What's in Biden's compromise spending plan, and how will it affect North Carolina? [The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)]

Oct. 28—President Joe Biden released Thursday a new spending plan, significantly paring back the original bill and its price tag after some Senate Democrats balked.

The framework for the Build Back Better Act includes $1.85 trillion in spending — with nearly $1 trillion for child care and preschool and clean energy and climate investments — and nearly $2 trillion in revenue offsets, including a surtax on multi-millionaires and billionaires.

In states like North Carolina which have not expanded Medicaid to more low-income people, the White House said the compromise plan would make millions of those people eligible for tax credits to pay premiums on Affordable Care Act health insurance plans.

Currently, according to a White House statement, "A 40-year-old in the coverage gap would have to pay $450 per month for benchmark coverage — more than half of their income in many cases. The framework provides individuals $0 premiums, finally making health care affordable and accessible."

The White House said it will not raise taxes on small business or anyone making less than $400,000 per year. In a statement, the White House said Biden "is confident this is a framework that can pass both houses of Congress."

The bill is working in tandem with an infrastructure bill that passed the Senate with bipartisan support, including "yes" votes from North Carolina Republican Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis. But progressives in the House refused to vote for that until more progress had been made on the social infrastructure package.

"This agenda, the agenda that's in these bills, is what 81 million Americans voted for," Biden said in an address Thursday. "Their voices deserve to be heard, not denied or, worse, ignored."

The compromise package came after long negotiations between Biden, his administration, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and more liberal members of the House and Senate. Democrats, with a slim majority in the House and no room for any defections in the Senate, are trying to keep their party together.

No Republicans are expected to support the measure in the House or the Senate.

"In North Carolina, President Biden's Build Back Better framework will deliver on issues critical to the future of our state, including expanding access to affordable, high quality child care, providing support for HBCUs, and closing the Medicaid coverage gap," said Bobbie Richardson, chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, in a statement.

But one proposal after another, from dental and vision care for seniors to paid leave for workers to free community college, has been dropped or dramatically scaled back as part of negotiations, drawing criticism from many Democrats.

"We've watched for weeks as a historic agenda to transform the lives of the poor, the working poor, and the barely middle class has been chipped away at by corporations & special interests," former North Carolina state Sen. Erica Smith, a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2022, tweeted Thursday. "It's bad politics & cruel public policy. We need more @USProgressives"

Another candidate in the Democratic primary for Senate, state Sen. Jeff Jackson, tweeted: "This talk of cutting paid family leave out of the bill is unreal. We just did town halls in every county in the state. I assure you: People want this. Rural, urban, suburban, everywhere. Being the only developed nation on earth without it must end. Fight for this."

Reps. Kathy Manning and David Price, both North Carolina Democrats, said they would support the bill. Manning called it "transformative."

"This is our opportunity to build back stronger and more equitably than before. I look forward to passing this bill to expand opportunities for North Carolina families," she said in a statement.

Biden met with House Democrats on Thursday morning before departing for Europe, where he is to meet with the Pope about climate change and other issues before attending the G20 summit and climate talks in Scotland.

"There was no question that we were needing to forge ahead and he needed the wind at his back in things he's going to be doing in Europe," Price said of the meeting.

What's in the bill:

— Universal, free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds. Funded for six years.

— Limits child care costs to no more than 7% of income for families earning up to 250% of a state's median income. Funded for six years.

— Care for older Americans and people with disabilities

— Expanded child tax credit

— Clean energy tax credits ($320 billion)

— Investments and incentives to address extreme weather ($105 billion)

— Investments and incentives for clean energy technology, manufacturing and supply chains ($110 billion)

— Clean energy purchases ($20 billion)

— Extend Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, and extend them to 4 million uninsured people in states that have not expanded Medicaid through 2025 ($130 billion)

— Allow Medicare to cover the cost of hearing ($35 billion)

— Housing affordability spending, including building public housing and more than 1 million new affordable rental and single-family homes and public housing ($150 billion)

— Raise maximum Pell grant, money for HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions

— One-year extension of Earned Income Tax Credit for childless workers

Revenue:

— 15% corporate minimum tax on large corporations

— 1% surcharge on corporate stock buybacks

— 15% global minimum tax

— New surtax on multi-millionaires and billionaires

— Investment in IRS enforcement

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This story was originally published October 28, 2021 10:30 AM.

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