What’s in the Plan?
- $726 billion for the Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee with expansive instructions to address some of Democrats’ top priorities. Those areas include universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, child care for working families, tuition-free community college, funding for historically black colleges and universities and an expansion of the Pell Grant for higher education.
- $107 billion for the Judiciary Committee, including instructions to address “lawful permanent status for qualified immigrants.”
- $135 billion for the Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry, including instructions to address forest fires, reduce carbon emissions and address drought concerns.
- $332 billion for the Banking Committee, including instructions to invest in public housing, the Housing Trust Fund, housing affordability and equity and community land trusts.
- $198 billion for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, including instructions largely related to clean energy development.
Largely a Mystery
The above details are from the NPR post Senate Democrats Roll Child Care And Immigration Into A $3.5T Budget Framework dated today.
I total the above items as $1.498 trillion. Where’s the other $2.002 trillion hiding?
The WSJ reports Senate Democrats Outline $3.5 Trillion Antipoverty, Climate Plan
Senate Democrats released an outline of the $3.5 trillion antipoverty and climate plan they hope to approve this fall, further detailing their ambitions for the major legislative effort that they intend to approve without Republican support.
The plan, which is set to offer universal prekindergarten, two free years of community college, and expanded Medicare to cover hearing, dental and vision care, is the second of two major packages encapsulating President Biden’s agenda that lawmakers are pushing through Congress this year. The first, the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure plan, is nearing final passage in the Senate.
Democrats are planning to raise taxes on corporations and high-income households to cover the cost of the $3.5 trillion plan, which also calls for a federal paid leave benefit, a series of energy tax incentives, and a program to push the U.S. to receive 80% of its electricity from clean sources by 2030. The plan outlined by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Monday also includes offering a pathway to lawful permanent status for certain migrants to the U.S. and lowering the price of prescription drugs
The legislation could “give tens of millions of families a leg up,” Mr. Schumer wrote in a letter to Senate Democrats Monday morning.
If you click on the first link it takes you an article written July 14. The “Plan” is a link to a $1.8 trillion package proposed on April 28.
Where’s the Outline?
Supposedly, there’s an outline. But I cannot find it. It seems we have no more details today than we had on April 28.
The WSJ does have what’s NOT in the outline.
The outline doesn’t include a measure to increase the U.S. government’s borrowing limit, indicating that Democrats will seek to raise the debt ceiling with GOP support in the coming weeks. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Monday that Congress should raise the debt limit on a bipartisan basis.
Approval of the Outline
We don’t really have an outline but we do have procedures for approving it.
Mr. Schumer wrote in the letter to Senate Democrats that the Senate will take up the budget plan for the bill, a key first step toward crafting the overall package, after the Senate wraps up the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Mr. Schumer has said that the Senate won’t break for its August recess until it has passed both the infrastructure plan and the budget outline for the $3.5 trillion plan.
Approving the outline for the bill, called a budget resolution, will help unlock a special process called reconciliation that will allow Democrats to advance the broad set of party priorities without any Republican support in the Senate. Mr. Schumer set a target of Sept. 15 for committees to submit their pieces of the legislation.
While all 50 Senate Democrats have rallied around approving the budget resolution, achieving unanimity on the legislation itself will be a more complicated political task. Some moderate Democrats have raised concerns about both the potential cost of the legislation and the tax increases proposed to pay for it. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) said last month that she opposed a bill that costs $3.5 trillion.
Even Price is a Mystery
I originally titled titled this post “The $3.5 Trillion Antipoverty, Climate Plan is a Mystery, Except for the Price“
All we really have is a bunch of floating ideas with no real outline that anyone can produce.
The floating ideas are coupled with dissent from two key Democrats as to how much they are willing to pay.
The dissent over price actually means that everything is a mystery. Meanwhile progressives push for energy import taxes to make the US 80% clean energy by 2030.
I propose that item would create instant stagflation if it somehow passes.
AOC Goes After Senator Krysten Sinema With a “No Climate, No Deal” Threat
Both AOC and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the infrastructure bill will not pass stand alone. In addition, AOC threatened to kill the whole thing over climate.
For details, please see AOC Goes After Senator Krysten Sinema With a “No Climate, No Deal” Threat
On August 5, I noted Senator Manchin Urges Fed to Immediately Taper to Halt Inflation and Avoid Tax Hikes
Manchin is concerned about inflation. The above article is in reference to the Fed, but he has also expressed concerns over the pricetag.
Written vs Verbal Outline
All 50 Democrats have to agree to anything to produce a deal. Perhaps this explains why everyone seems to think there is an outline but no one can actually point to it.
And while the Senate is struggling to come up with a written outline, Nancy Pelosi and the House is on a 7-Week Break.
My July 26 post still stands, The Stagflation Threat is Very Real but Congress Holds the Key. And It’s as current as the nebulous outline no one can seem to produce.
Mish
In the meantime, solar and/or nuclear desalination at scale has untapped potential to literally lower ocean levels, restore aquifers, ponds, lakes and when combined with holistic grazing, could literally be used to reduce atmospheric fossil fuels while simultaneously turning unliveable desert green.
Not to mention the potential for a freshwater pipeline from the Mississippi potentially solving water shortages all the way to the Front Range in Colorado.
It’s mind boggling to me that we waste so much money to address symptoms while ignoring causes.