Build Back Better would benefit Texas
A mammoth bill that has inspired mammoth expectations, the Build Back Better Act would be good for America and, by extension, Texas.
Sweeping in its focus, the bill, a priority for President Joe Biden, targets everything from climate change to health care to universal pre-k.
A historic attempt to improve life for the working poor, it could be the most significant legislation since the Great Society and the War on Poverty in the 1960s. Could be — if it passes the U.S. Senate.
House Democrats passed the bill, 220-213, with one party member voting against it.
“We have a Build Back Better bill that is historic, transformative and larger than anything we have ever done before,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said before the vote.
The bill increases funding in areas long pushed by the Texas Workforce Commission, including child care, which often hamstrings young parents with costs higher than college tuition.
The provision to increase funding for universal pre-k programs will also help communities such as San Antonio, which became an early model for such initiatives under then-mayor Julián Castro.
It also includes a much-needed insurance option for low-wage workers that could be a game changer for people in Texas, which has refused to expand Medicaid.
With a razor-thin margin in the House, the bill survived the bitter polarization of these times.
The margin is even thinner in the Senate, where Democrats don’t have a vote to spare.
One of the sticking points is the 15 percent minimum tax on corporations with more than $1 billion in annual profits. There is concern that the minimum tax will stifle innovation and investment. There is also concern about the bill’s size and the possibility of further inflation.
The bill is massive — $2.2 trillion — but only because the problems it addresses are massive — climate change, health care, affordable housing, universal pre-k. Some of these areas have been ignored for years, even decades. The result? They fester, growing worse with tremendous cost.
The legislation would help reverse the cruel decisions of 12 states that blocked Medicaid expansion, including Texas. Low-wage workers were left with a huge gap in coverage, preventing them from receiving crucial health care that could have caught debilitating illnesses before they worsened. The package closes this gap over the next four years, providing adults below the poverty line with free monthly coverage via Healthcare.gov.
This problem is particularly serious for minorities in Texas. More than 25 percent of Latinos in the state lack health care coverage, according to studies by the nonpartisan Urban Institute. And an unconscionable number of minority children, according to the same studies, live below the poverty line — one-fourth of Latinos, one-fifth of Black people.
“When the Senate passes this and the president signs it, we will have delivered real benefits to people in their lives, and not for the wealthiest people in the country, but for the people that go to work every day,” U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio told CNN.
It will not be easy. Such legislative battles never are, but this conflict will be characterized by what is, for Democrats, a cruel irony: They can afford no defections, but some of their fiercest opponents may come from their own party, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, frequent opponents of Democratic initiatives.
The bill may be tweaked and sent back to the House. Officials have expressed hope for a resolution by Christmas, although Manchin has thrown cold water on this timeline. Many of these policies should have been enacted years ago.