In addition to a $10 billion investment in enforcement as part of
the plan’s workforce proposals, the President is calling for increased
penalties when employers violate workplace safety and health rules.
THE
MADE IN AMERICA TAX PLAN
Alongside the American Jobs Plan, the President is proposing to fix the corporate
tax code so that it incentivizes job creation and investment here in the United
States, stops unfair and wasteful profit shifting to tax havens, and ensures
that large corporations are paying their fair share.
The 2017 tax law only made an unfair system worse. A recent independent study
found that 91 Fortune 500 companies paid $0 in federal corporate taxes on U.S.
income in 2018. In fact, according to recent analysis by the Joint Committee on
Taxation, the 2017 tax bill cut the average rate that corporations paid in half
from 16 percent to less than 8 percent in 2018. A number of the provisions in
the 2017 law also created new incentives to shift profits and jobs overseas.
President Biden’s reform will reverse this damage and fundamentally reform the
way the tax code treats the largest corporations.
President
Biden’s reform will also make the United States a leader again in the world and
help bring an end to the race-to-the-bottom on corporate tax rates that allows
countries to gain a competitive advantage by becoming tax havens. This is a
generational opportunity to fundamentally shift how countries around the world
tax corporations so that big corporations can’t escape or eliminate the taxes
they owe by offshoring jobs and profits from the United States.
Together these corporate tax changes will raise over $2 trillion over the next
15 years and more than pay for the mostly one-time investments in the American
Jobs Plan and then reduce deficits on a permanent basis:
·
Set the Corporate
Tax Rate at 28 percent. The President’s tax plan will ensure that
corporations pay their fair share of taxes by increasing the corporate tax rate
to 28 percent. His plan will return corporate tax revenue as a share of the
economy to around its 21st century average from before the 2017
tax law and well below where it stood before the 1980s. This will help fund
critical investments in infrastructure, clean energy, R&D, and more to
maintain the competitiveness of the United States and grow the economy.
·
Discourage
Offshoring by Strengthening the Global Minimum Tax for U.S. Multinational
Corporations. Right now, the tax code rewards U.S. multinational
corporations that shift profits and jobs overseas with a tax exemption for the
first ten percent return on foreign assets, and the rest is taxed at half the
domestic tax rate. Moreover, the 2017 tax law allows companies to use the taxes
they pay in high-tax countries to shield profits in tax havens, encouraging
offshoring of jobs. The President’s tax reform proposal will increase the minimum
tax on U.S. corporations to 21 percent and calculate it on a country-by-country
basis so it hits profits in tax havens. It will also eliminate the rule that
allows U.S. companies to pay zero taxes on the first 10 percent of return when
they locate investments in foreign countries. By creating incentives for
investment here in the United States, we can reward companies that help to grow
the U.S. economy and create a more level playing field between domestic
companies and multinationals.
·
End the Race to
the Bottom Around the World. The United States can lead the world to end
the race to the bottom on corporate tax rates. A minimum tax on U.S.
corporations alone is insufficient. That can still allow foreign corporations
to strip profits out of the United States, and U.S. corporations can
potentially escape U.S. tax by inverting and switching their headquarters to
foreign countries. This practice must end. President Biden is also proposing to
encourage other countries to adopt strong minimum taxes on corporations, just
like the United States, so that foreign corporations aren’t advantaged and
foreign countries can’t try to get a competitive edge by serving as tax havens.
This plan also denies deductions to foreign corporations on payments that could
allow them to strip profits out of the United States if they are based in a
country that does not adopt a strong minimum tax. It further replaces an
ineffective provision in the 2017 tax law that tried to stop foreign
corporations from stripping profits out of the United States. The United States
is now seeking a global agreement on a strong minimum tax through multilateral
negotiations. This provision makes our commitment to a global minimum tax
clear. The time has come to level the playing field and no longer allow
countries to gain a competitive edge by slashing corporate tax rates.
·
Prevent U.S.
Corporations from inverting or claiming tax havens as their
residence. Under current law, U.S. corporations can acquire or merge with a
foreign company to avoid U.S. taxes by claiming to be a foreign company, even
though their place of management and operations are in the United States.
President Biden is proposing to make it harder for U.S. corporations to invert.
This will backstop the other reforms which should address the incentive to do
so in the first place.
·
Deny Companies
Expense Deductions for Offshoring Jobs and Credit Expenses for
Onshoring. President Biden’s reform proposal will also make sure that
companies can no longer write off expenses that come from offshoring jobs. This
is a matter of fairness. U.S. taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize companies shipping
jobs abroad. Instead, President Biden is also proposing to provide a tax credit
to support onshoring jobs.
·
Eliminate a
Loophole for Intellectual Property that Encourages Offshoring Jobs and Invest
in Effective R&D Incentives. The President’s ambitious reform of the
tax code also includes reforming the way it promotes research and development.
This starts with a complete elimination of the tax incentives in the Trump tax
law for “Foreign Derived Intangible Income” (FDII), which gave corporations a
tax break for shifting assets abroad and is ineffective at encouraging
corporations to invest in R&D. All of the revenue from repealing the FDII
deduction will be used to expand more effective R&D investment incentives.
·
Enact A Minimum
Tax on Large Corporations’ Book Income. The President’s tax reform will
also ensure that large, profitable corporations cannot exploit loopholes in the
tax code to get by without paying U.S. corporate taxes. A 15 percent minimum
tax on the income corporations use to report their profits to investors—known
as “book income”—will backstop the tax plan’s other ambitious reforms and apply
only to the very largest corporations.
·
Eliminate Tax
Preferences for Fossil Fuels and Make Sure Polluting Industries Pay for
Environmental Clean Up. The current tax code includes billions of dollars
in subsidies, loopholes, and special foreign tax credits for the fossil fuel
industry. As part of the President’s commitment to put the country on a path to
net-zero emissions by 2050, his tax reform proposal will eliminate all these
special preferences. The President is also proposing to restore payments from
polluters into the Superfund Trust Fund so that polluting industries help
fairly cover the cost of cleanups.
·
Ramping Up
Enforcement Against Corporations. All of these measures will make it much
harder for the largest corporations to avoid or evade taxes by eliminating
parts of the tax code that are too easily abused. This will be paired with an
investment in enforcement to make sure corporations pay their fair share.
Typical workers’ wages are reported to the IRS and their employer withholds, so
they pay all the taxes they owe. By contrast, large corporations have at their
disposal loopholes they exploit to avoid or evade tax liabilities, and an army
of high-paid tax advisors and accountants who help them get away with this. At
the same time, an under-funded IRS lacks the capacity to scrutinize these
suspect tax maneuvers: A decade ago, essentially all large corporations were
audited annually by the IRS; today, audit rates are less than 50 percent. This
plan will reverse these trends, and make sure that the Internal Revenue Service
has the resources it needs to effectively enforce the tax laws against
corporations. This will be paired with a broader enforcement initiative to be
announced in the coming weeks that will address tax evasion among corporations
and high-income Americans.
These are key
steps toward a fairer tax code that encourages investment in the United States,
stops shifting of jobs and profits abroad, and makes sure that corporations pay
their fair share. The President looks forward to working with Congress, and
will be putting forward additional ideas in the coming weeks for reforming our
tax code so that it rewards work and not wealth, and makes sure the highest
income individuals pay their fair share.
ATTACHMENT
TWO – from the White House Briefing Room
FACT SHEET: THE AMERICAN FAMILIES PLAN
APRIL
28, 2021
Today, President Biden announced the American Families
Plan, an investment in our kids, our families, and our economic future.
In March, the President signed into law
the American Rescue Plan, which continues to provide immediate relief to
American families and communities. Approximately 161 million payments of up to
$1,400 per person have gone out to households, schools are reopening, and 100
percent of Americans ages 16 and older are now eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Rescue Plan is projected to lift more than five million children out of
poverty this year, cutting child poverty by more than half. While too many
Americans are still out of work, we are seeing encouraging signs in the labor
market, as businesses begin to rehire and some of the hardest hit sectors begin
to reopen.
But the President knows that we need to do more. It is not enough to restore
where we were prior to the pandemic. We need to build a stronger economy that
does not leave anyone behind – we need to build back better. President Biden
knows a strong middle class is the backbone of America. He knows it should be
easier for American families to break into the middle class, and easier to stay
in the middle class. He knows that we need to continue to enable those who
dropped out of the workforce – particularly the approximately two million women
who left due to COVID – to rejoin and stay in the workforce. And, he knows
that, unlike in past decades, policies to make life easier for American
families must focus on bringing everyone along: inclusive of gender, race, or
place of residence – urban, suburban, or rural.
The American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan are once-in-a-generation
investments in our nation’s future. The American Jobs Plan will create
millions of good jobs, rebuild our country’s physical infrastructure and
workforce, and spark innovation and manufacturing here at home. The American
Families Plan is an investment in our children and our families—helping
families cover the basic expenses that so many struggle with now, lowering
health insurance premiums, and continuing the American Rescue Plan’s historic
reductions in child poverty. Together, these plans reinvest in the future of
the American economy and American workers, and will help us out-compete China
and other countries around the world.
To grow the middle class, expand the benefits of economic growth to all
Americans, and leave the United States more competitive, President Biden’s
American Families Plan will:
·
Add at least four
years of free education. Investing in education is a down payment on the
future of America. As access to high school became more widely available at the
turn of the 20th Century, it made us the best-educated and best-prepared nation
in the world. But everyone knows that 12 years is not enough today. The
American Families Plan will make transformational investments from early
childhood to postsecondary education so that all children and young people are
able to grow, learn, and gain the skills they need to succeed. It will provide
universal, quality-preschool to all three- and four- year-olds. It will provide
Americans two years of free community college. It will invest in making college
more affordable for low- and middle-income students, including students at
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and
Universities (TCUs), and institutions such as Hispanic-serving institutions,
Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions, and
other minority-serving institutions (MSIs). And, it will invest in our teachers
as well as our students, improving teacher training and support so that our
schools become engines of growth at every level.
·
Provide direct
support to children and families. Our
nation is strongest when everyone has the opportunity to join the workforce and
contribute to the economy. But many workers struggle to both hold a full-time
job and care for themselves and their families. The American Families Plan will
provide direct support to families to ensure that low- and middle-income
families spend no more than seven percent of their income on child care, and
that the child care they access is of high-quality. It will also provide direct
support to workers and families by creating a national comprehensive paid
family and medical leave program that will bring the American system in line
with competitor nations that offer paid leave programs. The system will also
allow people to manage their health and the health of their families. And, it
will provide critical nutrition assistance to families who need it most and
expand access to healthy meals to our nation’s students – dramatically reducing
childhood hunger.
·
Extend tax cuts
for families with children and American workers. While the American Rescue Plan provided
meaningful relief for hundreds of millions of Americans, too many families and
workers feel the squeeze of too-low wages and the high costs of meeting their
basic needs and their aspirations. At the same time, the wealthiest Americans
continue to get further and further ahead. The American Families Plan will
extend key tax cuts in the American Rescue Plan that benefit lower- and
middle-income workers and families, including the Child Tax Credit, the Earned
Income Tax Credit, and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. In addition to
making it easier for families to make ends meet, tax credits for working
families have been shown to boost child academic and economic performance over
time. The American Families Plan will also extend the expanded health insurance
tax credits in the American Rescue Plan. These credits are providing premium
relief that is lowering health insurance costs by an average of $50 per person
per month for nine million people, and will enable four million uninsured
people to gain coverage.
Leading economic research has shown that the
investments proposed in the American Families Plan will yield significant
economic returns – boosting productivity and economic growth, producing a
larger, more productive, and healthier workforce on a sustained basis, and
generating savings to states and the federal government. Evidence shows
that a dollar invested in high-quality early childhood programs for low-income
children will result in up to $7.30 in benefits, including increased wages,
improved health, and reduced crime. Parental paid leave has been shown to keep
mothers in the workforce, increasing labor force participation and boosting
economic growth. And, sustained tax credits for families with children have
been found to yield a lifetime of benefits, ranging from higher educational
attainment to higher lifetime earnings
In all, the American Families Plan includes $1.8 trillion in investments and
tax credits for American families and children over ten years. It consists of
about $1 trillion in investments and $800 billion in tax cuts for American
families and workers. Alongside the American Families Plan, the President will
be proposing a set of measures to make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay
their share in taxes, while ensuring that no one making $400,000 per year or
less will see their taxes go up. When combined with President Biden’s American
Jobs Plan, this legislation will be fully paid for over 15 years, and will
reduce deficits over the long term.
ADD AT LEAST FOUR YEARS OF FREE PUBLIC EDUCATION, CLOSE EQUITY GAPS, AND MAKE
COLLEGE MORE AFFORDABLE
Early in the 20th century, the United States set a new
global standard by expanding access to free public education through high
school. Direct public investment in our children’s future propelled U.S.
economic growth and enhanced our global competitiveness. Now, mounting evidence
suggests that 12 years of school is no longer sufficient to prepare our students
for success in today’s economy. Research tells us that we must invest early to
support our children’s development and readiness for academic success; our
transforming economy requires that we provide every student the opportunity to
obtain a postsecondary degree or certificate.
