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Biden urges Democrats to unite around ‘historic’ $1.75tn investment package
Joe BidenBiden urges Democrats to unite around ‘historic’ $1.75tn investment package President’s visit to Capitol Hill prompts flurry of activity as Pelosi ramps up pressure on progressives to accept Biden’s frameworkLauren Gambino in Washington@laurenegambinoThu 28 Oct 2021 15.48 EDTFirst published on Thu 28 Oct 2021 08.11 EDTJoe Biden on Thursday unveiled a “historic economic framework” that he said would make the US more competitive and resilient, touting the $1.75tn plan to expand the nation’s social safety net and confront the climate crisis as a victory for consensus and compromise even as the path forward remained uncertain.‘We’re on the path to get this done’: Pelosi pushes infrastructure vote as progressives balk – liveRead moreThe president, who delayed his departure to Europe to finalize the proposal, cast the emerging deal as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore American leadership and show the world that democracies can still deliver in the 21st century.His remarks at the White House followed a visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday morning, where he pleaded with House Democrats to unite behind the agreement, saying that his presidency – and their political futures – depended on the passage of his domestic agenda.“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the House and Senate majorities and my presidency will be determined by what happens in the next week,” he said, according to a source familiar with his private remarks to the caucus.The visit set in motion a flurry of activity on Capitol Hill, as Democratic leaders, eager to deliver Biden a legislative victory, ramped up pressure on progressives to accept the “framework” as a done deal, paving the way for them to join moderates in passing a related $1tn bipartisan infrastructure bill. With Republicans mostly aligned against the plan, Pelosi only has a handful of votes to spare.“When the president gets off that plane, we want him to have a vote of confidence from this Congress,” she told her fractious caucus on Thursday morning. “In order for us to have success, we must succeed today.”Twice during the course of the hour-long meeting, Democratic lawmakers rose to their feed and began to chant: “Vote, vote, vote.” But their enthusiasm was quickly tempered as her caucus’s most liberal members dug in.Leaving the meeting on Thursday, the Washington congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the House Progressive Caucus, said the deal was a sign of “tremendous momentum” but that her position remained unchanged: the bills must move in tandem.“I feel a bit bamboozled because this was not what I thought was coming today,” said congresswoman Cori Bush, a progressive from Missouri. Speaking personally about working a low-wage job and struggling to afford housing and childcare, Bush said she wasn’t ready to give up on fighting for policies that would lift her constituents from similar circumstances.Putting it more bluntly, congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, said she was a “hell no” on the infrastructure bill if there was not a simultaneous vote on the larger spending plan.During a press conference, Pelosi did not commit to holding the vote on Thursday, saying only that the party was “on a path to get this all done”. Working franticly to advance the legislation, the framework was swiftly translated into a 1,684-page bill released shortly before a House rules committee hearing on the measure.“This is not the end of the process,” said congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts and the chair of the committee, affirming multiple times during the hearing that the social policy package would not be ready for a vote on Thursday. “This bill will continue to be perfected.”Complicating negotiations for Democratic leaders was a lack of certainty from the key holdouts, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Both sounded hopeful that a deal was within reach, but stopped short of offering their firm support.“After months of productive, good-faith negotiations with Biden and the White House, we have made significant progress on the proposed budget reconciliation package,” Sinema said, adding: “I look forward to getting this done.”Manchin also did not commit to supporting the legislation he played a significant role in shaping. Asked whether he would vote for the plan, he said only that its fate was presently “in the hands of the House”.After months of prolonged negotiations, the proposed framework is far smaller in size and scope than the $3.5tn package Biden initially envisioned. Even so, the president claimed a pre-emptive legislative achievement on par with those enacted by Franklin D Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.“Any single element of this framework would be viewed as a fundamental change in America. Taken together they’re truly consequential,” Biden said during remarks from the East Room at the White House, pointing to new spending on childcare and climate mitigation.“If we make these investments, we will own the future,” he added.The package would make substantial new investments in childcare and caregiving as well as transitioning the US economy away from fossil fuels. According to the White House, the framework would put the US on track to meet the president’s pledge to slash planet-warming emissions by 2030.Among the other provisions in the bill are free preschool for every three- and four-year-old, expanded health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and what the White House is calling the largest “effort to combat climate change in American history”.Stripped from the package were plans to provide 12 weeks of federal paid family leave and two years of free community college; ambitious climate initiatives and efforts to lower prescription drug prices. A proposal to expand Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing was pared back to just hearing.Democrats spent the last several weeks haggling over plans