Ways and Means moves major piece of Biden Build Back Better agenda forward
U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09), a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, today celebrated the committee’s passage of the central package of reforms that make up the heart of President Biden’s landmark Build Back Better program to rebuild America.
“This week, our committee did nothing less than move forward the central elements of a historic plan to rebuild and reinvigorate America,” said Rep. Pascrell. “A successful nation in the 21st Century makes a down payment on its future. Our legislation will make that deposit with gigantic investments in health care, infrastructure, family support, and environmental protections to fight climate change. Additionally, our action today will have a titanic impact on tax fairness in the United States. It has been generations since a single piece of congressional action leveled the playing field to make the rich pay their fair share. Simply put: this bill, once law, will remake America for the better.
“The process to passage is long. What the committee approved today is a major step forward, but not the final step. Our negotiations over the SALT cap are ongoing. I continue to work closely with Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Neal, and Congressman Suozzi to ensure that abolition of Republicans’ cap on the state and local tax deduction is included in the final legislative package we consider. I only speak for myself, but any bill on the floor without needed SALT cap relief will not earn my vote.”
Salient provisions of the legislation include:
•Extends the Child Tax Credit through 2025 and retains full refundability permanently; authorizes monthly advance payments of the credit; adds 17 year olds, eliminates the requirement that a child have a social security number, and prevents credit clawbacks in cases of “presumptive eligibility
•Makes permanent the expansion and improvements the American Rescue Plan made to the Earned Income Tax Credit for childless workers
•Creates a new Federal paid family leave program of 12 weeks
•Creates a caregiver tax credit
•Invests nearly $80 billion in the IRS for strengthening tax enforcement activities and increasing voluntary compliance to ensure wealthy tax cheats pay their fair share.
•Reinstates the Superfund Tax on crude oil and imported petroleum products to ensure corporate polluters, not taxpayers are responsible for paying to clean up hazardous sites.
•Expands access to health care coverage through premium tax credits and closes the coverage gap in States refusing expand their Medicaid programs after the Affordable Care Act.
•Makes prescription drugs more affordable by permitting the Federal Government to negotiate drug prices, lowering out-of-pocket costs, and repealing the rebate rule.
•Provides the single largest Federal investment in the green economy and infrastructure, including: creating new qualified infrastructure bonds modeled on the successful Build America Bonds program to modernize and upgrade aging public infrastructure, like lead remediation; lifting the volume cap on private activity bonds for water and sewer facilities; provides a production tax credit to the existing nuclear fleet to enable the ongoing generation of zero-emission energy; and requires prevailing wage, apprenticeship and domestic content requirements to obtain the maximum clean tax credits, ensuring the creation of good paying jobs.
Original source can be found here.