That is why the American Families Plan calls for an additional four years of
free, public education for our nation’s children. Specifically, President Biden
is calling for $200 billion for free universal pre-school for all three- and
four-year-olds and $109 billion for two years of free
community college so that every student has the ability to obtain a degree or
certificate. In addition, he is calling for an over $80 billion investment
in Pell Grants, which would help students seeking a certificate or a two-
or four-year degree. Recognizing that access to postsecondary education is not
enough, the American Families Plan includes $62 billion to invest in
evidence-based strategies to strengthen completion and retention rates at community
colleges and institutions that serve students from our most disadvantaged
communities. This is alongside a $46 billion investment in HBCUs, TCUs, and
MSIs. President Biden is also calling for $9 billion to train, equip and
diversify American teachers in order to ensure that our high school graduates
are ready for success. These investments, combined with those laid out in the
President’s American Jobs Plan, will boost earnings, expand employment
opportunities, and enable the U.S. to win the 21st century.
UNIVERSAL PRE-SCHOOL FOR ALL THREE- AND FOUR-YEAR-OLDS
Preschool is critical to ensuring that children start kindergarten with the
skills and supports that set them up for success in school. In fact, research shows that kids who
attend universal pre-K are more likely to take honors classes and less likely
to repeat a grade, and another study finds low-income
children who attend universal programs do better in math and reading as late as
eighth grade. Unfortunately, many children, but especially children of color
and low-income children, do not have access to the
full range of high-quality pre-school programs available to their more affluent
peers. In addition to providing critical benefits for children, preschool
has also been shown to increase labor force participation among
parents – especially women — boosting family earnings and driving economic
growth. By some estimates, the benefits of a universal pre-K system to
U.S. GDP are more than three times greater than the investment needed
to provide this service.
·
President Biden is
calling for a national partnership with states to offer free, high-quality,
accessible, and inclusive preschool to all three-and four-year-olds, benefitting five million children and saving the
average family $13,000, when fully implemented. This historic $200
billion investment in America’s future will prioritize high-need areas and
enable communities and families to choose the settings that work best for them.
The President’s plan will also ensure that all publicly-funded preschool is
high-quality, with low student-to-teacher ratios, high-quality and
developmentally appropriate curriculum, and supportive classroom environments
that are inclusive for all students. The President’s plan will leverage
investments in tuition-free community college and teacher scholarships to
support those who wish to earn a bachelor’s degree or another credential that
supports their work as an educator, or to become an early childhood educator.
And, educators will receive job-embedded coaching, professional development,
and wages that reflect the importance of their work. All employees in
participating pre-K programs and Head Start will earn at least $15 per hour,
and those with comparable qualifications will receive compensation commensurate
with that of kindergarten teachers. These investments will give American
children a head start and pave the way for the best-educated generation in U.S.
history.
FREE COMMUNITY COLLEGE AND OTHER POSTSECONDARY
EDUCATION INVESTMENTS
For much of the 20th century, graduating from high school was a
gateway to a stable job and a living wage. But over the last 40 years, we have
seen the most growth in jobs requiring higher levels of job preparation,
including education and training. Today, 70 percent of jobs are held by
people with more than a high school degree. American workers need and deserve
additional support to build their skills, increase their earnings, remain
competitive, and share in the benefits of the new economy. President Biden’s
plan will expand access to affordable postsecondary education, laying the
groundwork for innovation and inclusive economic growth for all Americans.
Specifically, President Biden’s plan will:
·
Offer two years of
free community college to all Americans, including DREAMers. The
current crisis has led to a steep college enrollment decline,
particularly for low-income students and students of color. As of Fall 2020,
high-minority and high-poverty high schools saw a 9.4 percent and 11.4 percent decline in
college enrollment, respectively. But even before the pandemic, cost remained a
barrier to attending and graduating from community college for many Americans.
President Biden’s $109 billion plan will ensure that first-time students and
workers wanting to reskill can enroll in a community college to earn a degree
or credential for free. Students can use the benefit over three years and, if
circumstances warrant, up to four years, recognizing that many students’ lives
and other responsibilities can make full-time enrollment difficult. If all
states, territories, and Tribes participate, about 5.5 million students would
pay $0 in tuition and fees.
·
Provide up to
approximately $1,400 in additional assistance to low-income students by
increasing the Pell Grant award. While nearly 7 million students depend
on Pell Grants, the grant has not kept up with the rising cost of
college. Over the last 50 years, the value
of Pell Grants has plummeted. The maximum grant went from covering nearly 80
percent of the cost of a four-year college degree to under 30 percent — leading
millions of low-income students to take out debt to finance their education.
One in three community college students receive Pell Grants to pay for their
education. Among students of color, nearly 60 percent of Black, half of
American Indian or Alaska Native, almost half of Latino, and over one-third of
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students rely on Pell Grants to pay for
college. The American Families Plan will increase the maximum Pell Grant award
by approximately $1,400, a down payment on President Biden’s commitment to
double the maximum award. The plan also allows DREAMers
to access Pell Grants.
·
Increase college
retention and completion rates. An education beyond high school can
lead to higher pay, financial stability, social mobility, and better health
outcomes. It also has public benefits such as a reduction in crime rates and
higher civic engagement. However, far too many students enter college but do
not graduate. Research shows that only
approximately three out of five students finish any type of degree or
certificate program within six years. To complete, students need additional
support. The President is proposing a bold $62 billion grant program to invest
in completion and retention activities at colleges and universities that serve
high numbers of low-income students, particularly community colleges. States,
territories, and Tribes will receive grants to provide funding to colleges that
adopt innovative, proven solutions for student success, including wraparound
services ranging from child care and mental health services to faculty and peer
mentoring; emergency basic needs grants; practices that recruit and retain
diverse faculty; transfer agreements between colleges; and evidence-based
remediation programs.
·
Provide two years
of subsidized tuition and expand programs in high-demand fields at HBCUs, TCUs,
and MSIs. Research has found that HBCUs,
TCUs, and MSIs are vital to helping underrepresented students move to the top
of the income ladder. For example, while HBCUs are only three percent of four-year
universities, their graduates make up approximately 80
percent of Black judges, half of Black lawyers and doctors, and 25 percent of
Black undergraduates earning STEM degrees. Yet, these institutions have significantly less resources
than other top colleges and universities, undermining their ability to grow and
support more students. President Biden is calling on Congress to make a
historic investment in HBCU, TCU, and MSI affordability. Specifically, he is
calling for a new $39 billion program that provides two years of subsidized
tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled in a
four-year HBCU, TCU, or MSI. The President is also calling for $5 billion to
expand existing institutional aid grants to HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs, which can be
used by these institutions to strengthen their academic, administrative, and
fiscal capabilities, including by creating or expanding educational programs in
high-demand fields (e.g., STEM, computer sciences, nursing, and allied health),
with an additional $2 billion directed towards building a pipeline of skilled
health care workers with graduate degrees. These investments, combined with the
$45 billion proposed in the American Jobs Plan targeted to these institutions,
will enable America’s HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs to tackle longstanding inequities
in postsecondary education and make the U.S. more competitive on the global
stage.
EDUCATION AND PREPARATION FOR TEACHERS
Few people can have a bigger impact on a child’s life than a great teacher.
Unfortunately, the U.S. faces a large and growing teacher shortage. Before the
pandemic, schools across the nation needed an estimated additional 100,000 certified teachers,
resulting in key positions going unfilled. Shortages of certified teachers
disproportionately impact schools with higher percentages of students of
color, which have a higher proportion of teachers that
are uncertified and in their first or second year,
exacerbating educational disparities. At the same time, while teachers of color can have a particularly
strong impact on students of color, around one in five teachers are
people of color, compared to more than half of K-12 public
school students. President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $9 billion in
American teachers, addressing shortages, improving training and supports for
teachers, and boosting teacher diversity.
These investments will improve the quality of new teachers entering the
profession, increase retention rates and increase the number of teachers of
color, all of which will improve student outcomes like academic achievement and high school graduation rates, resulting in higher long-term earnings, job creation
and a boost to the economy. In addition, as more teachers
stay in the profession, a virtuous cycle is created, wherein districts save money on recruiting and training new teachers and
can invest those funds back into programs that directly impact students.
Specifically, President Biden’s plan will:
·
Address teacher
shortages, improve teacher preparation, and strengthen pipelines for teachers
of color. President Biden is calling on Congress to double scholarships
for future teachers from $4,000 to $8,000 per year while earning their degree,
strengthening the program, and expanding it to early childhood educators. The
President’s plan also invests $2.8 billion in Grow Your Own programs and
year-long, paid teacher residency programs, which have a greater impact on
student outcomes, teacher retention, and are more likely to enroll teacher
candidates of color. His plan targets $400 million for teacher preparation at
HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs and $900 million for the development of special education
teachers.
·
Help current teachers
earn in-demand credentials. Many teachers are eager to answer the call to
get certified in areas their schools need, like special education, but are
deterred due to the high cost of professional programs. President Biden is
calling on Congress to invest $1.6 billion to provide educators with
opportunities to obtain additional certifications in high-demand areas like
special education, bilingual education, and certifications that improve teacher
performance. This funding will support over 100,000 educators, with priority
for public school teachers with at least two years of experience at schools
with a significant portion of low-income students or significant teacher
shortages. All funds will be available immediately, flowing through the states,
and available until expended.
·
Invest in educator
leadership. Millions of teachers – and the students they educate – would
stand to benefit from greater mentorship and leadership opportunities.
President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $2 billion to support programs
that leverage teachers as leaders, such as high-quality mentorship programs for
new teachers and teachers of color. These programs are proven tools to improve both student outcomes and teacher retention by providing new teachers with
the support they need. The President’s plan will also
leverage teachers as leaders of other key priorities within their school
buildings, and compensate teachers for this work, recognizing the incredible
expertise of our veteran educators, and their value in supporting the next
generation of great teachers.
PROVIDE DIRECT SUPPORT TO CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
The hope of a middle-class life has gotten further and further out of reach for
too many American families, as the costs of raising children – from child care
to taking paid leave time to care for a new child or when a child is ill – have
grown. Middle-class families and those trying to break into the middle class
increasingly feel the strain of these rising costs, while wage growth has
failed to keep up. These rising costs impact our economy as a whole as well.
In part due
to the lack of family friendly policies, the United States has fallen behind
its competitors in female labor force participation. One study found that a
lack of child care options costs the United States economy $57 billion per year in lost
earnings, productivity, and revenue. Another study found that lack of paid
leave options cost workers $22.5 billion each year in
lost wages.
CHILD CARE
The high cost of child care continues to make it hard for parents – especially
women — to work outside the home and provide for their families. Difficulty in
finding high-quality, affordable child care leads some parents to drop out
of the labor force entirely, some to reduce their work hours, and others to
turn down a promotion. When a parent drops out of the workforce, reduces hours,
or takes a lower-paying job early in their careers—even temporarily—there
are lifetime consequences on
earnings, savings, and retirement. These costs are especially significant for
mothers and people of color, exacerbating inequality and harming the economic
security of their families, as 91 percent of the income gains
experienced by middle-class families over the last forty years were driven by
women’s earnings.
High-quality early care and education lay a strong foundation so that children
can take full advantage of education and training opportunities later in life.
The evidence is clear: for early years, quality care is education. This
especially important for children from low-income families, who too often start
school without access to high-quality educational opportunities. A study by
Nobel Laureate James Heckman found that every dollar invested in a
high-quality, birth to five program for the most economically
disadvantaged children resulted in $7.30 in benefits as children grew
up healthier, were more likely to graduate high school and college, were less
likely to be involved in crime, and earned more as adults.
Building on the American Jobs Plan’s investments in school and child care
infrastructure and workforce training, President Biden’s American Families Plan
will ensure low and middle-income families pay no more than 7 percent of their
income on high-quality child care, saving the average family $14,800 per year
on child care expenses, while also generating lifetime benefits for three
million children, supporting hundreds of thousands of child care providers and
workers, allowing roughly one million parents, primarily mothers, to enter the
labor force, and significantly bolstering inclusive and equitable economic
growth. Specifically, President Biden’s plan will invest $225 billion to:
·
Make care
affordable. Families will pay only a portion of their income based on a
sliding scale. For the most hard-pressed working families, child care costs for
their young children would be fully covered and families earning 1.5 times
their state median income will pay no more than 7 percent of their income. The
plan will also provide families with a range of options to choose from for
their child, from child care centers to family child care providers, Early Head
Start, and public schools that are inclusive and accessible to all children.
·
Invest in
high-quality care. Child care providers will receive funding to cover the
true cost of quality early childhood care and education–including a
developmentally appropriate curriculum, small class sizes, and culturally and
linguistically responsive environments that are inclusive of children with
disabilities. These investments support positive interactions that promote
children’s social-emotional and cognitive development.
