DEMS BID TO BREAK THE BANK
$3.5T 'socialist' agenda plan
Senate Democrats on Monday unveiled a sweeping $3.5 trillion blueprint to boost social spending, raise taxes and pass a grab bag of Democratic policies from new pollution fees to immigration reform.
Democrats hope to ram the package through Congress without any Republican votes using special budget reconciliation rules on the heels of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that’s expected to pass the Senate on Tuesday morning.
But Republicans are vowing to put up a fight — with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling the plan a “socialist shopping list” that would turn the US into a European-style welfare state.
The blueprint says Democraticled committees will draft wording that establishes free preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds and two years of free community college. The bill also would give subsidies for child care and family and sick leave. The White House previously proposed capping childcare expenses for most workers at 7 percent of income and subsidizing 12 weeks of paid non-vacation leave.
The bill also resurrects a plan previously priced at $400 billion to fund long-term home and community health-care programs for seniors and people with disabilities.
The plan says $332 billion would go toward a set of funds for public housing and to “improve housing affordability and equity by providing down payment assistance, rental assistance, and other homeownership initiatives.”
A Democratic fact sheet calls for vast federal renewable energy projects, climate-change research and enactment of new pollution fees on methane and carbon emissions.
The bill would hike taxes on businesses and incomes over $400,000 while also making the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap more generous, in effect lowering taxes for some residents of high-tax jurisdictions like New York.
The budget reconciliation bill can pass with a simple majority in the Senate, where both parties hold 50 seats and Vice President Kamala Harris breaks ties. Many of the details remain vague and will have to be hashed out through amendments and talks among Democrats.
The release of the blueprint comes as the Senate gears up to pass the $1 trillion bipartisan bill and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) threatens to stall a House vote until the massive second bill clears the Senate.
Although Republicans fear the bill would further increase inflation, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-identified socialist who lost the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination to President Biden, said it would bring greater fairness.
It’s unclear if the blueprint’s instructions to grant green cards to “qualified immigrants” intend to legalize people currently in the US illegally, as many Democrats want. Immigration policy changes may ultimately be struck down as too tangential to the budget by the Senate parliamentarian, who earlier this year axed a proposed $15 national minimum wage from a different bill on that premise.
It’s also unclear how the final bill would alter the $10,000 SALT cap — with the blueprint calling only for “SALT cap relief.”
A single Democratic vote against the package in the Senate could doom the entire effort, and there will be a grueling series of amendment votes and a weekslong period of actually writing one of the largest bills in US history.
Centrist Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are expected to force substantial changes and potentially sink certain items altogether. For example, Manchin has opposed a national universal preschool program, noting that his state set up such a program without federal help.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he plans to fast-track the measure after the chamber passes the bipartisan bill.