User:Jaydavidmartin/Build Back Better Act

The Build Back Better Act, also referred to as the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, is a proposed piece of legislation that would significantly increase federal spending in areas related to childcare, education, healthcare, and climate change, funded by increased taxes on high-income Americans. It is being crafted by congressional Democrats and is considered to be part of President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda.

History
Republicans have voiced unanimous opposition to the bill.

In the House of Representatives, 13 House Committees are crafting different components of the House version of the bill. Democrats hope to advance the bill to the full House by late September 2021. However, Democrats have faced internal divisions over the bill. Moderate Democrats—most prominently Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona—have stated that they believe the proposed $3.5 trillion over ten years cost is too high. On September 15, 2021, President Joe Biden met with Manchin and Sinema at the White House to push them to accept the size of the bill. On September 15, 2021, a plan to control prescription drug prices failed in the House Energy and Commerce Committee after Democratic Representatives Scott Peters, Kurt Schrader, and Kathleen Rice joined Republicans in voting against the drug proposal.

Healthcare
The Act would expand Medicare by adding access to hearing, dental and vision benefits. Medicaid would also be expanded to cover and additional 4 million low-income adults in states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs, while funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers nearly 10 million kids, would be made permanent.

Education
The Act would allocate hundreds of billions of dollars to provide free community college and prekindergarten, as well as increase funds for job training, nutrition programs and modernizing public school buildings.

Childcare
The Act would authorize 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for most working Americans, It would also extend the child tax credit introduced in the American Rescue Plan through 2028.

Climate Change
The Act contains a number of provisions intended to combat climate change, including programs that reward clean energy, penalize polluters and help Americans finance more environmentally friendly homes and vehicles. These include $150 billion in grants for utilities investing in cleaner energy sources, as well as millions of dollars in penalties for companies that don’t boost clean electricity output by at least 4% annually. Billions of dollars would be allocated to upgrade the power grid, create an electric vehicle charging network, and replace lead drinking water pipes, while billions more would be used to protect coastlines from rising sea levels and create a Civilian Climate Corps, which would employ hundreds of thousands of people on environmental projects.