·
Invest in the care
workforce. More investment is needed to support early childhood care providers
and educators, more than nine in ten of whom are women
and more than four in ten of whom are women
of color. They are among the most underpaid workers
in the country and nearly half receive public
income support programs. The typical child care worker earned $12.24 per hour in 2020—while
receiving few, if any, benefits, leading to high turnover and lower quality of
care. This investment will mean a $15 minimum wage for early childhood staff
and ensure that those with similar qualifications as kindergarten teachers
receive comparable compensation and benefits. And, it will ensure child care
workers receive job-embedded coaching and professional development, along with
additional training opportunities funded by the American Jobs Plan and American
Families Plan. These investments will lead to better quality care, while also
enabling these workers to care for their own families, reducing government
spending on income support programs and increasing tax revenues. The
Families Plan will also invest in maternal health and support the families of
veterans receiving health care services.
PAID LEAVE
The United States has fallen behind our economic competitors in the number of
women participating in the labor force. The pandemic has exacerbated this
problem, pushing millions of people—especially women—out of the
workforce, eroding more than 30 years of progress in women’s labor force
participation and resulting in a $64 billion loss in wages and
economic activity per year. A lack of family-friendly policies, such as paid
family and medical leave for when a worker need time to care for a new child, a
seriously ill family member, or recover from their own serious illness, has
been identified as a key reason for the U.S. decline in competitiveness. The
United States is one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t guarantee
paid leave. Nearly one in four mothers return to
work within two weeks of giving birth and one in five retirees left or
were forced to leave the workforce earlier than planned to care for an ill
family member. Further, today nearly four of five private sector workers
have no access to paid leave. 95 percent of the lowest wage workers,
mostly women and workers of color, lack any access
to paid family leave.
Paid family and medical leave supports workers and families and is a critical
investment in the strength and equity of our economy. President Biden’s
American Families Plan will:
·
Create a national
comprehensive paid family and medical leave program. The program will
ensure workers receive partial wage replacement to take time to bond with a new
child, care for a seriously ill loved one, deal with a loved one’s military
deployment, find safety from sexual assault, stalking, or domestic violence,
heal from their own serious illness, or take time to deal with the death of a
loved one. It will guarantee twelve weeks of paid parental, family, and
personal illness/safe leave by year 10 of the program, and also ensure workers
get three days of bereavement leave per year starting in year one. The program
will provide workers up to $4,000 a month, with a minimum of two-thirds of
average weekly wages replaced, rising to 80 percent for the lowest wage
workers. We estimate this program will cost $225 billion over a decade.
President Biden’s paid leave plan has broad benefits
for working families and the economy as a whole. Studies have shown that, under
state paid leave laws, new mothers are 18 percentage points more likely to be
working a year after the birth of their child. In addition, paid leave
can reduce racial disparities in
wage loss between workers of color and white workers, improve child health and
well-being, support employers by improving employee retention and reducing
turnover costs, and increase women’s labor force participation. Over 30 million workers,
including 67 percent of low-wage
workers, do not have access to a single paid sick day. Low-wage and part-time
workers, a majority of whom are women,
are less likely to have access to
paid sick days.
The COVID pandemic has highlighted the need for a national paid sick leave
policy, to help workers and their loved ones quickly recover from short-term
illness and prevent the spread of disease. Therefore, the President calls upon
Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act which will require employers to allow
workers to accrue seven days paid sick leave per year to seek preventative care
for them or their family– such as getting a flu shot, recovering from
short-term illness, or caring for a sick child or family member or a family
member with disability-related needs.
NUTRITION
The pandemic has added urgency to the issue of nutrition insecurity, which
disproportionately affects low-income families and families of color. No one
should have to worry about whether they can provide nutritious food for
themselves or their children. A poor diet jeopardizes a child’s ability to
learn and succeed in school. Nutrition insecurity can also have long-lasting
negative impact on overall health and put children at higher risk for diseases
such as diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Today, one-fifth of American children are obese,
and research shows that childhood
obesity increases the likelihood of obesity in adulthood. In addition to the
incredible financial burden on the health care system, diet-related diseases
carry significant economic and national security implications by decreasing
work productivity, increasing job absenteeism, and threatening military
readiness. A recent study found
that U.S. children are getting their healthiest meals at school, demonstrating
that school meals are one of the federal government’s most powerful tools for
delivering nutrition security to children. To ensure the nutritional
needs of families are met, President Biden’s plan will invest $45 billion to:
·
Expand summer EBT
to all eligible children nationwide. The Summer EBT Demonstrations helps
low-income families with children eligible for free and reduced-price meals
during the school year purchase food during the summer. Research shows that this
program decreases food insecurity among children and has led to positive
changes in nutritional outcomes. The American Families Plan builds on the
American Rescue Plan’s support for Summer Pandemic-EBT by investing more than
$25 billion to make the successful program permanent and available to all 29
million children receiving free and reduced-price meals.
·
Expand school meal
programs. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows high-poverty
schools to provide meals free of charge to all of their students. It is
currently available to individual schools, groups of schools within a district,
or an entire district with at least 40 percent of students participating in the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The program is particularly
important because some families whose children would be eligible for free meals
may not apply for them due to stigma or not fully understanding the application
process. In addition, other families in high-poverty schools may still be
facing food insecurity but make just enough to not qualify for free school
meals. However, only 70 percent of eligible schools have adopted CEP, because
some schools would receive reimbursement below the free meal rate. The
President’s plan will fund $17 billion to expand free meals for children in the
highest poverty districts (those with at least 40 percent of students
participating in SNAP) by reimbursing a higher percentage of meals at the free
reimbursement rate through CEP. Additionally, the plan will expand free meals
for children in elementary schools by reimbursing an even higher percentage of
meals at the free reimbursement through CEP and lowering the threshold for CEP
eligibility for elementary schools to 25 percent of students participating in
SNAP. Targeting elementary students will drive better long-term health outcomes
by ensuring low-income children are receiving nutritious meals at an early age.
The plan will also expand direct certification to automatically enroll more
students for school means based on Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income
data. This proposal will provide free meals to an additional 9.3 million children,
with about 70 percent in elementary schools.
·
Launch a healthy
foods incentive demonstration. To build on progress made during the Obama
Administration to improve the nutrition standards of school meals, this new $1 billion
demonstration will support schools that are further expanding healthy food
offerings. For example, schools adopting specified measures that exceed current
school meal standards will receive an enhanced reimbursement as an incentive.
·
Facilitate re-entry
for formerly incarcerated individuals through SNAP
eligibility. Individuals convicted of a drug-related felony are currently
ineligible to receive SNAP benefits unless a state has taken the option to
eliminate or modify this restriction. Denying these individuals—many of whom
are parents of young children—SNAP benefits jeopardizes nutrition security and
poses a barrier to re-entry into the community in a population that already
faces significant hurdles to obtaining employment and stability. SNAP is a
critical safety net for many individuals as they search for employment to
support themselves and their families. This restriction disproportionately
impacts African Americans, who are convicted of drug offenses at much higher
rates than white Americans.
UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE REFORM
The unemployment insurance (UI) system is a critical lifeline to workers at the
hardest times. During the pandemic, it saved millions from poverty and helped
people put food on the table. But, the system is in desperate need of reform
and strengthening. Too often Americans found themselves waiting weeks to
get the benefits they deserved. Too often the benefits Americans would
automatically receive would’ve been too low and would not have gone long enough
absent Congress stepping in. Too often the safeguards to prevent fraud in
the system have been insufficient. And it has been unemployed people of color
who have borne the brunt of the UI system’s weaknesses. President Biden is
committed to strengthening and reforming the system for the long term.
That’s why he won $2 billion in the American Rescue Plan to put toward UI
system modernization, equitable access, and fraud prevention. And, that’s
why he wants to work with Congress to automatically adjust the length and amount
of UI benefits unemployed workers receive depending on economic conditions.
This will ensure future legislative delay doesn’t undermine economic recovery
and it will enable permanent reform of the system to provide the safety net
that workers deserve in the hardest times.
TAX CUTS FOR AMERICA’S FAMILIES AND WORKERS
While the American Rescue Plan provided meaningful relief for hundreds of
millions of Americans, that is just a first step. Now is the time to build back
better, to help families and workers who for too long have felt the squeeze of
stagnating wages and an ever-increasing cost-of-living. Direct assistance
to families in the form of tax credits paid on a regular basis lifts children
and families out of poverty, makes it easier for families to make ends meet,
and boosts the academic and economic performance of children over time. But if
Congress does not act, millions of American families and workers will see their
taxes go up at the end of the year.
President Biden believes we must extend the American Rescue Plan’s expanded tax
credits that lifted millions of children out of poverty, made it easier for
families to afford child care, and ensured that low-income workers without
children would not continue to be taxed into poverty.
Specifically, President Biden’s plan will:
·
Extend expanded
ACA premiums tax credits in the American Rescue Plan. Health care should
be a right, not a privilege, and Americans facing illness should never have to
worry about how they are going to pay for their treatment. No one should face a
choice between buying life-saving medications or putting food on the
table. President Biden has a plan to build on the Affordable Care Act and
lower prescription drug costs for everyone by letting Medicare negotiate
prices, reducing health insurance premiums and deductibles for those who buy
coverage on their own, creating a public option and the option for people to
enroll in Medicare at age 60, and closing the Medicaid coverage gap to help
millions of Americans gain health insurance. The American Families Plan will
build on the American Rescue Plan and continue our work to make health care
more affordable. The American Rescue Plan included a historic investment
in reducing Americans’ health care costs. The biggest improvement in health
care affordability since the Affordable Care Act, the American Rescue Plan
provided two years of lower health insurance premiums for those who buy
coverage on their own, saving families an average of $50 per person per month.
The American Families Plan will make those premium reductions permanent, a $200
billion investment. As a result, nine million people will save
hundreds of dollars per year on their premiums, and four million uninsured people
will gain coverage. The Families Plan will also invest in maternal health
and support the families of veterans receiving health care services.
·
Extend the Child
Tax Credit increases in the American Rescue Plan through 2025 and make the
Child Tax Credit permanently fully refundable. The President is calling for the
Child Tax Credit expansion, first enacted in the American Rescue Plan, to be
extended. This legislation expands the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 per
child to $3,000 per child for six-years old and above, and $3,600 per child for
children under six. It also makes 17-year-olds eligible for the first time and
makes the credit fully refundable on a permanent basis, so that low-income
families—the families that need the credit the most—can benefit from the full
tax credit. The expanded Child Tax Credit in the American Rescue Plan benefited
nearly 66 million children, and it was the single largest contributor to the
plan’s historic reductions in child poverty.
For a family with two parents earning a combined $100,000 per year and two
children under six, the Child Tax Credit expansion means an additional $3,200
per year in tax relief. For a family with two parents earning a combined
$24,000 per year and two children under six, the expansion means even more,
with a credit increase of than $4,400 because the full credit was not
previously fully available to them.
The credit would also be delivered regularly. This means that families will not
need to wait until tax season to receive a refund. Instead, they will receive
regular payments that allow them to cover household expenses as they arise.
The American Families Plan will make permanent the full refundability of the
Child Tax Credit, while extending the other expansions to the Child Tax Credit
through 2025—when the 2017 law’s individual provisions expire. The President is
committed to working with Congress to achieve his ultimate goal of making
permanent the Child Tax Credit as well as all of the expansions he signed into
law in the American Rescue Plan.
·
Permanently
increase tax credits to support families with child care needs. To help
families afford child care, President Biden is calling on Congress to make
permanent the temporary Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) expansion
enacted in the American Rescue Plan. Families will receive a tax credit for as
much as half of their spending on qualified child care for children under age
13, up to a total of $4,000 for one child or $8,000 for two or more children. A
50 percent reimbursement will be available to families making less than
$125,000 a year, while families making between $125,000 and $400,000 will
receive a partial credit with benefits at least as generous as those they
receive today. The credit can be used for expenses ranging from full-time care
to after school care to summer care.
This is a dramatic expansion of support to low- and middle-income families. In
2019, a family claiming a CDCTC for the previous year got less than $600 on average
towards the cost of care, and many low-income families got nothing. If Congress
fails to extend the CDCTC expansion, more than 6 million families could see
their taxes go up at the end of the year – many by thousands of dollars –
making obtaining affordable child care more difficult. Importantly, this tax
credit works in tandem with the American Families Plan’s direct investments in
childcare affordability for families with young children.
·
Make the Earned
Income Tax Credit Expansion for childless workers permanent. Before this year,
the federal tax code taxed low-wage childless workers into poverty or deeper
into poverty — the only group of workers it treated this way. The American
Rescue Plan addressed this problem by roughly tripling the EITC for childless
workers, benefitting 17 million low-wage workers,
many of whom are essential workers including cashiers, cooks, delivery drivers,
food preparation workers, and childcare providers. For example, a childless
worker who works 30 hours per week at $9 per hour earns income that, after
taxes, leaves them below the federal poverty line. By increasing her EITC to
more than $1,100, this EITC expansion helps pull such workers out of poverty.
The President is calling on Congress to make this expansion permanent.
President Biden believes our tax code should reward work and not wealth. And
that means rewarding workers who work hard every day at modest wages to provide
their communities with essential services.
·
Give IRS the
authority to regulate paid tax preparers. Tax returns prepared by certain types
of preparers have high error rates. These preparers charge taxpayers large fees
while exposing them to costly audits. As preparers play a crucial role in
tax administration, and will be key to helping many taxpayers claim the
newly-expanded credits, IRS oversight of tax preparers is needed. The President
is calling on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that will give the IRS
that authority.