to pay for their agenda, amid opposition from both Manchin and Sinema to various revenue-raising proposals. On Wednesday, a novel plan to tax billionaires’ assets was tossed aside after Manchin said the plan carried “the connotation that we’re targeting different people”.To offset their spending, Democrats said they would raise an estimated $2tn by increasing taxes on corporations and the highest earning Americans, and by rolling back some of the Trump administration’s tax cuts passed in 2017. It honors Biden’s campaign pledge that he would not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 a year, according to the White House.After weeks of frenetic negotiations, Democrats were scrambling to cobble together a deal that the president could tout when he travels to Rome, the Vatican, and then to the United Nations climate conference, known as Cop26, in Glasgow, Scotland, where he hopes to point to the accord as evidence of the US’s commitment to confronting the climate crisis.“We are at an inflection point,” Biden told House lawmakers. “The rest of the world wonders whether we can function.”Internal disputes over the bill delayed its passage for weeks, as Democrats blew past self-imposed deadlines in an effort to find a compromise that could satisfy the broad ideological expanse of their party.The result is a bill that reflected the limits of their governing coalition, Biden said, indicating that this was the best deal Democrats could hope to achieve with paper-thin majorities and unified Republican opposition.“No one got everything they wanted, including me,” he said. “But that’s what compromise is. That’s consensus. And that’s what I ran on.”The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, chair of the powerful budget committee, called the framework a “major step forward” but warned that there were also “major gaps” in the legislation. He cited the lack of paid family and medical leave for workers and the failure to expand Medicare benefits to include dental and vision as well as herding, a major priority for the senator.Without all 50 senators, the legislation will not pass.TopicsJoe BidenUS CongressUS politicsDemocratsJoe ManchinnewsReuse this content More
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$555bn in climate action but no new tax on billionaires: what’s in Biden’s plan?
Joe Biden$555bn in climate action but no new tax on billionaires: what’s in Biden’s plan?President’s $1.75tn spending framework includes investments in childcare and healthcare, but 12 weeks of paid family leave is out Lauren ArataniThu 28 Oct 2021 12.15 EDTLast modified on Thu 28 Oct 2021 12.39 EDTJoe Biden on Thursday released the framework of a $1.75tn social and climate spending proposal after weeks of fraught negotiations with congressional Democrats.Biden makes $1.75tn pitch: ‘My presidency will be determined by what happens next’ – liveRead moreThe framework includes investments in childcare, climate change mitigation and an expansion of healthcare, but it is a significantly pared-down version of the original $3.5tn agenda Biden had proposed.In a statement, the White House said the president is confident this framework of the bill would be able to pass the House and Senate, although it appears negotiations on the proposal’s specific details will continue.Here is what we know so far:What’s in the bill?The bill includes substantial investment in young children, specifically funding for childcare and early childhood education. Under the proposal, most American families will save more than half of their spending on childcare, with bolstered benefits to working and low-income parents. It also includes universal pre-school for children aged three and four.A hallmark of the proposal’s climate mitigation plan is $555bn to reduce climate pollution and invest in clean energy. The proposal includes consumer rebates for Americans who invest in renewable energy, for example installing rooftop solar panels or buying an electric vehicle.The bill also includes incentives to expand renewable energy in the domestic supply chain, an accelerator program that will fund sustainability projects and funding for restoration and conservation efforts.The framework includes some provisions to bolster healthcare, including reducing healthcare premiums and tax credits to people who have been locked out of Medicaid because their state refused to expand Medicaid access. It will also include investments in affordable housing and an extension of the child tax credit.What was taken out?A few provisions that some Democrats were heavily advocating for were left out of the framework.Most notably, the proposal does not include 12 weeks of paid family leave. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the primary holdout for the provision. Manchin has indicated that he believes a reconciliation bill – which would require only the support of Democrats in the Senate – is “not the place” for “a major policy”.Significant expansions to healthcare were cut out of the framework, including provisions to have Medicaid cover dental and vision costs, a plan to expand Medicaid to Americans in states that have refused to expand it themselves under the Affordable Care Act, and a proposal to empower Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.Biden’s plan for free tuition at community colleges was also left out.The framework notably does not include the “billionaire tax” that was floated by some Democrats on Wednesday before it was swiftly killed by centrist holdouts.The billionaire tax would have seen a complete shift in the way Americans worth more than $1bn would pay taxes, targeting the billions of dollars in shares they own in their companies. Hours after the proposal was unveiled, Manchin said he would not support such a provision.How are Democrats planning to pay for it?Biden estimates the framework will cost about $1.75tn, and the White House says the bill will be funded “by asking more from the very largest corporations and the wealthiest Americans”.A central provision in the bill’s payment plan is shifting the corporate tax rate to 15% for corporations with more