Category Archives: Biden Administration

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Environmental Protection, Infrastructure, News & Photo Features

Biden: Infrastructure Deal Will Strengthen Nation’s Resilience, Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Help Battle Climate Crisis

Solar array at farm in the Finger Lakes of New York. The Bipartisan infrastructure Deal passed by Congress will help strengthen the nation’s resilience to extreme weather and climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, expand access to clean drinking water and build up a clean power grid © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

This fact sheet provided by the White House spells out how the bipartisan infrastructure package just passed will arm the government in battling the climate crisis:

“President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal passed by Congress will strengthen our nation’s resilience to extreme weather and climate change while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expanding access to clean drinking water, building up a clean power grid, and more.“

Here’s more: 

President Biden has made combatting the climate crisis a central priority of his Administration, including throughout his legislative agenda. Climate change is already impacting almost every aspect of life in the United States. Extreme heat waves, catastrophic wildfires, and severe drought are taking American lives and livelihoods. In the last year alone, extreme weather has cost America more than $100 billion – often hitting historically underserved groups the hardest, particularly low-income communities, communities of color, and people with disabilities. In just the last few months, nearly 1 in 3 Americans have been hit by a severe weather disaster and 2 in 3 Americans have suffered through dangerous heat waves. Delayed action on climate also sets us back in the global race on manufacturing and innovation, preventing us from harnessing the economic opportunity that this moment represents.
 
As President Biden emphasized at COP26 in Glasgow, climate change poses an existential threat to people, economies, and countries across the world – and it requires swift and bold action to reduce emissions and strengthen resilience. President Biden has been clear: the climate crisis is a blinking code red for our nation. We must take decisive action to tackle the climate crisis in a way that strengthens our nation’s resilience, cuts consumer costs, and ensures the U.S. can compete and win in the race for the 21st century. This moment demands urgent investments the American people want and our nation needs – investments that will bolster America’s competitiveness, resilience, and economy all while creating good-paying jobs, saving people money, and building an equitable clean energy economy of the future. 
 
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal passed by Congress will strengthen our nation’s resilience to extreme weather and climate change while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expanding access to clean drinking water, building up a clean power grid, and more. When coupled with the Build Back Better Framework, these historic investments will help reduce our emissions by well over one gigaton this decade – ensuring we meet President Biden’s commitment to reduce U.S. emissions by 50-52% from 2005 levels in 2030, create a 100% carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035, and achieve a net-zero economy by 2050. Together, these once-in-a-generation investments will unlock the full potential of a clean energy economy that combats climate change, advances environmental justice, and creates good-paying, union jobs.
 
President Biden promised to work across the aisle and unify the country to deliver results for working families. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is a critical step towards reaching President Biden’s goal of a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, and is paired with the Build Back Better Framework to realize his full vision to grow our economy, lower consumer costs, create jobs, reduce climate pollution, and ensure more Americans can participate fully and equally in our economy.

BIPARTISIAN INFRASTRUCTURE DEAL
 
Public Transit
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal makes the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak – helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions by repairing, upgrading, and modernizing the nation’s transit infrastructure. The deal will invest $66 billion to provide healthy, sustainable transportation options for millions of Americans by modernizing and expanding transit and rail networks across the country. It will replace thousands of transit vehicles, including buses, with clean, zero emission vehicles. And, it will benefit communities of color who are twice as likely to take public transportation and often lack sufficient public transit options. In addition, it will help transit workers who are disproportionally workers of color.

Electric Vehicle Infrastructure
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will invest $7.5 billion to build out the first-ever national network of EV chargers in the United States. The deal is also a critical element in the Biden-Harris Administration’s plan to accelerate the adoption of EVs to address the climate crisis and support domestic manufacturing jobs. The deal will provide funding for deployment of EV chargers along highway corridors to facilitate long-distance travel and within communities to provide convenient charging where people live, work, and shop – and funding will have a particular focus on rural, disadvantaged, and hard-to-reach communities.

Clean School Buses
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will deliver thousands of electric school buses nationwide, including in rural communities, to help school districts across the country buy clean, American-made, zero emission buses and replace the yellow school bus fleet for America’s children. The deal invests in zero- and low-emission school buses, in addition to more than $5 billion in funding for public transit agencies to adopt low- and no-emissions buses. These investments will drive demand for American-made batteries and vehicles, creating jobs and supporting domestic manufacturing, while also removing diesel buses from some of our most vulnerable communities. In addition, they will help the more than 25 million children and thousands of bus drivers who breathe polluted air on their rides to and from school. Diesel air pollution is linked to asthma and other health problems that hurt our communities and cause students to miss school, particularly in communities of color and Tribal communities.

Modern Infrastructure
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal invests $17 billion in port infrastructure and $25 billion in airports to address repair and maintenance backlogs, reduce congestion and emissions near ports and airports, and drive electrification and other low-carbon technologies. Modern, resilient, and sustainable port, airport, and freight infrastructure will support U.S. competitiveness by removing bottlenecks and expediting commerce and reduce the environmental impact on neighboring communities.

Resilience
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is the largest investment in the resilience of physical and natural systems in American history. Millions of Americans feel the effects of climate change each year when their roads wash out, airport power goes down, or schools get flooded. People of color are more likely to live in areas most vulnerable to flooding and other climate change-related weather events. The deal makes our communities safer and our infrastructure more resilient to the impacts of climate change and cyber-attacks, with an investment of over $50 billion to protect against droughts, heat, and floods – in addition to a major investment in the weatherization of American homes.

Clean Drinking Water
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will expand access to clean drinking water to all American families, eliminate the nation’s lead service lines and help to clean up the dangerous chemical PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl). Currently, up to 10 million American households and 400,000 schools and child care centers lack access to safe drinking water. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will invest $55 billion to expand access to clean drinking water for households, businesses, schools, and child care centers all across the country. From rural towns to struggling cities, the deal will invest in water infrastructure and eliminate lead service pipes, including in Tribal Nations and disadvantaged communities that need it most.

Legacy Pollution
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal delivers the largest investment in tackling legacy pollution in American history by cleaning up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaiming abandoned mines, and capping orphaned oil and gas wells. In thousands of rural and urban communities around the country, hundreds of thousands of former industrial and energy sites are now idle – sources of blight and pollution. Proximity to a Superfund site can lead to elevated levels of lead in children’s blood. Millions of Americans also live within a mile of the tens of thousands of abandoned mines and oil and gas wells – a large, continuing course of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is a major cause of climate change. The bill will invest $21 billion to clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land, and cap orphaned oil and gas wells. These projects will remediate environmental harms, address the legacy pollution that harms the public health of communities, create good-paying, union jobs, and advance long overdue environmental justice This investment will benefit communities of color like the 26% of Black Americans and 29% of Hispanic Americans who live within three miles of a Superfund site – a higher percentage than for Americans overall.
 
