What’s In Joe Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Act?

Much of President Joe Biden’s legacy will be defined by the “Build Back Better” act (H.R. 5376), which the White House touts as “transformative” of our nation’s social fabric. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to pass the bill by Christmas. The House of Representatives already approved the Build Back Better Framework on November 19 by a 220-213 vote (no Republicans voted yes; one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden [D-ME] voted no).

But what’s in the bill? How much does it cost? How would it transform our nation — and is it a transformation American citizens want?

This article, although not comprehensive, offers the most succinct coverage of the “Build Back Better” act’s major components.

What is the Build Back Better act?

Although Democrats originally branded this legislation as a “human infrastructure bill,” the Build Back Better act is a social spending initiative that the president has boasted will “transform” our nation’s social fabric. It contains new government programs for taxpayer-funded childcare, Obamacare expansion, government transfer payments, green energy spending and tax credits, and it even has embedded a controversial immigration provision in the bill.

What is the bill’s real cost?

Much of the media coverage has focused on the price of the bill: Initially Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) proposed $6 trillion in spending, saying that amount was “probably too little.” Congress whittled the bill down to $3.5 trillion, then reduced it to $1.75 trillion in October, reducing the 10-year deficit to $367 billion according to an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

But these numbers rely on a series of budget gimmicks that minimize the BBB’s true cost. As Ben Zeisloft of The Daily Wire reported:

A report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget suggests that the true cost of the legislation may be $4.9 trillion due to a number of “arbitrary sunsets and expirations.”

For instance, the bill would extend the American Rescue Plan’s Child Tax Credit increase and Earned Income Tax Credit expansion for a year, set universal pre-K and child care subsidies to expire after six years, make Affordable Care Act expansions available through 2025, and delay the requirement that businesses amortize research and experimentation costs until 2026.

In another economic sleight-of-hand, the bill phases in universal pre-K, which would not become truly “universal” until the program’s fourth year (2025).

“This is a well-established gimmick – using long-term savings to pay for short-term spending that masks the costs of the programs that are plainly intended to be permanent,” wrote Gordon Gray, director of fiscal policy at the American Action Forum.

The CBO estimates, without these budget gimmicks, the Build Back Better act “would increase the deficit by $3.0 trillion over the 2022–2031 period.” The cost of the Child Tax Credit alone would increase 863%, and rolling back the state and local tax (SALT) limitation would go from raising $15 billion in revenue to costing $245 billion. The Build Back Better act would create $24,843.48 in new national debt for every American household.

How would the bill’s signature measure, universal pre-K and childcare subsidies, affect American families?

The Build Back Better act would raise the cost of childcare while offering nothing to parents who want to stay at home and raise their own children. Parents were three-times more likely to favor having one or both of the parents provide childcare (i.e., raise their own children), according to an Institute for Family Studies/Wheatley Institution survey by YouGov. The Build Back Better act does nothing to advance the interests of Americans who want their children raised by family, not by strangers.

One of the most widely publicized features of the Build Back Better act is universal pre-K. Preschool is “free” for children ages 3 and 4, with an Obamacare-style roster of sliding scale subsidies for children through age 5, provided the children are not enrolled in kindergarten, and their parents are engaged in a qualified activity (such as work or a job search) and have less than $1 million in assets.

The program is truly universal: U.S. taxpayer-funded benefits are offered “without regard to the immigration status of the individual [child] or of any parent of the individual.” The program is phased in over four years, limited to 100% of state median income in 2022, with this increased to 115% and 130% in the next two years, before opening to all Americans in 2025. Under the bill’s terms:

Taxpayers would pay the full childcare costs of anyone who earns less than 75% of their state’s median income;The childcare costs of those who earn between 75% and 100% of the state’s median income would be capped at no more than 2% of their income;The childcare costs of those who earn between 100% and 125% of the state’s median income would be capped at no more than 4% of their income; andChildcare costs are capped at 7% for everyone else.

It will cost an estimated $390 billion in