than $1bn in profits. While the current corporate tax rate is 21%, Democrats have agreed that loopholes allowed corporations to report lower profits to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) while boasting lofty profits to shareholders. The next tax rate will apply to the profit that is reported to shareholders.The bill also includes a surtax on the 0.02% wealthiest Americans and investments in IRS auditing enforcements.What’s next?The framework released by Biden on Thursday represents a broad outline of what will end up in the final bill. Congressional Democrats will need to get to work at drafting the actual legislation if everyone, particularly the party’s most progressive and conservative members, can agree on the basic framework. When that will happen will depend on how quickly everyone says they are on board.TopicsJoe BidenUS domestic policyUS CongressUS politicsJoe ManchinnewsReuse this content More
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Biden plan pledges ‘largest effort to combat climate change in US history’
Joe BidenBiden plan pledges ‘largest effort to combat climate change in US history’Hundreds of billions to be given to clean energy, electric vehicles and flood defenses, officials say – but some key parts left out Oliver Milman in New York@olliemilmanThu 28 Oct 2021 11.41 EDTLast modified on Thu 28 Oct 2021 15.05 EDTThe Biden administration has said a vast spending bill is set to result in the “largest effort to combat climate change in American history”, with hundreds of billions of dollars set to be funneled into supporting clean energy, electric vehicles and new defenses against extreme weather events. But some key parts of Joe Biden’s original plan were left out.Biden makes $1.75tn pitch: ‘My presidency will be determined by what happens next’ – liveRead moreFollowing negotiations with Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, two centrist Democratic senators who have opposed large portions of the original Build Back Better bill, the White House said it was confident a reduced version of the legislation will be able to pass both houses of Congress and will “set the United States on course to meet its climate goals”.This proposed framework includes $555bn in incentives, investments and tax credits aimed at bolstering the deployment of renewable energy such as solar and wind, as well as a tax break that will deliver up to $12,500 to people who buy an electric car. The bill will help deploy new electric buses and trucks, build community resilience to disastrous wildfires and floods and employ 300,000 people in a new “civilian climate corps”.In all, the White House said the legislation will cut planet-heating emissions by 1bn tons by 2030 and bring the US significantly closer to its goal of slashing carbon pollution in half this decade.At a press conference held on Thursday, Biden said the bill will represent “the most significant investment to address the climate crisis ever” and “will truly transform this nation”.“We are going to get off the sidelines of manufacturing solar panels and wind farms,” the president said, adding that the package will help double the number of electric cars on US roads within three years and provide 500,000 new charging stations for the vehicles. “We are once again going to be the innovators. It’s a big deal.”“The weather is not going to get better, it’s going to get a heck of a lot worse,” Biden continued. “It’s a blinking code red for America and the world.”The legislation has been significantly reduced following objections raised by Manchin and Sinema over its scope – Biden needs every Senate Democrat to vote for the bill to overcome unified Republican opposition to it – but the remaining framework still represents the first, and largest, major attempt by the US to tackle the unfolding climate crisis.“It’s a historic day for people and the planet,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. “Congress must swiftly pass the Build Back Better Act and send it to President Biden to sign into law.”On Thursday, Biden will travel to Europe for crucial UN climate talks to be held in Scotland. The US president has said it would be “very, very positive” for the reconciliation bill to pass before the Cop26 summit, in order to bolster American credibility and help convince other countries to do more to address the catastrophic wildfires, floods and heatwaves increasingly being unleashed by global heating.This effort has been repeatedly stymied by the objections of Manchin, a West Virginia senator with deep ties to the coal industry who managed to strike out of the bill a system that would have phased out fossil fuels from America’s electricity grid. This plan was responsible for a third of the emissions cuts in the original version of the legislation, according to analysts.The new framework does not include fees paid by oil and gas producers when they emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Manchin was also opposed to this fee in the original bill and rejected a proposal to include a tax or price on carbon emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency is, however, poised to regulate methane emissions through its existing powers.These omissions mean that the legislation’s framework represents a historic investment in clean energy but doesn’t include any mechanisms to reduce fossil fuel usage or even cut subsidies flowing to the oil, coal and gas companies that have caused the climate crisis.“Given the prime opportunity to cancel billions of dollars in domestic subsidies for oil and gas polluters, the president and congressional leadership have rolled over,” said Mitch Jones, policy director of Food and Water Watch. “A climate plan that fails to directly confront the oil and gas industry cannot possibly be considered meaningful.”Climate experts have, however, pointed out the bill, if passed, would represent a major step forward in acting on the climate crisis, while making clear that further emissions cuts will be needed to avoid the US, and the world, spiraling into a barely livable climatic state.Leah Stokes, a climate policy expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said it would be “great news” if the legislation passes because “the climate math is brutal”.“Even if we are lucky enough to get this bill over the finish line, we need more next year,” she tweeted. “The climate clock is ticking.”TopicsJoe BidenClimate crisisUS domestic policyUS CongressJoe ManchinUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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Is Joe Biden about to show up to Cop26 empty-handed? | Kate Aronoff