Clean Energy Transmission
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal’s more than $65 billion investment is the largest investment in clean energy transmission and the electric grid in American history. It upgrades our power infrastructure, including by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy. It creates a new Grid Deployment Authority, invests in research and development for advanced transmission and electricity distribution technologies, and promotes smart grid technologies that deliver flexibility and resilience. It also invests in demonstration projects and research hubs for next generation technologies like advanced nuclear reactors, carbon capture, and clean hydrogen.

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Economic Development, Infrastructure, Jobs, Joe Biden, News & Photo Features

Biden: House Passes Once-In-A-Generation $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will upgrade our nation’s airports and ports to strengthen our supply chains and prevent disruptions that have caused inflation. This will improve U.S. competitiveness, create more and better jobs at these hubs, and reduce emissions. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.

Upon the House passing the historic, $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, President Joe Biden issued this statement:

Tonight, we took a monumental step forward as a nation.

The United States House of Representatives passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a once-in-generation bipartisan infrastructure bill that will create millions of jobs, turn the climate crisis into an opportunity, and put us on a path to win the economic competition for the 21st Century.

It will create good-paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. Jobs that will transform our transportation system with the most significant investments in passenger and freight rail, roads, bridges, ports, airports, and public transit in generations.

This will make it easier for companies to get goods to market more quickly and reduce supply chain bottlenecks now and for decades to come. This will ease inflationary pressures and lower costs for working families.

The bill will create jobs replacing lead water pipes so every family can drink clean water.

It will make high-speed internet affordable and available everywhere in America.

This bill will make historic and significant strides that take on the climate crisis. It will build out the first-ever national network of electric vehicle charging stations across the country. We will get America off the sidelines on manufacturing solar panels, wind farms, batteries, and electric vehicles to grow these supply chains, reward companies for paying good wages and for sourcing their materials from here in the United States, and allow us to export these products and technologies to the world.

It will also make historic investments in environmental clean-up and remediation, and build up our resilience for the next superstorms, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes that cost us billions of dollars in damage each year.

I’m also proud that a rule was voted on that will allow for passage of my Build Back Better Act in the House of Representatives the week of November 15th.

The Build Back Better Act will be a once-in-a-generation investment in our people.

It will lower bills for healthcare, child care, elder care, prescription drugs, and preschool. And middle-class families get a tax cut.

This bill is also fiscally responsible, fully paid for, and doesn’t raise the deficit. It does so by making sure the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share and doesn’t raise taxes a single cent on anyone making less than $400,000 per year. 

I look forward to signing both of these bills into law.

Generations from now, people will look back and know this is when America won the economic competition for the 21st Century.

FACT SHEET:
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal
 

Today, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure and competitiveness. For far too long, Washington policymakers have celebrated “infrastructure week” without ever agreeing to build infrastructure. The President promised to work across the aisle to deliver results and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. After the President put forward his plan to do exactly that and then negotiated a deal with Members of Congress from both parties, this historic legislation is moving to his desk for signature.

This Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will rebuild America’s roads, bridges and rails, expand access to clean drinking water, ensure every American has access to high-speed internet, tackle the climate crisis, advance environmental justice, and invest in communities that have too often been left behind. The legislation will help ease inflationary pressures and strengthen supply chains by making long overdue improvements for our nation’s ports, airports, rail, and roads. It will drive the creation of good-paying union jobs and grow the economy sustainably and equitably so that everyone gets ahead for decades to come. Combined with the President’s Build Back Framework, it will add on average 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years.
 
This historic legislation will:                               

Deliver clean water to all American families and eliminate the nation’s lead service lines. Currently, up to 10 million American households and 400,000 schools and child care centers lack safe drinking water. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will invest $55 billion to expand access to clean drinking water for households, businesses, schools, and child care centers all across the country. From rural towns to struggling cities, the legislation will invest in water infrastructure and eliminate lead service pipes, including in Tribal Nations and disadvantaged communities that need it most.

Ensure every American has access to reliable high-speed internet. Broadband internet is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school learning, health care, and to stay connected. Yet, by one definition, more than 30 million Americans live in areas where there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds – a particular problem in rural communities throughout the country. And, according to the latest OECD data, among 35 countries studied, the United States has the second highest broadband costs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will deliver $65 billion to help ensure that every American has access to reliable high-speed internet through a historic investment in broadband infrastructure deployment. The legislation will also help lower prices for internet service and help close the digital divide, so that more Americans can afford internet access.
 
Repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and safety for all users. In the United States, 1 in 5 miles of highways and major roads, and 45,000 bridges, are in poor condition. The legislation will reauthorize surface transportation programs for five years and invest $110 billion in additional funding to repair our roads and bridges and support major, transformational projects. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal makes the single largest investment in repairing and reconstructing our nation’s bridges since the construction of the interstate highway system. It will rebuild the most economically significant bridges in the country as well as thousands of smaller bridges. The legislation also includes the first ever Safe Streets and Roads for All program to support projects to reduce traffic fatalities, which claimed more than 20,000 lives in the first half of 2021.

Improve transportation options for millions of Americans and reduce greenhouse emissions through the largest investment in public transit in U.S. history. America’s public transit infrastructure is inadequate – with a multibillion-dollar repair backlog, representing more than 24,000 buses, 5,000 rail cars, 200 stations, and thousands of miles of track, signals, and power systems in need of replacement. Communities of color are twice as likely to take public transportation and many of these communities lack sufficient public transit options. The transportation sector in the United States is now the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation includes $39 billion of new investment to modernize transit, in addition to continuing the existing transit programs for five years as part of surface transportation reauthorization.  In total, the new investments and reauthorization in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal provide $89.9 billion in guaranteed funding for public transit over the next five years — the largest Federal investment in public transit in history. The legislation will expand public transit options across every state in the country, replace thousands of deficient transit vehicles, including buses, with clean, zero emission vehicles, and improve accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Upgrade our nation’s airports and ports to strengthen our supply chains and prevent disruptions that have caused inflation. This will improve U.S. competitiveness, create more and better jobs at these hubs, and reduce emissions. Decades of neglect and underinvestment in our infrastructure have left the links in our goods movement supply chains struggling to keep up with our strong economic recovery from the pandemic. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will make the fundamental changes that are long overdue for our nation’s ports and airports so this will not happen again. The United States built modern aviation, but our airports lag far behind our competitors. According to some rankings, no U.S. airports rank in the top 25 of airports worldwide. Our ports and waterways need repair and reimagination too. The legislation invests $17 billion in port infrastructure and waterways and $25 billion in airports to address repair and maintenance backlogs, reduce congestion and emissions near ports and airports, and drive electrification and other low-carbon technologies. Modern, resilient, and sustainable port, airport, and freight infrastructure will strengthen our supply chains and support U.S. competitiveness by removing bottlenecks and expediting commerce and reduce the environmental impact on neighboring communities.