·
TAX REFORM THAT REWARDS WORK – NOT WEALTH
The President’s tax agenda will not only reverse the biggest 2017 tax law
giveaways, but reform the tax code so that the wealthy have to play by the same
rules as everyone else. It will ensure that high-income Americans pay the tax
they owe under the law—ending the unfair system of enforcement that collects
almost all taxes due on wages, while regularly collecting a smaller share of
business and capital income. The plan will also eliminate long-standing
loopholes, including lower taxes on capital gains and dividends for the
wealthy, that reward wealth over work. Importantly, these reforms will also
rein in the ways that the tax code widens racial disparities in income and wealth.
President Biden’s plan uses the resulting revenue to rebuild the middle class,
investing in education and boosting wages. It will also give tax relief to
middle-class families, dramatically reducing child poverty and cutting the cost
of child care in half for many families. The result of the President’s
individual tax reforms will be a tax code with fewer loopholes for the wealthy
and more opportunity for low- and middle-income Americans.
Altogether, these tax reforms focused on the highest income Americans would
raise about $1.5 trillion across the decade. In combination with the American
Jobs Plan, which produces long-term deficit reduction through corporate tax
reform, all of the investments would be fully paid for over the next 15 years.
President Biden’s plan will:
·
Revitalize
enforcement to make the wealthy pay what they owe. We have a two-tiered
system of tax administration in this country: regular workers
pay the taxes they owe on wages and salaries while some wealthy taxpayers
aggressively plan to avoid the tax laws. Those with the highest incomes
generate income in opaque categories where misreporting rates can reach 55 percent. A recent
study found that the top one percent failed to report 20 percent of their
income and failed to pay over $175 billion in taxes that
they owed. But today, the IRS does not even have the resources to fully
investigate this evasion. As a result of budget cuts, audit rates on those
making over $1 million per year fell by 80 percent between
2011-2018.
The President’s proposal would change the game—by making sure the wealthiest
Americans play by the same set of rules as all other Americans.It
would require financial institutions to report information on account flows so
that earnings from investments and business activity are subject to reporting
more like wages already are.It would also increase
investment in the IRS, while ensuring that the additional resources go toward
enforcement against those with the highest incomes, rather than Americans with
actual income less than $400,000. Additional resources would focus on large
corporations, businesses, and estates, and higher-income individuals.
Altogether, this plan would raise $700 billion over 10 years.
·
Increase the top
tax rate on the wealthiest Americans to 39.6 percent. One of the 2017 tax
cut’s clearest giveaways to the wealthy was cutting the top income tax rate
from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, exclusively benefitting the wealthiest
households—those in the top one percent. This rate cut alone gives a couple
with $2 million in taxable an annual tax cut of more than $36,400. The President’s
plan restores the top tax bracket to what it was before the 2017 law, returning
the rate to 39.6 percent, applying only to those within the top one percent.
·
End capital income
tax breaks and other loopholes for the very top. The President’s tax
reform will end one of the most unfair aspects of our tax system: that the tax
rate the wealthy pay on capital gains and dividends is less than the tax rate
that many middle-class families pay on their wages. Households making over $1
million—the top 0.3 percent of all households—will pay the same 39.6 percent
rate on all their income, equalizing the rate paid on investment returns and
wages. Moreover, the President would eliminate the loophole that allows the
wealthiest Americans to entirely escape tax on their wealth by passing it down
to heirs. Today, our tax laws allow these accumulated gains to be passed down
across generations untaxed, exacerbating inequality. The President’s plan will
close this loophole, ending the practice of “stepping-up” the basis for gains
in excess of $1 million ($2.5 million per couple when combined with existing
real estate exemptions) and making sure the gains are taxed if the property is
not donated to charity. The reform will be designed with protections so that
family-owned businesses and farms will not have to pay taxes when given to
heirs who continue to run the business. Without these changes, billions in
capital income would continue to escape taxation entirely.
The President is also calling on Congress to close the carried interest
loophole so that hedge fund partners will pay ordinary income rates on their
income just like every other worker. While equalizing tax rates on wages and
capital gains will address this disparity, permanently eliminating carried
interest is an important structural change that is necessary to ensure that we
have a tax code that treats all workers fairly. The President would also
end the special real estate tax break—that allows real estate investors to
defer taxation when they exchange property—for gains greater than $500,000, and
the President would also permanently extend the current limitation in place
that restricts large, excess business losses, 80 percent of which benefits
those making over $1 million.
Finally, high-income workers and investors generally pay a 3.8 percent
Medicare tax on their earnings, but the application is inconsistent across
taxpayers due to holes in the law. The President’s tax reform would apply the
taxes consistently to those making over $400,000, ensuring that all high-income
Americans pay the same Medicare taxes.
ATTACHMENT
THREE – from CBS News
BIDEN'S AMERICAN JOBS PLAN AND AMERICAN FAMILIES PLAN:
WHAT'S IN THEM AND WHERE THE FUNDING WILL COME FROM
BY SARAH
EWALL-WICE
UPDATED ON: MAY 1,
2021 / 9:21 AM / CBS NEWS
President
Biden's ambitious agenda comes with a major price tag: In the first 100 days of
his term, Mr. Biden's three major initiatives — the American Rescue Plan, which
has been signed into law, and the proposed American Jobs Plan and the American Families
Plan — have a combined cost of more than $6 trillion.
In
comparison, the federal government spent slightly more than $6.5 trillion
across all 2020, more than $3 trillion of which was deficit spending.
Republicans
have balked at the costs. Not one GOP lawmaker voted for the $1.9 trillion
rescue package in March and they're pushing back as the administration seeks
another roughly $4 trillion in new spending.
Unlike
the stimulus package, which relied on deficit spending, the president's next
plans include a series of measures in the so-called "once in a
generation" proposals that will pay for them — and Mr. Biden has vowed he
will not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 a year.
·
Here's how President Biden wants to tax the richest 1% of
Americans
"What
I've proposed is fair. It's fiscally responsible. It raises the revenue to pay
for the plans I've proposed that will create millions of jobs and grow the economy,"
Mr. Biden said Wednesday in his first address to a joint session of Congress.
Mr.
Biden says he is open to negotiating as some Republican lawmakers and centrist
Democrats have already objected to tax hikes, but he said the new spending must
be paid for. According to the White House, their tax proposals would raise
enough revenue to cover both plans in 15 years.
Here's
what's in each proposal, and how the White House plans to pay for it.
American Families Plan
The
plan includes $1 trillion in spending on families and education while also
providing $800 billion in tax cuts in an effort to promote economic prosperity
and security.
·
$200 billion for
universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds
·
$225 billion for
child care including subsidies for low-and middle income families and money for
providers and workers
·
More than $100
billion for two years of free community college for all
·
$225 billion for a
national paid family and medical leave program
·
Extends the
expanded Child Tax Credit, which means families will receive monthly checks
totaling $3,600 for children under six and $3,000 for kids ages six through 17
through 2025
·
Makes the
increased Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit as well as the Earned Income Tax
Credit permanent
·
Make recently
expanded premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act permanent
·
Also includes
scholarships for teachers, increased Pell Grants, expanded nutrition programs
and more
The
White House claims by implementing tax changes that take aim at the wealthiest
Americans, the plan would be fully paid for over 15 years.
·
Raises the tax
rate for the top bracket back to 39.6% from 37%, rolling back a change from
President Donald Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
·
Calls for taxing
capital gains as regular income for households making more than $1 million
paying the same 39.6% rate on capital gains and dividends, as well as close
loopholes that allow wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying taxes on certain gains.
·
Includes $80
billion for the IRS over 10 years to increase enforcement and crack down on tax
evasion among the wealthy, among other changes, which the administration claims
would allow the IRS to collect an additional $700 billion over 10 years.
American Jobs Plan
The
proposal calls for more than $2 trillion to rebuild the nation's crumbling
infrastructure including roads, bridges and airports, as well as spending on
what the administration calls "care" infrastructure a focus on
long-term care for the elderly and disabled:
·
$621 billion for
infrastructure like roads, bridges, rails and airports, as well as electric
vehicles
·
$50 billion to
improve infrastructure to withstand climate change
·
$111 billion for
replacing lead pipes and upgrading drinking water systems
·
$100 billion for
broadband
·
$213 billion to build
and update affordable housing
·
$100 billion would
go toward building and upgrading public schools
·
$400 billion for
home and community care and industry workers
·
$180 billion in
spending in research and development
·
$300 billion for
manufacturing including strengthening supply chains
·
$100 billion for
workforce development
All together,
the administration claims it would be fully paid for with the
passage of the Made in America Tax plan.
·
Raises the
corporate tax rate to 28% from the current 21%
·
Calls on countries
to set a global minimum tax on corporations
in an effort to keep foreign countries from taking advantage by serving as tax
havens
·
Increases the
global minimum tax on U.S. multinational corporations to 21% up from 10.5% and
calculates it on a country-by-country basis. It would also remove the rule
allowing companies to not pay taxes on the first 10% of return on foreign
assets
·
Imposes a 15%
minimum tax on "book-incomes" reported to investors for large
corporations with incomes over $2 billion.
·
Makes it harder
for U.S. corporations to invert and claim to be a foreign company, ends
deductions for moving jobs overseas, offers tax credits for bringing jobs back
to the United States, eliminates tax credits and subsidies for the fossil fuel
industry and removes other loopholes
·
Calls for increased
tax enforcement with a focus on corporations, as does the American Families
Plan
ATTACHMENT
FOUR– from Investopedia
BIDEN'S
TAX PLAN: WHAT'S ENACTED, WHAT'S PROPOSED
Higher taxes on
corporations and the wealthy, no increase under $400k
By MICHELLE P. SCOTT Updated Apr 29, 2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS
·
Biden's Three-Part Program and Tax Policy Changes
·
Tax
Increases To Fund Infrastructure Program
·
Individual
Income Tax Proposals
·
Tax
Increases for the Wealthy
·
Extension
of Individual Tax Benefits
·
Additional
Proposals: Step-up in Basis, Carried Interest and Real Estate Exchanges
·
Restoring
Higher Tax Rates and AMT
Less than two months after his inauguration,
President Joe Biden had moved significantly forward on the three key elements
of his Build Back Better program, all of which are funded by notable changes in
tax law.1 This
article outlines the key elements of the Biden tax plan and clarifies which
parts have been enacted and which are still in the proposal stage.
Note that all the changes—except
those that already passed as part of the American Rescue plan,—would need to be
enacted by Congress in order to become law. Any of the provisions discussed
here could be revised or eliminated. With the Democratic victories in the
Georgia Senate run-off races, the Congressional tax-writing committees are now
both chaired by Democrats. Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts leads the House
Ways and Means Committee again and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon has become the new
chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
Biden's
Three-Part Program and Tax Policy Changes
Here's a brief summary of the tax
provisions in the three plans, followed by a more detailed discussion of the
tax changes, both enacted and proposed.
The
American Rescue Plan (enacted)
On March 11, 2021, Biden signed into
law the American Rescue Plan Act, which
provided cash payments to individuals and also included a number of individual
tax law changes benefitting lower-income individuals and families that were
part of his election campaign tax policy.2 These changes are time-limited,
designed to be temporary remedies for problems that were worsened by the
pandemic.
·
The
changes to certain individual tax credits, generally will expire at the end of
2021. The 2021 child tax credit of $3,600 per
child under age 6 and $3,000 per child ages 6 through 17 is fully refundable
and payable in advance. It will revert for 2022 to $2,000 per child under age
17 unless extended by legislation.
·
Similarly,
the child
and dependent care tax credit is more generous for 2021
than for later years. For 2021, the maximum credit for one individual is
$4,000 and $8,000 for two or more qualifying individuals and is refundable for
some taxpayers.
·
The earned
income credit (EITC) was extended to workers under age
25; for 2021, individuals as young as age 19 are eligible, and are entitled to
apply the credit to more earned income and benefit from a higher phase-out
level. The law permanently eliminated the maximum age for eligibility.
·
The
premium reductions for Affordable
Care Act (ACA) health insurance coverage that were
enacted in the American Rescue Plan through the application of premium tax
credits are effective for for two years.
The
American Jobs Plan (proposed)
On March 31, 2021, President Biden
proposed the American Jobs Plan which would
increase income taxes on corporate profits. The increased taxes were to help
fund the plan's infrastructure improvement goals estimated to cost $2.3
trillion.3 The
details of the corporate tax changes are discussed below and include a higher
corporate tax, and new minimum taxes on book income and profits of
multinational corporations.
The
American Family Plan (proposed)
On April 28, 2021, President Biden
announced the American Families Plan with an
estimated cost of $1.8 trillion. The plan includes proposals to increase taxes for
wealthy individuals, including a substantially higher capital gains rate, to
help pay for the plan's programs. These programs would provide American
children four additional years of free education; two years of free
pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds and two years of free community
college; would assist colleges and universities serving minority groups; would
support paid family and medical leave, nutrition
programs, expanded child-care and the extension of currently enhanced
Affordable Care Act subsidies and the individual tax credits enacted in the
American Rescue Plan set to expire after 2021.