OpinionCop26Is Joe Biden about to show up to Cop26 empty-handed?Kate AronoffThe tools at Biden’s disposal to limit dangerous global heating are enormous. If he wants it, he can do it – but does he want it? Thu 28 Oct 2021 09.24 EDTLast modified on Thu 28 Oct 2021 12.39 EDTAfter months of bullish rhetoric about the United States’ climate leadership, the US could still show up to COP 26 empty handed. That doesn’t have to be the case – whatever charismatic obstructionists like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema have to say about it. The climate certainly isn’t waiting on them to change: the UN Emissions Gap Report released this week finds that the world is on track to warm by a catastrophic 2.7C degrees.The White House has pegged its Paris Agreement success on being able to pass an ambitious spending package, with plenty of money built in for key climate priorities. In recent weeks the administration pegged its audacious goal, of slashing emission by at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, to something called a Clean Electricity Payments Program (CEPP). That’s out. And even if the compromise $55bn a year of climate spending the White House promised on Thursday makes it through to legislation, carrots for green spending can only go so far. The US will still not have picked up critical sticks needed to go after the polluting industries driving up temperatures. The dirty dozen: meet America’s top climate villainsRead moreThey’re desperately needed. According to the UN-backed 2021 Production Gap Report, the world’s governments are on track to produce double the amount of fossil fuels than is consistent with capping warming at 1.5C degrees. In the US, oil and gas production are now on track to expand by 17 and 12%, respectively, by 2030.The United States showing up in good faith to Glasgow will require it to step on the third rail of both US and global climate politics: going after fossil fuels. Those words don’t appear in the Paris Agreement itself. But rapidly winding them down is essential to achieving its goals of limiting warming by “well below” 2C degrees, with an aspiration (repeated frequently by the Biden administration) to limit temperature rise to just 1.5C degrees.The Biden administration is also on track to approve more oil and gas drilling on federal lands than any president since George W Bush. Sadly, this is not the first time Democrats have let us down on climate action. It was just days after the Paris Agreement that the Obama administration quietly repealed the 40 year-old crude oil export ban as part of an omnibus, must-pass spending measure in 2015. In the four years after its passage crude oil exports expanded by 750%, allowing the US to eventually cross the threshold to becoming a net oil exporter in the winter of 2020. The same year the United States was the world’s third largest gas exporter.This trajectory is plainly out of step with a liveable planet. Indigenous leaders who converged in Washington under the banner of People v Fossil Fuels earlier this month were joined by 13 members of Congress recently in calling on the administration to use the full extent of its powers to start treating the climate crisis like the emergency it is, putting a stop to fossil fuel expansion. The tools at Biden’s disposal, as they note, are enormous.The EPA has the power to stringently regulate carbon dioxide and methane, which it’s expected to make steps toward soon. By declaring a national emergency, Biden could reinstate the crude oil export ban virtually overnight, stemming the flow of US fossil fuels being burned abroad to make a handful of executives here rich.Such a declaration would unlock the power to finally put the US on a wartime footing to rapidly deploy renewable energy and create millions of union jobs in the process, rather than relying only on piecemeal measures like tax credits. The Department of Energy could reject export permits under the Natural Gas Act. The Department of Interior could stop selling below-market rate leases to drill on public lands, activity that accounts for roughly a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.There’s plenty of other low-hanging fruit, too: Biden could move to cancel the Line 3 pipeline, along with the Dakota Access Pipeline, Line 5 and the Mountain Valley Pass Pipeline. A recent analysis by Oil Change International, in fact, found that the White House has to prevent 1.6bn metric tonnes of emissions per year by rejecting those and another 20 fossil fuel projects. Existing laws like the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act grant the executive branch broad authority to do so. Internationally, the administration could join the UK and Italy at the G20 this week in pushing to phase-out coal and formally end overseas financing for all oil and gas projects through the US Export-Import Bank, as well. The State Department could drop its longstanding objections to concrete discussions of loss and damage financing and historical responsibility for rising temperatures at the UN climate talks in Glasgow.Joe Biden and members of his administration have frequently called climate change an “existential threat.” If the White House wanted to act like that’s true – and assert real US leadership at COP 26 – it could.
Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic. She is the co-author of A Planet To Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal (Verso) and the co-editor of We Own The Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style (The New Press)
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