EDITORIAL: BUDGET | Democrats' plan speaks to fairness

Aug. 15—Some details of the Democrats' $3.5 trillion federal budget plan remain under the radar but have significant implications comparable to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

For years Democrats and Republicans have said the federal government should be able to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare. That's been thwarted by the drug companies and their own members in some cases. The Democrats' plan calls to make negotiating part of the law, saving an estimated $435 billion or 12 percent of the cost of the bill.

That's pretty good for starters.

The bill would provide free pre-K child care, free two years of community college and provide green cards to millions of immigrants so they could work and pay taxes.

That would solve some of the most pressing problems working families have faced for decades: seeing more and more of their shrinking earnings going to rising child care and college tuition costs.

It would extend tax credits, not to corporations, but to families with children, something the Republicans famously supported for years. It would extend the two-year increase in subsidies through the COVID relief bill for people who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act that has reduced premiums for some by 50 to 80 percent.

Since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, some 31 million Americans now have health care they can afford, and insurance companies can longer deny care for pre-existing conditions, another provision widely supported by Republicans. Expanding care and reducing the cost of health insurance should be a no brainer.

And while the Democrats' plan does subsidize some corporations, the tax credits would go to investors in clean energy, reducing use of fossil fuels and reducing a hidden external "tax" that polluting industries pass along to consumers and those who want to breathe clean air.

Republicans are claim tax cuts to corporations will fuel the economy and provide more jobs for everyone, including the middle class. But there's scant evidence that occurs, even though it has been widely believed since Ronald Reagan pulled his Keynesian economics slight-of-hand when he disguised his buildup of military spending as trickle-down economics.

Subsidies and tax credits are as American as apple pie, and corporations have long been at the trough. The annual federal government "tax expenditure" report, for example, shows a $27 billion annual tax credit to foreign corporations in the U.S., a $140 billion annual tax credit for folks who play the stock market, and a $32 billion credit for writing off equipment faster than the law previously allowed.

Compare that to tax credits for lower income families at $2.6 billion, low and moderate income savers credit at $1.2 billion, and student loan interest tax credit at $2.1 billion, and one can see the disparity Democrats are trying to correct.

There remain hurdles for the Democrats to approve their plan. They need every Democrat in the 50-50 Senate to vote for the plan, and two have already said they are not comfortable with the price tag. A lower price tag seems likely to be negotiated.

Still, the fairness quotient of the plan is undeniable. For the middle class, the plan could bring back the Roosevelt first election theme of "Happy days are here again."

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