The Biden Administration also aims to
reverse years of underfunding of the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) which has reduced auditing and enforcement efforts and personnel and
has cost the government substantial tax revenue. The Biden proposals would
increase IRS funding to ensure enforcement of tax law compliance by
corporations and high-income individuals. Increased auditing and greater
enforcement are projected to enable the IRS to recover tax liabilities in
the hundreds of millions of dollars that currently go unpaid due to under-enforcement
resulting from the inadequate funding. In addition, strengthened government
oversight of paid tax-return preparers is proposed.2
Now, let's look at these proposed tax
changes in detail.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·
The
top individual federal income tax rate would rise from 37% to the pre-Trump
rate of 39.6%.
·
The
corporate rate would rise from 21% to 28%; a 15% minimum tax would apply to
corporate book income.
·
American
corporations' foreign income generally would be subject a tax of 21%.
·
The
top individual income tax rate would increase to 39.6%.
·
Taxpayers
with incomes over $1 million would pay a tax of 43.4% on capital gains.
·
An
extension through 2025 is proposed for the 2021 increase in the fully
refundable child tax credit from $2,000 per child to $3,600 for children under
age 6 and $3,000 for children ages 6 through 17.
·
Extensions
beyond 2021 also are proposed for the increase in the maximum Child and
Dependent Tax Credit from $3,000 to $8,000 ($16,000 for more than one
dependent); the expansion of, and increase in, the earned income tax credit for
younger workers; and the premium tax credits that reduce ACA health insurance
premiums.
·
The
step-up in basis on death and carried interest loopholes would be eliminated.
·
Caps
would limit tax deferral for realty exchanges and deductions for excess
business losses
·
Tax
Increases To Fund Infrastructure Program
Corporate tax proposals, included in
the American Jobs Plan, the Administration’s infrastructure proposal, advance
tax policies promoted throughout President Biden's election campaign. The
plan’s corporate tax policy goals include incentivizing job creation and
investment in the U.S.,
stopping corporate profit-shifting to tax havens, and ensuring that large
corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
The Biden Administration’s tax
proposals would raise the corporate tax rate, impose new minimum taxes to
prevent profitable U.S. businesses from escaping taxes through aggressive tax
planning, repeal incentives for offshoring jobs, end preferences for the
fossil-fuel industry, and strengthen corporate tax law enforcement by the
Internal Revenue Service.
The corporate tax changes in the
American Jobs Plan would raise tax revenue to help pay for the plan's programs
and investments in infrastructure that range from transportation and roads to
broadband, water resources, healthcare facilities, education and more. The
estimated $2.3 trillion cost of the American Jobs Plan, the scope of the
investments proposed to be made over 10 years, and the tax increases intended
to support it, have generated substantial policy and political
debate.
Corporate
Tax Changes
President Biden has proposed
increasing the corporate income tax rate from the 21% level in effect since
2018 to 28%. A 28% tax rate would be significantly lower than the top corporate
effective rate of 35% that applied between 1994 and 2017; nonetheless, the
increase has drawn opposition and prompted suggestions for a compromise rate.4
Reacting to an independent study
finding that 91 of the Fortune 500 companies paid no U.S. corporate income tax
in 2018,1 the
Biden Administration has recommended a new corporate minimum tax of 15% on book
income to prevent profitable companies from avoiding U.S. taxation. The plan would
repeal the current exemption for the first 10% return on foreign investment and
would end the preferential tax rate of half the 21% domestic rate on the
remainder of
foreign profits. Thus, the U.S. would levy a minimum tax of 21% on
multinational corporations’ income. This minimum tax would apply on a
country-by-country basis to ensure that profits in tax
havens are taxed. Deductions for the expenses of “offshoring” jobs would be
eliminated and tax credits would be granted for “onshoring” expenses.
A particular goal of the Biden plan
is discouraging U.S. corporations from moving intangible assets and related
profits abroad to controlled subsidiaries in countries with lower taxes rates
than those in the U.S. The plan’s 21% tax is particularly focused on global intangible low-taxed income,
called “GILTI,” realized by shifting profits from easily moved assets, such as
intellectual property rights, to low-tax jurisdictions. In addition, the Biden
Administration is seeking through multilateral negotiations to have other
countries join in establishing a global minimum tax to prevent countries
from seeking a competitive advantage by cutting corporate tax rates.
Individual
Income Tax Proposals
In addition to the corporate tax
changes in the American Jobs Act, the American Families Plan would make
significant changes in the taxation of high income taxpayers. The tax changes
would help fund extensive programs to assist individual Americans. It would
provide free education from pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds
through two years of community college; assist historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and institutions
such as Hispanic-serving institutions, Asian American and Native American
Pacific Islander-serving institutions, and other minority-serving institutions
(MSIs); support paid family and medical leave, child nutrition, expanded
childcare and the extension of currently enhanced Affordable Care Act
subsidies. President Biden also has asked the Congress to extend expiring
individual tax credits enacted in the American Rescue Plan.
The Biden proposals on individual
taxation are designed to avoid increasing taxes on individuals with annual
incomes below $400,000; to create benefits, largely in the form of refundable
tax credits, such as the already enacted earned income and child tax credits, for the poor and
those with low and moderate incomes; and to target any tax increases to the
wealthy.
Tax
Increases for the Wealthy
The Biden Administration’s proposed
top income tax rate would increase the present law's 37% rate to
39.6%. According to the White House, this increase will affect only the
top 1% of taxpayers. The top rate on long-term capital gains would almost
double, rising from 20% to 39.6%. In addition, the current net investment
income surtax of 3.8% imposed on high-income taxpayers likely would continue to
apply. Thus, the new top federal tax rate on capital gains would total 43.4%,
almost double the present law top combined rate of 23.8%.
Biden Administration
representatives indicate that only taxpayers whose incomes exceed $1 million
would be subject to the higher tax on capital gains. However, it is not clear
if the $1 million threshold would apply per individual taxpayer or per return;
on a per individual basis, the threshold for a joint return would be $2
million. When state tax laws are applied, the impact of this change would vary
because some states have no income tax at all, some exclude capital gains or
tax them below regular income tax rates, and some tax capital gains at their
regular, ordinary-income tax rate. With the top state capital gains rate
estimated at 5.2%, the combined average federal and state tax rate on capital
gains for high-income taxpayers would be 48.6%.5
The Biden capital gains proposal
would almost double the federal tax currently imposed on long-term capital
gains. However, the White House estimates that the increase in the capital
gains tax rate will affect only 0.3% of taxpayers or approximately 500,000
households.
Opponents of the tax increase on
capital gains warn that it could have an adverse effect on the stock market.5 Other
commentators discount this criticism. They believe that majority of U.S.
shareholders will be unaffected by this change because approximately 75% of
U.S. stock owners bought their shares through 401(k) plans, individual
retirement accounts (IRAs) and other types of nontaxable accounts, whose
distributions ultimately are taxed at ordinary income rates.
Extension
of Individual Tax Benefits
Several of the tax law changes in the
American Rescue Plan Act, particularly the increase in certain individual tax
credits, will expire at the end of 2021. The 2021 child tax credit of
$3,600 per child under age 6 and $3,000 per child ages 6 through 17 is fully
refundable and payable in advance. It will revert for 2022 to $2,000 per child
under age 17 unless extended by legislation. In the American Familes Plan,
President Biden proposes extending the increased in the child tax credit
through 2025 and make its full refundability and advance payment features
permanent.
Similarly, the child and dependent
care tax credit is more generous for 2021 than for later years. For 2021,
the maximum credit for one individual is $4,000 and $8,000 for two or more
qualifying individuals and is refundable for some taxpayers.
Unless amended in the interim, in 2022 the credit would become nonrefundable with maximums
decreasing to $1,050 for one qualifying individual and $2,100 for two or
more. Similarly, the earned income tax credit was increased and expanded
for childless workers for 2021 by the American Rescue Plan Act. The American
Families Plan would make the expansion of—and increases in the allowances
for—these tax credits permanent. These credits have been estimated to reduce
childhood poverty by 50%.
The Biden Administration also
proposes to make permanent the premium reductions for Affordable Care Act (ACA)
health insurance coverage that were enacted in the American Rescue Plan and
made effective for for two years through premium tax credits.
The repeal of the step-up in basis rule
could prove very costly over time to heirs of appreciated property at all
income levels, not just the wealthiest.
Additional
Proposals: Step-up in Basis, Carried Interest and Real Estate Exchanges
The American Families Plan includes
additional tax proposals to counter “loopholes” that generally, but not
exclusively, benefit higher-income individuals and were criticized by candidate
Biden during his election campaign. The plan would repeal the ‘step-up in basis’ rule that enables
families to pass property down from one generation to another without ever
paying any tax on the increases in the property’s value over time. However, the
Biden Administration has announced that family-owned farms passed down to
family members who will operate the property will be protected with respect to
this change. Additionally, gains will not be taxed when appreciated property is
contributed to a charity.
The Biden plan also would close the “carried interest” loophole that partners
employed by private equity and hedge funds, as well as other investment
partnerships, claim allows them to
receive their partnership interests tax-free and to pay only capital gains tax
when they dispose of their interests, thereby never paying ordinary income tax
rates. In addition, the plan would limit the present law real estate tax break
for "like-kind exchanges" that allows
real estate investors to defer taxation when they exchange real property. Under
the plan, the deferral would end for capital gains in excess of $500,000.
In addition, the 3.8% Medicare tax on earnings which
currently does not apply consistently to all high-income workers and investors,
would be revised to apply more consistently to taxpayers making more than
$400,000 annually. The Biden tax plan also would make permanent the 2021 rule
that allows individuals’ deductions for excess business losses to offset only
their gross income and business profits plus $250,000 ($500,000 for joint
returns).
The
Bottom Line
The Biden Administration has outlined
extensive revisions to the Internal Revenue Code with many details yet to be
announced. Many of the proposals were introduced earlier during the President's
election campaign. The Administration projects that the tax law revisions and
the return on the investments authorized in the American Jobs Plan and the
American Families Plan will cover the cost of both plans over 15 years.
Biden Administration officials view
their tax proposals as increasing fairness in the tax system by imposing less
of the tax burden on low-income Americans while requiring the wealthy to pay a
proportionately greater share. The White House emphasizes that its tax
increases would affect only the top 1% to 2% of individual taxpayers.
Frequently
Asked Questions
Will
the Biden tax plan increase my taxes?
That depends. Under the Biden plan,
the tax rates on individual incomes of $400,000 or less would not increase. New
and expanded tax benefits, including the child tax and earned income credits as
well as provisions for child and dependent care and health insurance premiums,
likely would reduce taxes for average families.
However, the Biden tax plan would
increase taxes for corporations and for most taxpayers with incomes over
$400,000. It would reinstate the pre-2017 top marginal, individual tax rate of
39.6 %. Equity and hedge fund managers would be subject to ordinary income
rates on “carried interests.” In addition, the step-up in basis at death for
appreciated assets would be repealed.
What
is a tax credit?
A tax credit is a direct offset to
the amount of taxes owed by a taxpayer. It is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in
tax liability. Unlike deductions—which reduce income—tax credits provide the same
amount of benefit to all taxpayers regardless of tax bracket. Some tax credits
are “refundable,” and thus particularly benefit taxpayers who owe less in taxes
than the credit amount. Those taxpayers get a refund of the balance.
A 20% tax credit for an eligible
expenditure of $100, will reduce taxes by $20 for every taxpayer regardless of
income level or tax bracket. On the other hand, an exclusion, exemption, or
deduction reduces income and thus provides a larger benefit to taxpayers in
higher tax brackets. Some examples:
·
For
a taxpayer in the 37% marginal tax bracket, a deduction of $100 will save the
taxpayer $37, i.e., 37% of the $100.
·
For a
taxpayer in the 24% marginal tax bracket, the savings for a deduction will be
lower, $24, i.e., 24% of $100.
ATTACHMENT FIVE – from the Chataqua Co. (NY) Observer
October 21, 2020
BIDEN TAKES AIM AT UNFAIR TAX PLAN
Presidential
candidate Joe Biden announced that on day one, he would repeal President Donald
Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and raise taxes another $500 billion by closing
loopholes. He plans to spend some of the money on making college, medical care,
and pre-K education cheaper, if not free, for many people. He would also lavish
money on schools, paying for new guidance counselors, nurses, and psychologists
as well as higher pay for teachers.
Stuart
Varney: Senator, the
President’s plan directs trillions of dollars to families and children. So why
are you calling it the anti-family plan?
Senator Marsha Blackburn
(R-?) : Stuart, it is the anti-family plan. What this would
do is incentivize women to rely on the federal government to organize their
lives. It takes away from them the ability to organize their family life as
they would like to organize it.
RG: And there you have it. What Blackburn is saying is
that if a mother knows there’s help from the public available to her, she might
not want to stay in whatever situation she’s in, whether she’s liking it or
not.
Government
help for young parents might seem like an obviously good thing to most people.
But folks like Blackburn see it as a threat to traditional patriarchal family
values..
A
progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount
increases. Using 2017 IRS numbers, the National Taxpayers Union reports that
the top 50% of all taxpayers paid 97% of all individual income taxes, while the
bottom 50% paid 3%. Making matters worse is the fact that the top 1% paid a
greater share of individual income taxes (39%) than did the bottom 90% (30%).