Make the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak. U.S. passenger rail lags behind the rest of the world in reliability, speed, and coverage. China already has 22,000 miles of high-speed rail, and is planning to double that by 2035. The legislation positions rail to play a central role in our transportation and economic future, investing $66 billion in additional rail funding to eliminate the Amtrak maintenance backlog, modernize the Northeast Corridor, and bring world-class rail service to areas outside the northeast and mid-Atlantic. This is the largest investment in passenger rail since Amtrak’s creation, 50 years ago and will create safe, efficient, and climate-friendly alternatives for moving people and freight.

Build a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers. U.S. market share of plug-in EV sales is only one-third the size of the Chinese EV market. That needs to change. The legislation will invest $7.5 billion to build out a national network of EV chargers in the United States. This is a critical step in the President’s strategy to fight the climate crisis and it will create good U.S. manufacturing jobs. The legislation will provide funding for deployment of EV chargers along highway corridors to facilitate long-distance travel and within communities to provide convenient charging where people live, work, and shop. This investment will support the President’s goal of building a nationwide network of 500,000 EV chargers to accelerate the adoption of EVs, reduce emissions, improve air quality, and create good-paying jobs across the country.

Upgrade our power infrastructure to deliver clean, reliable energy across the country and deploy cutting-edge energy technology to achieve a zero-emissions future. According to the Department of Energy, power outages cost the U.S. economy up to $70 billion annually. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal’s more than $65 billion investment includes the largest investment in clean energy transmission and grid in American history. It will upgrade our power infrastructure, by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewables and clean energy, while lowering costs. And it will fund new programs to support the development, demonstration, and deployment of cutting-edge clean energy technologies to accelerate our transition to a zero-emission economy. 
 
Make our infrastructure resilient against the impacts of climate change, cyber-attacks, and extreme weather events. Millions of Americans feel the effects of climate change each year when their roads wash out, power goes down, or schools get flooded. Last year alone, the United States faced 22 extreme weather and climate-related disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each – a cumulative price tag of nearly $100 billion. People of color are more likely to live in areas most vulnerable to flooding and other climate change-related weather events. The legislation makes our communities safer and our infrastructure more resilient to the impacts of climate change and cyber-attacks, with an investment of over $50 billion to protect against droughts, heat, floods and wildfires, in addition to a major investment in weatherization. The legislation is the largest investment in the resilience of physical and natural systems in American history.
 
Deliver the largest investment in tackling legacy pollution in American history by cleaning up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaiming abandoned mines, and capping orphaned oil and gas wells. In thousands of rural and urban communities around the country, hundreds of thousands of former industrial and energy sites are now idle – sources of blight and pollution. Proximity to a Superfund site can lead to elevated levels of lead in children’s blood. The bill will invest $21 billion clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap orphaned oil and gas wells. These projects will remediate environmental harms, address the legacy pollution that harms the public health of communities, create good-paying union jobs, and advance long overdue environmental justice This investment will benefit communities of color as, it has been found that 26% of Black Americans and 29% of Hispanic Americans live within 3 miles of a Superfund site, a higher percentage than for Americans overall.

Biden Administration, Build Back Better, Economic Development, Economic Policies, Economy, Infrastructure, Jobs, Joe Biden

Moody’s: Build Back Better Will Add 1.5 Million Jobs a Year, Add $3 Trillion to GDP Over Decade

1 Comment
Moody’s notes that President Biden’s Build Back Better legislation will add 1.5 million jobs a year, add $3 trillion to GDP over a decade and “ease the financial burden of inflation for lower- and middle-income Americans by helping with the cost of childcare, eldercare, education, healthcare and housing for these income groups.” The Moody’s report concludes that, “failing to pass legislation would diminish the economy’s prospects.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

From the White House:

According to a new report from Moody’s this morning, President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal and Build Back Better Framework will add 1.5 million jobs per year on average across the whole decade, while accelerating America’s path to full employment and increasing labor force participation.
 
Moody’s also projects that total GDP will increase by nearly $3 trillion relative to the baseline over the next decade.
 
And, the Moody’s report confirms what the President has said for weeks: that these sorts of investments in making our economy more productive will keep prices stable and decrease inflationary pressure.
 
Moody’s notes that, “the legislation is also designed to ease the financial burden of inflation for lower- and middle-income Americans by helping with the cost of childcare, eldercare, education, healthcare and housing for these income groups.” The Moody’s report concludes that, “failing to pass legislation would diminish the economy’s prospects.”
 
Since President Biden took office, there has been historic job growth –  nearly 5 million new jobs, the most in any President’s first eight months on record. The average number of new unemployment insurance claims has been cut by more than 60 percent and small business optimism has returned to its pre-pandemic levels. Independent projections from the CBO, the IMF, the Federal Reserve, the World Bank, the OECD, and many others all forecast America this year reaching the highest levels of growth in decades thanks to the President’s success in getting economic relief to the middle-class and curbing the pandemic. While the American Rescue Plan is changing the course of the pandemic and delivering relief for working families, this is no time to build back to the way things were.
 
This is the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new economy by making transformational investments in our middle-class and economic competitiveness. The President’s bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Build Back Better Framework will rebuild the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, ease the burden of high costs on working families, and deliver one of the biggest middle class tax cuts ever.
 
Read more about the Moody’s report here.

Biden Administration, Build Back Better, Climate Action, Economic Development, Infrastructure, Joe Biden, Taxes

Analysis: Build Back Better Legislation Will Reduce Deficits

Analysis by US Treasury tax policy expert Lily Batchelder indicates that the Build Back Better legislation would generate $2 trillion, fully paying for its investments in families, workers and climate, and actually reduce deficits. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.

By: Lily Batchelder, Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy

The Build Back Better invests meaningfully in American families and workers, while laying the foundation for meeting imperative climate goals. When the President released the Build Back Better framework last week, he proposed $2 trillion in savings that would more than pay for the critical investments in the legislation – and in fact generate net deficit reduction.  With the release of the text of the Build Back Better Act in the House and scoring from the Joint Committee on Taxation, we can update the estimate of fiscal savings.

