STATEMENT: U.S. House Passage of ‘Build Back Better’ Advances Transformational Investments in U.S. Jobs, Families

• Preliminary details of how—and how many—Pennsylvanians will benefit from the Build Back Better plan can be found here.
• An analysis of the impact of the Build Back Better Plan on the federal taxes paid by Pennsylvanians can be found here. 
  

HARRISBURG, PA – Jeff Garis, coordinator of Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center’s federal advocacy campaign, The 99% Pennsylvania, released this statement in response to the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of the Build Back Better bill:

“Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed President Biden’s unprecedented and transformative plan to better the lives of all Americans—Black, brown, and white; those with low, moderate, or high incomes; the youngest children and the oldest seniors. All 9 of the Democratic representatives from Pennsylvania voted in favor of the legislation, while all Republican members opposed it. The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC) commends Representatives Brendan Boyle (PA-2), Dwight Evans (PA-3), Madeleine Dean (PA-4), Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-5), Chrissy Houlahan (PA-6), Susan Wild (PA-7), Matt Cartwright (PA-8), Conor Lamb (PA-17), and Mike Doyle (PA-18) for voting to pass the Build Back Better legislation. The organization urges Senators Bob Casey and Pat Toomey to support the House-passed bill and vote for passage when it receives a vote in the Senate.

“The Build Back Better plan will help families care for children while making free, high-quality pre-K available to all. It will create hundreds of thousands of good jobs, many in unionized trades and clean manufacturing, while drastically cutting greenhouse gases and reducing energy costs for every household. It will guarantee that all workers are eligible for 4 weeks of paid family and medical leave, and for millions, it will reduce the cost of housing and of health care, including many prescription drugs. It will make college education more affordable, boosting the prospects of our young people and our economy as a whole. And it will be paid for by new taxes on the largest, most profitable corporations and the wealthiest Americans while cutting taxes for working people—all while reducing the deficit.

“Among other things, the Build Back Better plan will

• provide universal and free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds, the largest expansion of universal and free education in more than 100 years.
• reduce greenhouse gas pollution by well over one gigaton by 2030 while reducing consumer energy costs and creating thousands of high-quality jobs.
• reduce the cost of child care for American families of four earning less than $300,000.
• deliver affordable, high-quality care for older Americans and people with disabilities in their homes while supporting the workers who provide this care.
• provide more than 35 million households up to $3,600 (or $300 per month) in tax cuts per child by extending the American Rescue Plan’s expanded Child Tax Credit, which benefits 90% of American children.
• expand access to health care for 4 million Americans who have not yet benefited from the expansion of Medicaid, reduce health care costs for more than 9 million who purchase health insurance on the health care marketplaces, and help older Americans access affordable hearing care by expanding Medicare.
• make a huge new investment in affordable housing that will lead to the construction, rehabilitation, and improvement of more than 1 million affordable homes and will reduce housing prices for renters and homeowners.

The plan will be paid for entirely by the richest Americans and the largest, most profitable corporations (while taxes are cut for families with the lowest incomes) through

• a 15% minimum tax on the reported profits of large corporations, a separate 15% minimum tax on profits earned by U.S. companies abroad, and tax penalties for companies that have their headquarters in global tax havens. (See our memo for more information about this new tax.)
• an additional 5% tax on incomes exceeding $10 million a year and another 3% tax on incomes above $25 million.
• increased enforcement to ensure that large corporations and the wealthy pay what they owe under existing tax laws.
• an extension of the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for around 17 million low-wage workers so that low-wage workers without children are not taxed into poverty.”