The rich also paid a higher percentage of their income (top 1% paid 27% of
their income) compared to the middle class (top 10% to top 25% paid 11% of
their income). As usual, the poor free rode on the others’ labor (the bottom
50% paid 4% of their income). Corporate taxes follow a similar pattern.
Here
is another way to see how incredibly progressive taxes are in the United
States. If we split taxpayers up into quintiles by income (0-20%, 21-40%,
41-60%, 61-80%, and 81-100%), a 2016 Congressional Budget Office report found
that first three quintiles get more in government transfer payments than they
pay in taxes. That is, they make money off of the tax system. The fourth
quintile pays only 8% of its income in taxes once government transfers are
subtracted from their taxes. It is the fifth quintile, upper middle class and
rich, that pays a high rate.
We
might evaluate these taxes in terms of fairness or goodness (making the world a
better place). First, consider fairness. As University of Colorado philosopher
Michael Huemer points out, progressive taxation is
unfair. He notes that if five friends go out to dinner and later receive the
bill, no one would suggest that the person with the most money should pay for
the everyone else’s dinners or even most of the cost of their dinners. Instead,
the friends would insist that each person pay the cost of his own dinner.
Fairness, then, requires that a person pay for his cost.
If
we apply this sense of fairness to taxpayers, Huemer
notes, we should eliminate progressive taxation. The poor likely cost more and
should thus pay more than the rich. The poor get free or subsidized food,
housing, medical care, and schools as well as welfare. They also cost more
because there is more crime in poor areas. If taxes cannot be a flat amount
(for example, $10,000), then they should be a flat rate (for example, 25% of
income).
The
rich might benefit more from the government – because they have more valuable
property to protect – but this is irrelevant. The restaurant goers would not
think one friend should pay for others’ dinners merely because he enjoyed his
dinner more. In any case, given the crimes rates in poor areas, it is unclear
whether the rich benefit more from the government than do the poor.
The
rich likely deserve their income at least as much as do the poor and working
class. On average, rich people contribute more economically to their fellow man
than do others, which is why the market pays them more. On average, they had to
sacrifice more to develop their skills. They also work noticeably longer hours
than do others. Hence, they are therefore at least as deserving of keeping
their money as are the poor and middle class.
People
sometimes argue that the rich have a greater ability to pay taxes than do other
groups and, hence, they should pay more. However, an argument is needed as to
why a greater ability to pay should result in a duty to pay more. Huemer notes that because the ability to pay depends on
wealth, not income, the ability-to-pay argument would suggest that the US
replace the income tax with a wealth tax. Yet, few leftists argue for such a
replacement. And, returning to the restaurant analogy, the friends would not
think it fair to stick the wealthiest friend with the bill.
Second,
progressive taxation likely makes the American people worse off. Progressive
taxation transfers money from people who benefit less from a given amount of
money (for example, $10,000) to people who benefit more from it. This is
diminishing marginal utility. However, progressive taxation also reduces the
incentive for the rich to engage in productive activities such as starting new
businesses, expanding existing ones, or investing their money in other people’s
businesses. The rich invest and save at higher rates than do others. In the
long run, productivity is more important than diminishing marginal utility.
This is especially true given that government skims off a lot of the money that
is being transferred and spends it on itself. Worse, the government often
transfers money in ways that make things worse (for example, by subsidizing
fatherless households). Because economic freedom correlates with happiness,
income, and political freedom, lowering taxes on the most productive citizens
would probably make the American people happier, richer, and freer.
In
general, then, progressive taxes would be replaced with a flat rate, if not a
flat amount. It would also be better to transfer some of the taxes the rich
currently pay to the poor and middle class. In a democracy, when some people
can vote themselves other people’s money, irresponsible spending is sure to
follow. Joe Biden’s fevered spending dreams are a case in point.
Stephen
Kershnar is a State University of New York at
Fredonia philosophy professor. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com
ATTACHMENT
SIX
– from CNBC
BIDEN’S PLAN FOR
INHERITED REAL ESTATE MAY IMPACT MORE PEOPLE THAN JUST THE WEALTHY
PUBLISHED THU, APR 29 20212:46 PM EDTUPDATED THU, APR 29
20213:24 PM EDT
By Kate Dore
KEY POINTS
·
President Joe Biden is asking Congress for higher taxes
on inherited property to help pay for the $1.8 trillion American Families
Plan.
·
Biden’s proposal may impact family homes with more than $1 million in
gains. Or 2.5M see above,
Or owing 100K on 2M home
·
Financial experts recommend estate planning strategies to
avoid a surprise tax bill. President Joe Biden has
unveiled a plan for higher taxes on inherited homes to help fund the $1.8
trillion American Families Plan.
The proposal would tax
inherited property gains at death, targeting generational wealth
transfers.
But
financial experts say the measure may impact more families than just affluent
ones.
“I think it could become a quagmire from a couple of different fronts,” said
certified financial planner Ken Van Leeuwen, founder and managing director of
Van Leeuwen & Company in Princeton, New Jersey.
More from Personal Finance:
Workers could get 12 weeks of paid leave under Biden’s
plan
Selling assets to avoid a higher capital gains tax? You
may trigger another tax
The Fed keeps rates near zero — here’s how you can benefit
Currently, heirs may defer
taxes on inherited home gains until they sell the property.
They also secure a so-called
“step up in basis,” which adjusts the home’s purchase price generally to the
value on the date of death.
According to the Joint
Committee on Taxation, the current law saves taxpayers $41 billion per year.
By comparison, Biden wants
to treat home inheritances like a sale, making the heirs pay for gains that occurred
before they received the property.
This change may deliver a
bill for capital gains taxes at death.
The proposal includes tax exemptions up to $1 million for single heirs
and up to $2.5 million for couples, a White House fact sheet outlined
Wednesday.
For example, let’s say
someone inherits a $1.5 million family home purchased for $300,000. That person
may owe capital gains tax on $200,000 of the $1.2 million profit.
Van Leeuwen said the levy may be a burden for heirs who want to keep
the family home but can’t afford the tax bill.
While the median U.S. home
sales price is $347,500, the number of transactions exceeding $1 million is
growing. Sales of home worth more than $1 million spiked by 81% from February
2020 to 2021, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Financial experts say those affected shouldn’t panic.
“We’ll have to see how the language shakes out,”
said Mallon FitzPatrick, CFP, managing director and
principal at Robertson Stephens Wealth Management in San Francisco.
Estate-planning
strategies
While Biden’s plan may have
a significant impact, there are ways to minimize the bill.
Van Leeuwen advises starting
with a home appraisal and then meeting with an estate-planning attorney.
One popular tactic is gifting a home or
vacation property to heirs while living with a so-called qualified personal
residence trust.
This trust removes the
home’s value from an estate and allows the original owner to use the property
for a specific number of years.
Increase the cost basis to where it should
be. It’s a good thing to do and will have a positive impact if these rules
change.
Mallon FitzPatrick
MANAGING DIRECTOR AT ROBERTSON STEPHENS WEALTH MANAGEMENT
“It’s a very common strategy
amongst people who have second homes that are appreciated and want to make
low-cost gifts to kids,” Van Leeuwen said.
Another way to save on taxes
is by increasing the home’s basis to reduce profit.
Homeowners can do that by
tacking on the cost of improvements, like a new roof or other property
renovations.
“Increase the cost basis to
where it should be,” said FitzPatrick. “It’s a good
thing to do and will have a positive impact if these rules change.”
This method may be complex
for an inherited property without immaculate records, however.
Other approaches may include
a family partnership or limited liability corporation.
“These are definitely
advanced techniques but may be a way to keep the property in the family,” said
Van Leeuwen.
ATTACHMENT
SEVEN – from thebalance.com
U.S. Federal Budget
Breakdown
The Budget Components and Impact on the US
Economy
•••
Table of Contents
·
Revenue
·
Spending
·
The Deficit and the National Debt
BY
REVIEWED BY
Updated October 29, 2020
President Donald Trump released a would-be record $4.829 trillion federal
budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2021 on Feb. 5, 2020.1 The U.S. government estimates it will receive
$3.863 trillion in revenue, creating a $966 billion deficit for Oct. 1,
2020, through Sept. 30, 2021.
The Congressional Budget
Office predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic would raise
the FY 2021 deficit to $2.1 trillion. The FY 2020 deficit will be $3.7
trillion.
Government spending is broken down into three categories: mandatory
spending, budgeted at $2.966 trillion; discretionary spending, forecasted to be
$1.485 trillion; and interest on the national debt, estimated to be $378
billion. Each category of spending has different subcategories.
Key Takeaways
·
President Trump’s budget for FY 2021
totals $4.829 trillion, eclipsing all other previous budgets.
·
Mandatory expenditures, such as Social
Security, Medicare, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program account
for about 60% of the budget.
·
For FY 2021, budget expenditures exceed
federal revenues by $966 billion.
·
Most of these revenues come from taxes
and earnings from quantitative easing.
Revenue
The federal government estimates it will receive $3.863 trillion
in revenue in
FY 2021. Most of the revenue is in the form of taxes, paid by taxpayers, either
through income or payroll taxes. The estimate for each type of revenue is as
follows:1
·
Income taxes contribute $1.932 trillion
or 50% of total receipts.
·
Social Security, Medicare, and
other payroll taxes add $1.373 trillion or 36%.
·
Corporate taxes supply $284 billion
or 7%.
·
Excise
taxes and tariffs contribute $141 billion or 4%.
·
Earnings from the Federal Reserve's
holdings add $71 billion or 2%. Those are interest payments on the U.S.
Treasury debt the Fed acquired through quantitative easing.
·
Estate taxes and other miscellaneous
revenue supply the remaining 1%.
Spending
The government expects to spend $4.829 trillion in 2021.1 Almost 60% of that pays for mandated benefits such as Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. (3.344T)
Discretionary spending, which pays for everything else, will be $1.485
trillion. The U.S. Congress appropriates
this amount each year, using the president's budget as a starting point.
Interest on the U.S. debt is estimated to be $378 billion. About
10% of revenues. Interest on the approximate $23 trillion
debt is the fastest-growing federal expense, expected to double by 2028.2
The U.S. Treasury must pay the interest
to avoid a U.S. debt default. A debt default by the U.S. has unknown
consequences since it has never happened before.
Mandatory Spending
Mandatory spending is
estimated at $2.966 trillion in FY 2021. This category includes entitlement
programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment compensation. It
also includes welfare programs such as Medicaid.
Social Security will be the biggest expense, budgeted at $1.151 trillion.
It's followed by Medicare at $722 billion and Medicaid at $448 billion.
Social Security costs are currently 100% covered by payroll taxes and
interest on investments. Until 2010, there was more coming into the Social Security Trust
Fund than being paid out. Thanks to
its investments, the Trust Fund is still running a surplus.
The Trust Fund’s Board estimates that
Social Security's surplus will be depleted by 2034.3 Social Security revenue, from payroll taxes and interest
earned, will cover only 79% of the benefits promised to retirees.
Medicare is already underfunded because taxes withheld for the program
don't pay for all benefits. Congress must use tax dollars to pay for a portion
of it. Medicaid is 100% funded by the general fund, also known as
"America's Checkbook." This account is used to finance daily
activities and long-term operations of the government.4
Discretionary Spending
The discretionary budget for
2021 is $1.485 trillion.1 More than half goes toward military spending,
including Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and
other defense-related departments. The rest must pay
for all other domestic programs. The largest of these programs are
Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development.
There also is the Overseas Contingency Operations fund that pays for wars
or continuing military actions. A growing portion of the discretionary budget
is set aside for disaster relief such as hurricane and wildfire relief.
Military Spending
Military spending is
included in the budget under discretionary spending. The biggest expense for
the military is the Department of Defense base budget,
estimated at $636 billion.1
Overseas Contingency Operations are
estimated to cost approximately $69 billion. It pays for the war on
terror costs triggered by the 9/11 attacks. These include
ongoing costs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Military spending includes $228 billion for defense-related departments.
These include Homeland Security, the State Department, and Veterans
Affairs.
All these military costs combined equal $705 billion.
The Deficit
The budget deficit is
estimated at $966 billion. That's the difference between $3.863 trillion in
revenue and $4.829 trillion in spending. This shortfall is added to the existing national debt.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
projected in April that the budget deficit for 2021 would be about $2.1
trillion, assuming no additional changes to spending and revenues. The
difference between the CBO projection and the Trump budget can be attributed
mainly to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The CBO expects the real GDP to
decrease by about 12% in the second quarter of 2020 and for unemployment to
average about 14%.5
Each president and their administration is credited or blamed with
increases in national debt due to the budgets their administration proposes.
The approval of the budget is delegated to Congress. In other words, it's not
the president alone who bears the burden of deficit creation and national debt
generation—other elected officials do so as well.