The legislation would, as the President proposed, generate more than $2 trillion in savings. These savings come from ensuring large multinational corporations and wealthy Americans pay their fair share and reducing the cost of prescription drugs. These provisions will not raise taxes on any taxpayer making less than $400,000.

The table below includes the latest estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congressional Budget Office, and the Treasury Department of the revenue raising provisions in the bill. The bottom line is that the Build Back Better Act under consideration in the House of Representatives will be fully paid for and reduce the deficit.

At the crux of reforms to the tax code is a historic overhaul of the international tax regime, whose global adoption has been successfully negotiated with 136 countries representing nearly 95% of the world’s economy. As a result of these changes, the ability of large corporations to shift profits abroad will be substantially limited, and the race to the bottom in corporate taxation will no longer be a driving force weakening capital taxation. The Build Back Better Act adopts the agreed-upon 15% country-by-country minimum tax on the foreign profits of U.S. multinational corporations and includes strong incentives for any hold-out countries to join the agreement through a separate tax on companies based in such hold-out jurisdictions. Together with other international and business tax reforms and loophole closers, these provisions are estimated to generate over $350 billion in additional U.S. tax revenue.  

The Act further ensures that large, profitable corporations will pay a minimum amount of tax by imposing a 15% minimum tax on companies that report over $1 billion in profits to their shareholders. Less than 0.00075% of U.S. businesses will owe this tax in a given year, which will raise more than $300 billion over the course of the next decade.

Over $200 billion is generated from a surtax on multi-millionaires (the top 0.02% of taxpayers making $10 million or more annually), and about $400 billion comes from closing loopholes that allow some wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying Medicare taxes on their earnings and permit well-off taxpayers to offset ordinary income with business losses.

The largest pay-for in the bill is not a tax increase at all. By collecting taxes that are already owed—and disproportionately unpaid by the highest-earners—the Build Back Better Act will generate at least $400 billion in additional revenue. Over the last decade, an under-resourced IRS has been unable to appropriately focus attention on top earners who are most responsible for the tax gap. Indeed, audit rates decreased more over that period for high earners than for Earned Income Tax Credit recipients. This additional revenue will result from providing the IRS with much-needed resources to pursue wealthy tax evaders, modernize outdated technological infrastructure, and provide meaningful taxpayer services.

Even beyond their sizable revenue-raising potential, these collective policies make the American economy more competitive by reducing profit shifting, ending a corporate tax race to the bottom, and overhauling a two-tiered system of tax administration—where American workers pay what they owe, but the wealthiest often do not.

These are historic policy achievements in and of themselves—and they also pay for transformational investments that will improve the lives of American workers, our children, and the generations that will follow.    

Revenue Raisers in Build Back Better Act

 Revenue
(in billions)
 
International and Other Business Reforms		 
$371
15% Minimum Tax on the Largest Corporations$319
AGI Surtax for Multi-Millionaires$228
Medicare Tax Loophole for High Earners$252
Limit Business Losses for High Earners$160
Stock Buybacks$124
IRS Investments in Compliance, IT, and Taxpayer Services*$400
Reduce the Cost of Prescription Drugs**~$250
Other Provisions$47
 
Total		 
~$2,151
 
Unless otherwise noted, all estimates are from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

* Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury.

** Source: The framework released by the White House last week proposed repealing the prescription drug rebate rule as negotiations continued on prescription drug reform. Based on the Congressional Budget Office, adjusted downward for reforms in bipartisan infrastructure framework, this would have saved about $150 billion. Other components of the Administration estimate the deal reached on prescription drug reform announced this week, which includes additional reforms, will generate about an additional $100 billion in savings, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates of prescription drug negotiations in previous legislation. A more precise CBO estimate will be available in the future.
 

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, News & Photo Features

COP26: Biden, Global Leaders Commit to Addressing Climate Crisis Through Infrastructure Development

At COP26, Biden and global leaders agreed that climate-smart infrastructure development should play an important role in boosting economic recovery and sustainable job creation. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Building on the June 2021 commitment of G7 Leaders to launch a values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnership to meet global infrastructure development needs, U.S. President Biden and European Commission President von der Leyen hosted a discussion on the margins of COP26 with UK Prime Minister Johnson, Barbadian Prime Minister Mottley, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, Colombian President Duque, Ecuadorian President Lasso, Democratic Republic of the Congo President Tshisekedi, Indian Prime Minister Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, and Nigerian President Buhari on how infrastructure initiatives must simultaneously advance prosperity and combat the climate crisis, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. 

Global leaders discussed how the Build Back Better World, Global Gateway and Clean Green Initiatives will jumpstart investment, sharpen focus, and mobilize resources to meet critical infrastructure needs to support economic growth, while ensuring that this infrastructure is clean, resilient, and consistent with a net-zero future.  President Lasso, Prime Minister Modi, President Buhari, and President Duque shared their perspectives on the challenges their countries have previously faced with infrastructure development and principles they would like to see from future infrastructure initiatives.  UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance Mark Carney and World Bank Group President David Malpassspoke on the imperative of mobilizing investment from the private sector, international financial institutions and multilateral development banks, including through country platforms, to achieve these goals. 

***

President Biden, President von der Leyen, and Prime Minister Johnson endorsed five key principles for infrastructure development:

1.Infrastructure should be climate resilient and developed through a climate lens.

We commit to build resilient, low- and zero-carbon infrastructure systems that are aligned with the pathways towards net-zero emissions by 2050, which are needed to keep the goal of limiting global average temperature change to 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach. Further, we commit to viewing all projects carried out through infrastructure development partnerships through the lens of climate change.

2.Strong and inclusive partnerships between host countries, developed country support, and the private sector are critical to developing sustainable infrastructure.

Infrastructure designed, financed, and constructed in partnership with those whom it benefits will last longer, be more inclusive, and generate greater and more sustainable development impacts. We will consult with stakeholders—including representatives of civil society, governments, NGOs, and the private sector to better understand their priorities and development needs.

3.Infrastructure should be financed, constructed, developed, operated, and maintained in accordance with high standards.

We resolve to uphold high standards for infrastructure investments, promoting the implementation of the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investments as the baseline. Environmental, Social and Governance standards help safeguard against graft and other forms of corruption; mitigate against climate risks and risks of ecosystem degradation; promote skills transfer and preserve labor protections; avoid unsustainable costs for taxpayers; and, crucially, promote long-term economic and social benefits for partner countries.

