Debate commences on funding for rebuild plan

Tax breaks among the initial sticking points

WASHINGTON — To pay for the massive social plans that President Joe Biden envisions, House Democrats began serious work Tuesday on a maneuver worthy of the most agile circus acrobats. They’re looking to squeeze revenue from the elite 2 percent of Americans who earn more than $400,000 a year while leaving untouched everyone else — who Biden has pledged won’t see any tax increases.

Republicans, as opposed to those tax increases as expected, also turned their anger Tuesday against proposed tax breaks they portrayed as subsidies for wealthy elites rather than help for the poor and middle class. Electric vehicles became a rallying symbol as class-warfare overtones echoed through a committee session.

For middle- and low-income people, tax help, not increase, is on offer as the House Ways and Means Committee digs into debate and drafting of tax proposals to both fund and buttress Biden’s ambitious $3.5 trillion rebuilding plan that includes spending for child care, health care, education and tackling climate change.

As they slogged through the legislation, members of the majority Democratic committee voted down a series of Republican amendments seeking to tighten the limitations on electric vehicle credits and to eliminate other tax breaks denounced as smacking of progressive Democrats’ proposed “Green New Deal.”

But with the Senate split 50-50 and Vice President Kamala Harris the tiebreaker if there is no Republican support as expected, one Democratic senator vital to the bill’s fate, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, appeared Tuesday to dig in his heels on insisting that parents meet work requirements to receive the child tax credit.

The House tax proposal is pitched as potentially raising some $2.9 trillion — a preliminary estimate — which would go a long way toward paying for the $3.5 trillion legislation.