How the Deficit Contributes to the National
Debt
Each year, the deficit adds to the
U.S. debt. To raise funds to cover the deficit, the
government issues securities such as Treasury notes, which are purchased by
many investors. Japan and China are two countries whose governments have
purchased large amounts of U.S. debt, in a manner of speaking owning the U.S.
debt.6
An anticipated budget deficit can slow economic growth. It influences
rising interest rates, as investors demand more return. Eventually, investors
may become hesitant to purchase Treasury notes because they fear the U.S.
government may not be able to repay the debt.
Budget Process
Congress created the budget process in
1974. The process is supposed to follow four steps:
1. The Executive Office of Management and Budget prepares the
budget.7
2. The president submits it to Congress on or before the first Monday in
February.
3. Congress responds with spending appropriation bills that go to the
president by June 30.
4. The president has 10 days to .
Congress has followed the budget process only twice since creating the FY
2010 budget. Since that time, the process and deadlines within it have been
ignored, due to political disagreements, posturing, and government
inefficiencies.
The hard deadline for budget approval is
September 30. If Congress doesn't approve it by then, the government can
shut down. It did just that in 2013, in January 2018, and in December 2018. To
avoid shutdowns, Congress usually passes continuing resolutions.8
If the government does shut down, it signals a complete breakdown in the
budget creation process.
ATTACHMENTS
EIGHT – from The Hill
From The Hill qn
Biden says he's open to compromise on
corporate tax rate
BY MORGAN CHALFANT - 05/05/21 03:42 PM EDT 480
President Biden said
Wednesday that he is open to compromise on his proposal to raise the corporate
tax rate, but said he would not back an infrastructure bill that is not paid
for because of concerns about the deficit.
Biden was asked following
remarks at the White House on Wednesday if he was open to an increase of the
corporate tax rate to 25 percent instead of his proposed 28 percent.
“I’m willing to compromise
but I’m not willing to not pay for what we’re talking about,” Biden told
reporters. “I’m not willing to deficit spend. They already have us $2 trillion
in the whole.”
Biden’s proposal has been
criticized by Republicans and at least one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.),
who said he believes a 28 percent corporate tax rate is too high. The rate is
currently 21 percent.
Biden proposed the tax
increase in order to pay for his $2.3 trillion infrastructure and climate plan.
He said he is planning to meet with Republican lawmakers next week on
infrastructure, describing himself as serious about negotiations with lawmakers
from the opposing party.
A group of Republicans,
led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.),
unveiled an infrastructure proposal about a third of the size of Biden’s
focusing on repairs to traditional infrastructure, such as roads and bridges.
Biden has also proposed
raising taxes on wealthy Americans to pay for his $1.8 trillion families plan,
which would provide universal prekindergarten and tuition-free community
college as well as tax credits to low- and middle-income families.
Business groups, however,
are preparing to make the case against the proposed tax increases, focusing attention on moderate Democrats.
·
Business groups target
moderate Democrats on Biden tax plans
·
Poll: Americans back new
spending, tax hikes on wealthy, but remain...
Biden defended his
proposals Wednesday, arguing they would spur economic growth and help working
families without changing the lifestyle of those at the top.
“We’re not going to
deprive any of these executives of their second or third home, travel privately
by jet. It’s not going to affect their standard of living at all, not a little
tiny bit,” Biden said, his voice rising. “But I can affect the standard of
living of the people that I grew up with, if they have a job.”
“I’m going to have to be able to explain
this and I’m going to keep banging on it,” Biden continued. “This is about
making the average multimillionaire pay just a fair share. It’s not going to
affect their standard of living a little bit.”
ATTACHMENT
NINE – from NBC
May 3, 2021, 4:31 AM EDT
By Sahil Kapur and Shannon Pettypiece
WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden doubles down on seeking
Republican cooperation for an infrastructure package, some Democratic allies
say he should be prepared to go it alone if a deal doesn't materialize quickly.
The White House wants to see counteroffers to Biden's $2.25
trillion infrastructure plan by the middle of this month, and if progress isn't
being made by Memorial Day, officials will reassess their strategy of trying to
build bipartisan support, said a person familiar with the negotiations.
Some moderate Democrats insist on cutting a deal — and others
worry that it would be a dead end that would burn valuable time.
Republicans, who have floated a slimmer $568 billion package,
say they wonder whether the White House is willing to limit a bill to narrower
measures, like roads and bridges, while cutting out pieces they oppose, like
elder care subsidies. Aides for members of Congress on both sides of the aisle
also say they fear that the other side may not be negotiating in good
faith. 202101:34
If Democrats unify behind a proposal, they could use a budget
process to pass legislation through the Senate without Republican support, as
they did with the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package. But for now, they lack
consensus to go that route. And with razor-thin majorities in both chambers,
they can't have any defections.
Biden spoke Thursday by phone with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito,
R-W. Va., who is playing point for her party on infrastructure. Both later
sounded upbeat; Capito said it was a "constructive" discussion, and
Biden described it as a "good conversation" and invited her to the
White House.
"Let's decide what are they prepared to consider in terms
of what constitutes infrastructure, how much of it, and then we can talk about
how to pay for it if we get to the point that we actually have a real
number," Biden told reporters after the call. "If it's like last time
— and I don't, I think she's serious — but if, like last time, they come in
with one-fourth or one-fifth of what I'm asking and say, 'That's a final
offer,' then it's a no-go for me."
White House chief of staff Ron Klain
said Sunday that Capito and several other Republicans would be invited to the
White House this week.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a member of the Finance Committee,
said he doubted that Democrats would be willing to compromise — unless they are
forced to.
"Do they have the votes? If they don't have the votes,
they're serious about bipartisanship. If they have the votes, they're not
serious about bipartisanship," he said. "That's my presumption."
Behind the scenes, Biden and senior administration officials
have been meeting with lawmakers. The efforts are expected to ratchet up this
week, White House officials have said. The White House has already held at
least 415 phone calls or meetings with members of Congress, congressional
chiefs of staff and staff directors from both parties, an official said. They
have completed at least two dozen Senate and House committee staff-level
briefings that were bipartisan or Republican-only.
When it comes to dealing with members of Congress directly,
Biden's Cabinet members responsible for helping pass the bill have called at
least 62 Republican and Democratic members of Congress, and senior
administration officials have met with 10 senators in both parties, the
official said. Klain and Steve Ricchetti,
the counselor to the president, have met recently with moderate Democrats to
build support, including the Blue Dog and Problem Solvers caucuses.
Biden will meet on May 12 with the top Republican and Democratic
leaders from the House and the Senate.
People familiar with the talks said that Republicans will have a
limited window to reach a deal and that May is a crucial month to gauge the
prospects. A person close to the White House said officials are wary of getting
drawn into never-ending negotiations that turn out to be fruitless, an
experience during the Obama administration that the White House is determined
not to repeat.
There is a sense of urgency among Biden and his allies, who feel
they have a limited window to pass any legislation before members start
focusing on the midterm elections, in which Democrats could lose one or both
chambers of Congress.
"I think this month is where we're going to see whether
Republicans are actually willing to work together on tough issues," Sen.
Chris Coons, D-Del., said in an interview.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a key swing vote, is among
the Democrats who aren't ready to go it alone. He cited the recent 94-1 Senate
vote on a bill to tackle hate crimes against Asian Americans as a model for
cooperation.
"Give them a chance," he said. "I was very
pleased with how that happened."
But some top Democrats say they need to see results soon.
"It has to be a timely discussion. We can't waste a lot of
time," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Asked whether Memorial Day could be a pivot point, Durbin said,
"I'd hate to announce a deadline."
The No. 3 Senate Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington, echoed
the sentiment late last week.
"If they say, 'We're not going to help you,' then we will
have to go down the path of reconciliation," Murray said. "But I
think the country wants us to act."
Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a key player in the
negotiations, said he will "do everything I can to try to find common
ground," but he sounded a note of skepticism about "the Republican
assertion that multinational corporations — the biggest of the big, where
corporate revenues are down 40 percent in recent years — should not pay a penny
for infrastructure."
"Pretty hard to make anything bipartisan out of that,"
he said.
Biden, who has called for raising taxes on corporations and
households earning above $400,000, also rejected the GOP opposition to tax
increases to help finance it. "That's back to the old Republican position
of cut taxes $2 trillion, go into debt and not pay," he said. "I
mean, it's ironic how this has all changed."
Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a member of the Republican leadership
team, said she is "a little skeptical" about the White House's
outreach after it opted to pass the Covid-19 relief bill without Republican
votes.
"But he said it on national television, and I hope that he
is sincere about working with Republicans on infrastructure, because I really
do think we can get something done," she said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the chair of the Budget Committee,
who would oversee the budget reconciliation process, said his "assumption
is that the Republicans are not serious about a major infrastructure bill which
would include significant funding for infrastructure, for climate change, for
affordable housing and certainly for human infrastructure, as well."
"Should we spend an endless amount of time negotiating with
Republicans? The answer is absolutely not. We have seen this movie
before," he said. "If Republicans are serious and want to address the
major crises facing this country, that's great. If not, that's fine. We go
forward alone."
The White House believes it is negotiating from a position of
strength, pointing to favorable polling: A Monmouth University survey, for
instance, found that 68 percent of U.S. adults supported the infrastructure
plan, including 32 percent of Republicans, with 29 percent of the country
opposing it.
"The president has always been clear that he believes that
we should be able to craft policies that Democrats and Republicans can agree
upon. And that's what he as president is going to try to do," said White
House senior adviser Anita Dunn. "But he also has been clear that he was
elected to deliver for the American people. He's going to try to work with the
Republicans," she said, and "is realistic about their view, and he
understands their politics."
ATTACHMENT TEN – from VOX
REPUBLICANS AND
DEMOCRATS AGREE ON THE NEED FOR AN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL. THAT’S ABOUT ALL THEY
AGREE ON.
Republicans say a path to a
bipartisan infrastructure deal exists — it’s just not the deal Democrats want.
By Gabby Birenbaum May 2,
2021, 2:50pm EDT
·
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new window)
·
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new window)
Infrastructure has long been held up in Washington as one of
a dwindling few issues on which there can be bipartisan agreement. As Congress
gets to work on negotiating an infrastructure bill and President Joe Biden
touts his American Jobs Plan, Republican senators emphasized the potential for
a bipartisan deal on Sunday.
Of course, they differed with Biden and Democrats over the
scope of what should be included in the bill and how to pay for it.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), a moderate Republican and part of
the Gang of 10, said
members of both parties have been meeting frequently, and that he believes a
bipartisan agreement can be reached. The Gang of 10 are Republicans who worked with Democrats on the Covid-19
relief bill, though no compromise was reached, and whose votes are necessary in
order to reach the 60-vote
threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.
“There’s a way forward here, if the White House is willing to
work with us,” he told Chuck Todd on “Meet the
Press”.
Portman said he disagreed with raising the corporate tax rate
— a key part of the Biden plan to pay for the infrastructure bill — and
criticized the size of Biden’s plan, saying only about 20 percent of the
proposed new spending went to traditional infrastructure spending and could be
afforded through the mechanisms he favors. Instead of raising the corporate tax
rate, Portman proposed public-private partnerships, user fees such as the gas
tax, and repurposing state and local funding from the Covid-19 relief package
for infrastructure.
And therein lies the issue — Republicans portray Biden and
Democrats as negotiating in bad faith if they refuse to abandon central
components of the plan, including raising corporate taxes and expanding federal
investment in green job creation and health care. (For more details on Biden’s
$2 trillion American Jobs Plan, read Vox’s Ella Nilsen’s
explainer.)
Across the Sunday shows, Republican Sens. John Barrasso, Bill
Cassidy, and Susan Collins all emphasized that any bipartisan deal can only
focus on the roads and bridges that make up a typical surface transportation
reauthorization bill. They say the price tag, and any tax increase, are
non-starters.
Speaking to Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week,”
Barrasso said Republicans’ counteroffer — a $568 billion plan from
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), which is about a quarter of what Democrats
want to spend — can be a reasonable starting point for negotiations. But for
all of the talk of bipartisanship, his assessment of Biden’s plan was largely negative.
“It’s the trillions and trillions of dollars of reckless
spending,” Barrasso said, continuing:
When I look at this, this is a staggering amount of spending,
like someone with a new credit card. And these are for things that we don’t
necessarily need, we certainly can’t afford, but they’re going to delight the
liberal left of the party ... It’s almost creating an addiction to spending.
Collins, another key moderate, also painted the
infrastructure negotiations as an ultimatum for Biden while disagreeing with
core parts of his plan, including raising the corporate tax rate
to 28 percent.
She did not offer an alternative for
how to pay for the infrastructure bill.
“This is going to be a test for Joe Biden. The Joe Biden that
I knew in the Senate was always interested in negotiation,” Collins said. “This
is going to be a test on whether President Biden is truly interested in
bipartisanship. If he is, we can get there on the core infrastructure package.
And by that, it means roads, bridges, highways, rail, waterways, and of course,
broadband.”
Does Biden need bipartisanship?
On the Democratic side, White House chief of staff Ron Klain
doubled down on an emerging idea within the Biden White House — that
bipartisanship means support of the majority of Americans, not Republicans in
Congress.
By that measure, Biden’s plan is bipartisan. A CBS News/YouGov poll from
late April found that 58 percent of people surveyed approved of the
infrastructure plan, A Politico/Morning Consult poll from
early April found that 65 percent of voters, including 42 percent of
Republicans, support raising the corporate tax rate to fund Biden’s
infrastructure plan.