4.A new paradigm of climate finance—spanning both public and private sources—is required to mobilize the trillions needed to meet net-zero by 2050 and keep 1.5 degrees within reach.

The world must mobilize and align the trillions of dollars in capital over the next three decades to meet net-zero by 2050, the majority of which will be needed in developing and emerging economies. Mobilizing capital at this scale requires a collaborative effort from all of us, including governments, the private sector, and development finance institutions, as well as better mechanisms to match finance and technical assistance with country projects, including through country partnerships.

5.Climate-smart infrastructure development should play an important role in boosting economic recovery and sustainable job creation.

Infrastructure investment should also drive job creation and support inclusive economic recovery. We believe our collective efforts to combat the climate crisis can present the greatest economic opportunity of our time: the opportunity to build the industries of the future through equitable, inclusive, and sustainable economic development worldwide.

***
President Biden, European Commission President von der Leyen, and Prime Minister Johnson called on countries around the world to make similar commitments and take action to spur a global transformation towards reliable, climate-smart infrastructure.

Biden Administration, Foreign Policy, Foreign Relations

United States Advances Shared Interests with G20 World Leaders

For the first time ever, G20 Leaders agree to establish a historic Global Minimum Corporate Tax

 The White House provided this fact sheet summarizing what was accomplished at the G20:

At the G20 Summit in Rome, President Biden coordinated with fellow Leaders on shared interests, including the climate crisis, global health and pandemic preparedness, and the global economic recovery, using the power of diplomacy to address key issues that matter to the American people. Together with the European Union, we achieved a major breakthrough arrangement to negotiate the world’s first carbon-based sectoral arrangement on steel and aluminum, protecting and creating American jobs and lowering costs for families while fighting the climate crisis.  
 
Throughout the G20 President Biden stressed the need for balanced, well-supplied, and competitive global energy markets to underpin an inclusive economic recovery that supports working families at home and abroad. Leaders committed to guaranteeing just and orderly energy transitions of our energy systems that ensure affordability, including for the most vulnerable households and businesses as we recover from the global pandemic. They expressed their intent to explore among other things, paths to enhanced energy security and markets stability.
 
President Biden met with Leaders from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to discuss the risks posed to international security by Iran’s escalating nuclear program, and hosted a supply chain summit with 14 countries and the European Union to discuss how we collectively tackle the immediate supply chain challenges from this unprecedented economic recovery and build long-term supply chain reliance for the future. President Biden also held bilateral meetings on the margins of the G20 with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore.
 
After the Summit, the G20 Leaders came to a consensus across a host of issues, including:
 
Historic Global Minimum Tax: G20 Leaders representing 80% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) endorsed the establishment of a historic Global Minimum Tax (GMT) to end the race to the bottom, ensure giant corporations pay their fair share no matter where they are located, help prevent the offshoring of good American jobs, and invest in our people at home. One recent independent study found that this agreement to establish a 15% GMT—up from 0% today—would lead to at least $60 billion in revenue per year in the United States alone. Today’s announcement is a testament to American diplomacy and leadership. 
 
COVID-19 Pandemic and Health Security: The Leaders came together in support of the COVID-19 response and global vaccination targets. The Leaders also decide to take next steps toward the design and establishment of an inclusive, sustained, and adequate financing facility to improve global health security and bolster pandemic preparedness around the world. The Leaders agreed to establish a G20 Finance and Health Task Force to enhance global cooperation to detect and response to emerging health threats. The G20 Leaders also came out in support of a global ambition to channel $100 billion worth of reallocation of special drawing rights (SDRs) to help the world’s most vulnerable countries and restructuring debts for low-income countries on a case by case basis – a major step towards global economic recovery. The Leaders also supported efforts to shorten the cycle for the development of safe and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics from 300 to 100 days (following the identification of such threats) and work to make them equitably and widely available. This work follows calls for more urgent action and continued focus from the United States following the President’s Global COVID-19 Summit.
 
Climate Change: G20 Leaders came out in support of ending public finance for new unabated coal power generation abroad, to contribute to keeping a 1.5 degrees Celsius limit on global temperature rise with reach. They stressed the importance of fully meeting, as soon as possible, the developed country collective goal of mobilizing $100B per year to help developing countries in the face of climate change. After a four-year absence of U.S. federal leadership, President Biden’s commitment to climate finance, alongside strong new pledges from other donors, are fundamental to achieving this goal no later than 2023. This is a decisive decade for climate action and the President will continue to rally the world to tackle the climate crisis together. 
 
Anticorruption and Ransomware: The Leaders also lifted up the global fight against corruption as a shared priority, which includes transparency for beneficial ownership and real estate, and they committed to fight any new and sophisticated forms of corruption. The Leaders recognized the need for international cooperation to counter ransomware and other forms of cybercrime. Just this month, the Biden Administrationheld a meeting with more than 30 countries to accelerate cooperation to counter ransomware, including to improve collective resilience, address the misuse of virtual currency to launder ransom payments, and investigate and prosecute cyber criminals. This work builds on U.S. international efforts to promote cybersecurity, including our commitment to work with G7 partners to address criminal ransomware networks, our support for updating NATO cyber policy for the first time in seven years, and our continuing efforts to work with allies and partners to attribute malicious cyber activity, as evidenced by the broad international support we garnered in our attributions for SolarWinds and Hafnium malicious cyber activity. 
 
Leaders also committed to achieving food security and adequate nutrition, particularly in famine-stricken parts of the world where armed conflicts have exacerbated these problems—such as Ethiopia. Leaders will continue to enhance concrete measures to advance gender equality in national policies. President Biden issued the first-ever national gender strategy to advance the full participation of all people – including women and girls – in the United States and around the world.