“The proposals the president’s put forward have broad
support,” Klain said on
CBS News’ “Face The Nation.” “They have broad support in the country. They have
support from Republican governors, Republican mayors. I think what we’ll have
to see is whether or not Republicans in Washington join the rest of America in
broadly supporting these common sense ideas.”
Other key Democrats, including Secretary of the Treasury
Janet Yellen and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to
praise the bill, including its inclusion of “soft infrastructure” like research
and development, and its funding mechanisms. Yellen committed to ensuring the
bill is paid for, highlighting the administration’s proposals to raise taxes on
those earning over $400,000 and on corporations.
Doing so would necessitate removing some of the tax breaks
based in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — a Republican bill passed without the
support of a single Democrat.
Of course, Democrats could take the same approach Republicans
did in 2017, and that they used to pass their March Covid-19 relief bill —
budget reconciliation, a process in which a filibuster can be bypassed in the
Senate for bills that are budgetary in nature. If — and it’s a big if —
Democrats can stick together on the final version of Biden’s plan, they do not
actually need Republican support, for all of the bluster around bipartisanship.
As Vox’s Ella Nilsen explains,
Democrats could pass their entire package — potentially both infrastructure and
Biden’s child care and health care bill, through budget reconciliation for the
2022 fiscal year. They could pass multiple budget reconciliation bills this
year, breaking up their packages into parts, if Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer is successful in lobbying the Senate parliamentarian to invoke an
arcane rule that allows for up to three reconciliation attempts per year. Or,
they could pass a bipartisan bill with Republican support on the parts of
infrastructure they agree on, and then use budget reconciliation to pass the
elements that Republicans are not on board with.
Although Biden, as Senate Republicans are quick to note, was
a famed compromiser while in the Senate, his speeches as president often make
references to President Franklin Roosevelt — known for big government rather
than bipartisanship. If Biden is taking his election as a mandate to expand
government, in the vein of his preferred predecessor, then including
Republicans in his plans is less important than getting them passed in the
first place.
“In another era when our democracy was tested, Franklin
Roosevelt reminded us, in America, we do our part,” Biden said in his speech Wednesday
night, in which he made direct appeals to Senate Republicans.
“We all do our part. That’s all I’m asking.”
ATTACHMENT
ELEVEN – from the Peanut Galleries
(A) FROM the CHAMBER of COMMERCE VIDEO
She sounds like a super villain but she's wearing so
much blue I can't help but be calmed.
Chamber of Commerce is a joke and never has helped my
small business of 17 years in any way...
No one challenged her responses and there was no
opposing view. Heckuva job, CNBC!
Lol, "I don't have the numbers, but I swear they
exist and support my stance"
Key takeaway from her speech: "We'll support and
fight for people... Who make more than one million dollars per year."
MS CLARK: I support both parties. SO, I support you TWICE. PLEASE,
can you send me TWO CHECKS to honor my bipartisanship ?
The people are awakening, and they are mad at all the
liars.
This is why I refuse to join my local Chamber. They
don’t represent the interests of small businesses.
"I don't have the numbers off the top of my head
bit they're out there" is esentially saying, im pulling crap outta my A and
peddling BS information.
It's unfair on how things has turned up to be due to the recent
world pandemic things has been so difficult we see complains here and there in
the social Media from different people in different countries all around the
world The government has less or no time for their people anymore I think we
all should try to engage in different things to make money and stop hoping on
the economy
You want infra structure but you always want someone
else, those on the low income spectrum of society, to pay for it. Meanwhile you
have CEO' s, like with Amazon, profiting outrageously on the backs of the
workers
I hope the ghost of mary antoinnette gives these people the warning they need
Wow, that was some great journalism there CNBC ;-)
The wisest thing that should be on every wise
individual list is to invest in different stream of income that don't depend on
the government to bring money especially now.....
Ope the good ol' fashioned "punishing success" argument is
back 😂
🤡🤡🤡
Has trinkle down worked yet 🤔
“Job creators”? Wasn’t that the Bush’s tax break logo.
How’d that work for us? Recession, foreclosure , and market crashed. Enough is
enough.
"In reality they're not after me,they're
after you. I'm just in their way." PRESIDENT TRUMP... right again
I love how a pro-Republican is being asked literally
if she approved a democratic presidents initiative
"We're corrupt as hell" - This interview,
basically.
ask joepedo about the island
his family used to own, right next to little st james
It is for millionaires and above…clearly she must be
one of them…her smirk reminds me of the Kraken Lady lawyer
Translation = We millionaires and billionaires will
circle the wagons and make sure that the burden remains on the poor
Can't know how I bumped onto this. All in all Awesome
video 🥇😎. I also have been
watching those similar from mStarTutorials and kinda wonder how you guys create these vids. MSTAR
TUTORIALS also had cool info about similiar make
money online things on his vids.
The art of smiling and lying simultaneously.
By telling a lie with a smile doesn't make it less of
a lie
It punishes people for not reinvesting in their
companies and shoving that money in their bank accounts
The one one time im super glad these politicians are
in wallstreets payroll
Economy is in flames and Captain Intellect wants to
raise taxes
The national Chamber of Commerce is evil. They really
look out for international corporations.
"And the idea that we're going to punish people for
investing in the economy right now just seems outrageous." It would be if
it were the case, but when you've got $1million or more, you're hoarding; and
any investments made are for the sole purpose of hoarding more.
She be blowing smoke.... 👀
We are overtaxed already
About time business owners pay their share.
Every time a car is sold, it is taxed.
What we should do is outlaw corporate stock options as
less than 2% of the people ever pay it and 98% are robbed!!!!!!!!
It'll teach all the pump and dumping a little lesson.
It's funny these people put on such a show, this lady
already knows what's gonna happen....
Whats it gonna take for people to wake up, maybe when they can't
afford normal day to day things #inflation
After all is said and done WV will still have awful
pot holes
Whatever makes the best resource allocation by putting
capital where it gains the most should be the entity allocating, hopefully all
of it, on the next go around.
It should be 5% with those whose net worth is less
than $10,000,000 and at the same rate for greater than $10,000,000. Also,
income tax should be capped at 30%.
Yeah !!!!
It’s crazy how this effects less than 1% of the
population yet it becomes their main goal to fight it.
Foreign Chamber of Commerce
Not Melissa McCarthy. *clicks out of video*
I'd rather watch U-Tube videos of screaming goats.
RODEO CLUBHOUSE. San Diego. VINCENT MILLER. 2019.MY WIFE'S FAMILY MEMBERS.
I will vote R in every election going forward if this
tax law passes.
Definitely will hurt the small business owners
Yay
they are panicking !
Lucifer in blues.
Wouldn't it make more sense to tax dividends over capital gains so
that: 1) Smaller/Mid size companies can grow without being punished in investor
incentive 2) Incentive for holding more cash within companies to increase
corporate liquidity in volatile periods - this will leak into share price, but
underlying fundamentals will still be stronger, investor assumes the risk
The reason the RICH put money into nre technologies
and changes is because they get all that money back. Not because they simply
help. They help themselves too.
In 1952 and 1953, the top federal income tax rate was
92 PERCENT. I say bring back those golden days. people who click buttons (stock
traders) or do almost nothing all day (Ceo's board of directors) have a little
less increase of money in their bank account each year, and instead we build
our country better.
It’s outrageous right now? But right now these we seek
to tax got way more rich.
Sure you wouldn’t want the rich to pay their fair
share for once. It’s okay you wouldn’t miss that twentieth Ferrari.
It's "bad for families" (yacht owning
familes)
The anchors should have mentioned government
regulations such as cap and trade, which was crucial in driving energy
companies to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.
So she’s worried about reduced investment in public
companies? They sure do invest in themselves with the ILLEGAL STOCK BUYBACKS,
which is MARKET MANIPULATION.
Awww they don't want to pay taxes
not going to happen. sleep Joe must have run out of
meds.
When he said 1/3rd of 1% are affected by capital gains
tax increases, her smirk is everything you need to know about who is funding
her opinion on this.
That's cute she thinks she can stop it.
Down votes from paycheck to pay check under
achievers!!
Time to remove the Senile Potato.
Whoa big corporations not ready to let go of all that
cake that Trump gave them
Make sure it doesn't? Eat the rich comes to mind.
I'm giving my kids pure cash to any of these taxes.
Still got like 60 years but still
He has also cast himself as a civil rights activist
and co-sponsor of the Endangered Species Act; those things aren’t true either.
I'm glad people are fighting this and I'm not rich.
Why is she blinking so much ...who knows morse code?
the only solution to the Infastructure problem would
be a sugar tax
All of these taxes fall onto all people of all tax
brackets
How interesting that all of a sudden they're concrned
for the "middle class" after doing their best to try and destoy it.
Also now that they've lost majority power, now they yell for
"bipartisan" as loud as they can. They just don't want their system
to change at all, and have openly said that they will block ANY measure to do
so. S M H. How sad this country has become, where so many get away with so
much.
Investing the farm in the Chinese yuan. The dollar is
going to collapse!
Investing the farm in the Chinese yuan. The dollar is
going to collapse!
She said there were better ways to pay for
infrastructure. Why didn't the reporter ask her what those were? He dropped the
ball.
Election fraud is For[Bidden].
Gotta protect those poor millionaires.
snippy B....
Based
What happens more, her lies or her eyes blinking?
MY WIFE'S FAMILY MEMBERS. VINCENT MILLER. San Diego. 37MILLION IN
DAMAGES. From OFFICER CREDIT CARDS. MY WIFE'S FAMILY MEMBERS.
MOTORHOME.VINCENT. San Diego.
If I needed to know about the markets I'd ask a
businessman, like trump
If you can't see how evil these people sound when they
say... "I don't think that can pass in congress and we are going to make
real sure it doesn't", you are in denial and you are a fool.
Yea right the circus continue
Wow this lady is bought and paid for, but who isn't.
She has no understanding about the capital gains tax.
Of course people need incentive from all other
citizens to invest in the stock market ..I mean look how poorly the market has
done and how it has shrunk in size.. wait what?
U know how many small businesses make over a million
and they arent nowhere near rich? I see why they trying to push math is racist
in schools now
Haha "we won't buy stocks" haha well we dgaf
because us middleclass don't get that luxory. Netflix and got screwed by the
hedgefunders.
of course... the uber-wealthy must be protected and
coddled at all costs
20
Paying for the country is best left to those without
congressional lobbyists. It's called "Taxation Without
Representation" and it's in vogue right now.
What’s good for big business is good for all
Americans. We fell for that line of, “Trickle down economics” since the 80s.
Worked great for us, didn’t it?
Eat the rich
Bidens Capital gains tax only effects capital gains
over 1 million dollars. It doesn't effect normal people
When 100% of the comments are calling out both the
reporter AND the guest... it gives me hope.
Don't understand why half the country pays all the bills of
America. And the other half which is wealthy gets a pass on paying their share
of our bills.
This woman is dangerous. Yet MSBNC does
not challenge. She'll make sure of nothing.
(B) FROM the CHATAQUA OBERVER
Susan Strom Shiloh
The
Observer got the headline wrong on this one! Lol! I'm all for a flat tax, but I
doubt that it will ever happen.
Paul D Christopher
This
shows the lack of real world experience and thought processes I'd expect from a
Philosophy major. If you give $1 million more to a millionaire, or $1000 each
to 1000 people, which boosts the economy more?
Michael Dee
Your
thinking is inverted. (Marx?) You talk about GIVING a dollar to a Millionaire?
NO! Thats totally wrong. We are talking about taking a dollar LESS from them.
You act like the government is the source of wealth. It isn't. Only people who
do business and work create wealth.
Michael Dee
Taking
a dollar from a "rich" person and giving it to the government helps
nobody ; it's a waste of economic resources. Remember this from Macro: Money
multiplier for money spent in the Govt sector is about 4. Multiplier for the
private sector is about 12. Do the math.
William Lakas
Federal
income taxes are used to provide for national programs such as national
defense; veterans and foreign affairs; social programs; physical, human, and
community development; law enforcement; and interest on the national debt.
William Lakas
Billionaire
Mark Cuban: One of the ‘most patriotic’ things you can do is get ‘obnoxiously
rich’ and pay your taxes. When a billionaire (too lazy to look up the name) was
asked what tax loopholes he used, he replied "I don't need any tax
loopholes! I'm rich!"
Michael Dee
Don't
forget to add Graft and Corruption, Crony Capitalism, wasted give-aways (like
Dept of Education), and Subsidies (like Green Energy, Welfare, etc.). We would
do well to kill off about 40-50% of federal spending.
Michael Dee
For
you Bernie Bros out there who love Sweden's "socialism", note that
they do have a progressive income tax, BUT they do not tax capital gains, and
they incorporate a VAT tax. Combined, it means that people pay a relatively
FLAT tax rate overall, and NOBODY gets a freebie.
|
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The DJI will list the
forty world leaders (or as Greta might call them, forty thieves) and how their
home nations responded to their performance.
This will probably take place in our Lesson for May 13th barring…
as happens from time to time… unforeseen circumstances.