Biden Administration, Cybersecurity

Biden Administration and Private Sector Leaders Initiate Ambitious Initiatives to Bolster the Nation’s Cybersecurity

Back in August, President Biden met with private sector and education leaders to discuss the whole-of-nation effort needed to address cybersecurity threats. Recent high-profile cybersecurity incidents demonstrate that both U.S. public and private sector entities increasingly face sophisticated malicious cyber activity. Cybersecurity threats and incidents affect businesses of all sizes, small towns and cities in every corner of the country, and the pocketbooks of middle-class families. Compounding the challenge, nearly half a million public and private cybersecurity jobs remain unfilled. The White House provided a fact sheet outlining steps the Biden Administration is taking to address cybersecurity:

Cybersecurity is a national security and economic security imperative for the Biden Administration and we are prioritizing and elevating cybersecurity like never before. On May 12, 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order that modernizes Federal Government defenses and improves the security of technology. To secure our critical infrastructure, this spring the Biden Administration launched a 100-day initiative to improve cybersecurity across the electric sector with others to follow. On July 28, the President issued a National Security Memorandum establishing voluntary cybersecurity goals that clearly outline our expectations for owners and operators of critical infrastructure. The Administration has also engaged with the private sector on the importance of prioritizing cybersecurity as a central part of their efforts to maintain business continuity. And internationally, the Biden Administration has rallied G7 countries to hold accountable nations who harbor ransomware criminals and to update NATO cyber policy for the first time in seven years.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss opportunities to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity in partnership and individually. Several participants announced commitments and initiatives including:

  • The Biden Administration announced that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will collaborate with industry and other partners to develop a new framework to improve the security and integrity of the technology supply chain. The approach will serve as a guideline to public and private entities on how to build secure technology and assess the security of technology, including open source software. Microsoft, Google, Travelers, and Coalition committed to participating in this NIST-led initiative.
     
  • The Biden Administration also announced the formal expansion of the Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative to a second major sector: natural gas pipelines. The Initiative has already improved the cybersecurity of more than 150 electric utilities that serve 90 million Americans.
     
  • Apple announced it will establish a new program to drive continuous security improvements throughout the technology supply chain. As part of that program, Apple will work with its suppliers — including more than 9,000 in the United States— to drive the mass adoption of multi-factor authentication, security training, vulnerability remediation, event logging, and incident response.
     
  • Google announced it will invest $10 billion over the next five years to expand zero-trust programs, help secure the software supply chain, and enhance open-source security. Google also announced it will help 100,000 Americans earn industry-recognized digital skills certificates that provide the knowledge that can lead to secure high-paying, high-growth jobs. 
     
  • IBM announced it will train 150,000 people in cybersecurity skills over the next three years, and will partner with more than 20 Historically Black Colleges & Universities to establish Cybersecurity Leadership Centers to grow a more diverse cyber workforce.
     
  • Microsoft announced it will invest $20 billion over the next 5 years to accelerate efforts to integrate cyber security by design and deliver advanced security solutions. Microsoft also announced it will immediately make available $150 million in technical services to help federal, state, and local governments with upgrading security protection, and will expand partnerships with community colleges and non-profits for cybersecurity training.
     
  • Amazon announced it will make available to the public at no charge the security awareness training it offers its employees. Amazon also announced it will make available to all Amazon Web Services account holders at no additional cost, a multi-factor authentication device to protect against cybersecurity threats like phishing and password theft.
     
  • Resilience, a cyber insurance provider, announced it will require policy holders to meet a threshold of cybersecurity best practice as a condition of receiving coverage.
     
  • Coalition, a cyber insurance provider, announced it will make its cybersecurity risk assessment & continuous monitoring platform available for free to any organization.
     
  • Code.org announced it will teach cybersecurity concepts to over 3 million students across 35,000 classrooms over 3 years, to teach a diverse population of students how to stay safe online, and to build interest in cybersecurity as a potential career.
     
  • Girls Who Code announced it will establish a micro credentialing program for historically excluded groups in technology. The program will make scholarships and early career opportunities more accessible to underrepresented groups.
     
  • University of Texas System announced it will expand existing and develop new short-term credentials in cyber-related fields to strengthen America’s cybersecurity workforce. A major part of this effort will be to upskill and reskill over 1 million workers across the nation by making available entry-level cyber educational programs through UT San Antonio’s Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute. Credentials do not depend on traditional degree pathways, and should also contribute significantly to diversifying the pipeline. 
     
  • Whatcom Community College announced it has been designated the new NSF Advanced Technological Education National Cybersecurity Center, and will provide cybersecurity education and training to faculty and support program development for colleges to “fast-track” students from college to career. The nature of community colleges dispersed in every community in the nation makes them an ideal pipeline for increasing diversity and inclusion in the cybersecurity workforce.
Biden Administration, Immigration-Migration-Refugees

Biden Administration Blueprint for ‘Fair, Orderly, Humane’ Immigration System

Protesters against the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance anti-migrant policies in June 2018. The Biden Administration has been wrestling with record number of migrants attempting to cross the border while reckoning with the Trump Administration’s cruel and reckless immigration policies, which exacerbated long-standing challenges and failed to securely manage our border. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

(This is a fact sheet from the White House concerning its proposal for Immigration reform from August 18, 2021. The Biden Administration has come under attack from both sides concerning immigration. The problem, though, lies with inaction by Congress to adopt necessary reforms and create a new system to responsibly manage and secure the border, provide a pathway to citizenship and better manage migration.)

The United States can have an orderly, secure, and well-managed border while treating people fairly and humanely. In January, the Biden-Harris Administration launched a broad, whole of government effort to reform our immigration system, including sending to Congress legislation that creates a new system to responsibly manage and secure our border, provide a pathway to citizenship, and better manage migration across the Hemisphere.

In the months since, the Administration has made considerable progress to build a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system while continuing to call on Congress to make long overdue reforms to U.S. immigration laws. We successfully processed over 12,500 people who had been returned to Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols. We expanded lawful pathways for protection and opportunity, including the Central American Minors (CAM) program to reunite children with their parents in the United States. We strengthened collaborative migration management with regional partners, including through a new Human Smuggling and Trafficking Task Force to disrupt and prevent migrant smuggling and human trafficking operations. And we continue to deter irregular migration at our Southern border.

The Biden-Harris Administration has accomplished this and more while reckoning with the prior Administration’s cruel and reckless immigration policies, which exacerbated long-standing challenges and failed to securely manage our border. Case in point: the total number of unique encounters at the Southern border to date this fiscal year remains below the total number of unique encounters to date during fiscal year 2019 under the Trump Administration.

Today the Administration is releasing a blueprint that outlines the next steps Federal agencies will be taking to continue implementing the President’s transformative vision for a 21st century immigration system that secures the border, fairly and efficiently considers asylum claims, strengthens regional migration management efforts in North and Central America, and addresses the root causes of migration from Central America. Success in building this fair, orderly, and humane immigration system won’t be achieved overnight, especially after the prior Administration’s irrational and inhumane policies, but this Administration has a blueprint to get there and is making real progress.

We will always be a nation of borders, and we will enforce our immigration laws in a way that is fair and just. We will continue to work to fortify an orderly immigration system.

ENSURING A SECURE, HUMANE AND WELL-MANAGED BORDER

The United States can allow people to exercise their legal right to apply for asylum while also reducing irregular migration and maintaining an orderly, secure, and well-managed border.

• Making better use of existing enforcement resources. Since fiscal year 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) discretionary budget has grown from $9.9 billion to $15 billion in FY 2021. The President’s Budget redirects resources from a needless border wall to make robust investments in smarter border security measures, like border technology and modernization of land ports of entry, that are proven to be more effective at improving safety and security at the border. These investments will serve as a force multiplier to the over 19,500 Border Patrol Agents currently helping secure our Nation’s borders and the over 25,500 CBP Officers working at our land, air, and sea ports. The investments will also facilitate more robust and effective security screening to combat human smuggling and trafficking and the entry of undocumented migrants.

• Improving the expedited removal process for those who arrive at the border. The Administration is working to improve the expedited removal process at the border to fairly and efficiently determine which individuals have legitimate claims for asylum and other forms of protection. Asylum and other legal migration pathways should remain available to those seeking protection. Those not seeking protection or who don’t qualify will be promptly removed to their countries of origin.

• Facilitating secure management of borders in the region by providing training and technical assistance, supporting the improvement of border infrastructure and technology, and promoting collaborative migration and border management approaches.

• Strengthening anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking operations by working with regional governments to investigate and prosecute individuals involved in migrant smuggling, human trafficking, and other crimes against migrants. In April 2021, DHS announced Operation Sentinel, a new operation targeting organizations involved in criminal smuggling.

• Bolstering public messaging on migration by ensuring consistent messages to discourage irregular migration and promote safe, legal, and orderly migration.

IMPLEMENTING ORDERLY AND FAIR PROCESSING OF ASYLUM APPLICATIONS

The Administration is committed to fairly and efficiently considering asylum claims. Asylum and other legal migration pathways should remain available to those seeking protection. But those not seeking protection or who don’t qualify will be returned to their country of origin.

• Establishing a dedicated docket to consider asylum claims. The Administration has set up a special immigration court docket to promptly and fairly consider the protection claims of certain recent arrivals.

• Further improving the efficiency and fairness of the U.S. asylum system by authorizing asylum officers to adjudicate asylum claims for those arriving at the border and establishing clear and just eligibility standards that harmonize the U.S. approach with international standards. The Administration has already begun to rescind Trump administration policies and decisions that unjustly prevent individuals from obtaining asylum. On June 16, the Department of Justice reversed two of the former administration’s rulings severely restricting asylum protections for victims of domestic and gang violence.

• Maximizing legal representation and legal orientation programs by working closely with pro bono legal service providers. The President’s FY 2022 Budget requests $15 million to provide representation to families and vulnerable individuals, as well as $23 million to support DOJ legal orientation programs. • Reducing immigration court backlogs by ensuring priority cases are considered in a timely manner and hiring more immigration judges. The FY 2022 Budget requests an additional 100 immigration judges and provides support for additional court staff to ensure the efficient and fair processing of cases. The Department of Justice also restored the discretion of immigration judges to administratively close cases in another step to ensure priority cases are considered in a timely manner.

STRENGTHENING COLLABORATIVE MIGRATION MANAGEMENT WITH REGIONAL PARTNERS

The United States seeks to expand U.S. and multilateral efforts to address the dire humanitarian situation in Central America and strengthen regional collaborative migration management. The United States believes that all individuals should be able to have a safe, stable and dignified life within their own countries, while ensuring that asylum and other legal migration pathways remain available to those who need them.

• Providing humanitarian support to address the acute needs that pressure individuals to abandon their homes. U.S. efforts will address food insecurity and malnutrition, mitigate the impacts of successive droughts and food shortages, promote protection for vulnerable individuals, and provide materials to support rebuilding of homes and schools damaged by the hurricanes. The United States will also work with the United Nations to mobilize international support for the deteriorating situation in the Northern Triangle. As part of these efforts, the United States in April provided $255 million in assistance to meet immediate and urgent humanitarian needs for people in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, refugees, other displaced people, and vulnerable migrants in the region.

• Expanding access to international protection to provide safety to individuals closer to their homes by building and improving national asylum systems, enhancing efforts to resettle refugees, and scaling up protection efforts for at-risk groups.

• Establishing Migration Resource Centers in the Northern Triangle countries with the support of international organizations and in coordination with governments in Central America to provide referrals to services for people seeking lawful pathways for migration and protection. The centers also provide referrals to reintegration support for migrants returned from the United States and other countries.

• Restarting and expanding the Central American Minors (CAM) program to provide children the opportunity to receive protection and reunite with parents in the United States. In March 2021, the United States reopened the CAM program and, in June 2021, expanded it to additional categories of eligible U.S.-based relatives who can petition for their children.

• Expanding refugee processing in the region, including in-country processing in Northern Triangle countries, and helping international organizations and local nongovernmental organizations to identify and refer individuals with urgent protection needs to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and other resettlement countries. The U.S. Department of State and Department of Homeland Security have resumed interviewing individuals via the Protection Transfer Arrangement (PTA) to expand protection for vulnerable nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

• Expanding access to temporary work visas in the region. DHS announced a supplemental increase of 6,000 H-2B visas for temporary non-agricultural workers from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in FY 2021. The Administration is also exploring ways to enhance access to H-2A visas for temporary agricultural workers when there are insufficient qualified U.S. workers to fill these jobs, while ensuring strong labor protections for all workers. The Administration will also encourage other governments to develop and expand regional labor migration programs that protect workers’ rights and allow access for individuals to find meaningful, temporary work.

• Reducing immigrant visa backlogs. The United States aims to reduce the backlog of immigrant visa applications for Northern Triangle nationals as quickly as possible.

INVESTING IN CENTRAL AMERICA TO ADDRESS THE ROOT CAUSES OF MIGRATION

We cannot solve the challenge at our border without addressing the lack of economic opportunity, weak governance and corruption, and violence and insecurity that compel people to flee their homes in the first place. The impact of two major hurricanes in late 2020, a prolonged drought, and COVID-19 have aggravated these long-standing challenges. The FY 2022 Budget requests $861 million to address the root causes of migration.

• Addressing economic insecurity and inequality by investing in programs that foster a business-enabling environment for inclusive economic growth; enhancing workforce development, health, and education; and building resilience to climate change and food insecurity so individuals can find economic opportunity at home. The U.S. will also work with stakeholders to increase trade and diversify industry, as well as with the private sector to build on the Call to Action to catalyze investments in the region and support economic development.

• Combatting corruption and strengthening democratic governance by working with governments, civil society, and independent media to improve government services, increase transparency, promote accountability and respect for human rights, sanction corrupt actors, and provide protection to at-risk youth, victims of violence, and other marginalized populations.

• Promoting respect for human rights, labor rights and a free press by working with governments and civil society to strengthen legal frameworks and build institutional capacity, hold perpetrators accountable, promote labor rights compliance, and ensure citizens have access to information from independent sources to inform their choices.

• Countering and preventing violence, extortion, and other crimes by strengthening accountable law enforcement, focusing on crime prevention, and encouraging regional cooperation to address shared criminal threats. • Combatting sexual, gender-based and domestic violence by working with governments and civil society to prevent and prosecute violence and support victims.

While President Biden can implement significant parts of this strategy within his executive authority, Congress must also act. Millions of noncitizens call our country home. Immigrants are key a key part of our communities and make significant contributions to our economy. Over the past year, millions of immigrants have risked their health to work side by side with other Americans to perform jobs that are essential to the functioning of the country. They are Americans in every way but on paper. The American public supports a path to citizenship and a fair and efficient legal immigration system that welcomes talent from around the globe and allows families to reunite and make a life in our country.

Congress should pass through reconciliation or other means:

• The U.S. Citizenship Act (H.R. 1177/S. 348) that reunites families, gives businesses access to a workforce with full labor rights, and creates a path to citizenship for those already living and working in the United States. These critical reforms, coupled with measures to address the root causes of migration from Central America, will relieve pressure at the border by dissuading irregular migration.

• The Dream and Promise Act (H.R. 6) and Farm Workforce Modernization Act (H.R. 1603) to create a path to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS recipients, and farmworkers. Both bills passed the House with bipartisan support. They will protect millions of families, children, and essential workers who live, work, study, and worship in our communities.

Biden Administration, News & Photo Features, Voting Rights

Agencies Respond to President Biden’s Call for All-of-Government Action to Strengthen Opportunities to Register and Vote

Federal agencies, in response to President Biden ‘s Executive Order directing federal agencies to devise strategic plans to protect and expand access to the ballot, have responded with “creative and impactful ways to strengthen nonpartisan voter registration and participation.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Federal agencies have responded directly to President Biden’s call for all-of-government action to promote opportunities to register and vote.

“Within weeks of taking office, President Biden issued an Executive Order directing federal agencies to do everything in their power to protect and expand access to the ballot. Today, as we mark National Voter Registration Day, I’m pleased that these agencies have submitted strategic plans outlining a range of creative and impactful ways to strengthen nonpartisan voter registration and participation,” Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice said in a written statement. “In the coming months, we will work with agencies to further build out their capacity to provide relevant information to the public, help eligible voters better understand their opportunities for engagement, and facilitate participation in the electoral process. It is vital that we make it easier for all Americans to vote, and this is an important step by the Administration to do just that.”

Here is a fact sheet provided by the White House of what agencies are doing:

As President Biden has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend, strengthen, and renew it to ensure free and fair elections that reflect the will of the American people. Too many Americans face significant obstacles to exercising their sacred, fundamental right to vote. For generations, discriminatory policies have suppressed the votes of Black Americans and other voters of color. Voters of color are more likely than white voters to face long lines at the polls and are disproportionately burdened by overly restrictive voter identification laws and limited opportunities to vote by mail. Native Americans likewise face limited opportunities to vote by mail and frequently lack sufficient polling places and voter registration opportunities near their homes. Lack of access to language assistance is an obstacle for many voters.  People with disabilities face longstanding barriers to exercising their right to vote, especially when it comes to legally required accommodations to vote privately and independently. Members of our military also face unnecessary challenges to exercising their right to vote.
 
While the President continues to call on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act and pass the Freedom to Vote Act, which includes bold reforms to make it more equitable and accessible for all Americans to exercise their fundamental right to vote, he also knows we can’t wait to act. That is why on March 7, the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the President signed an Executive Order to leverage the resources of the federal government to increase access to voter registration services and information about voting, helping deliver on the promise of Congressman Lewis’ fight against these anti-voter burdens and the fight of so many others seeking to protect the right to vote before and since. Today, more than a dozen agencies across the federal government are announcing steps they are taking to respond to the President’s call for an all-of-government action to promote voting access and to further the ability of all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.
 
The Executive Order is only part of the President’s efforts to protect the right to vote and ensure all eligible citizens can freely participate in the electoral process. For months, Vice President Harris has engaged the American people; civil and voting rights advocacy groups; pollworkers; and other voting populations around the country that have been historically marginalized to advance the Administration’s efforts to protect the right to vote. The President has appointed strong civil rights leadership at the Department of Justice. And he has partnered with civil rights organizations, the business community, faith leaders, young Americans, and others to activate an all-hands-on-deck effort to protect this sacred right and uphold democratic values.
 
The Executive Order called for each agency to submit to Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice a strategic plan outlining the ways that the agency can promote nonpartisan voter registration and voter participation. These strategic plans are just the beginning of each agency’s commitments. In the weeks and months to come, agencies will further build out their capacity to get relevant information out to the public, help eligible voters better understand their opportunities for engagement, and facilitate participation in the electoral process. 
 
New key early actions to implement the President’s Order include:

  • The Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service will encourage the provision of nonpartisan voter information through its borrowers and guaranteed lenders, who interface with thousands of residents in the process of changing their voting address every year. In addition, Rural Development agencies — which are spread throughout field offices across the country where rural Americans can apply for housing, facilities, or business assistance — will take steps to promote access to voter registration forms and other pertinent nonpartisan election information among their patrons.
     
  • The Department of Defense will support a comprehensive approach to information and voting awareness for servicemembers and civilian personnel voting at home, in addition to the structure currently assisting members of the military stationed away from home and citizens overseas.  The Department will develop materials in additional languages and send nonpartisan information at regular intervals before federal elections to ensure that eligible servicemembers and their families — particularly first-time voters — have opportunities to register and vote if they wish.
     
  • The Department of Education will prepare a tool kit of resources and strategies for increasing civic engagement at the elementary school, secondary school, and higher education level, helping more than 67 million students — and their families — learn about civic opportunities and responsibilities.  The Department will also remind educational institutions of their existing obligation and encourage institutions to identify further opportunities to assist eligible students with voter registration.
     
  • The General Services Administration will ensure vote.gov is a user-friendly portal for Americans to find the information they need most to register and vote.  Available in over ten languages and in a format accessible for voters with disabilities, vote.gov will make it easier for eligible users to register to vote or confirm their registration status.  Agencies across the federal government will link to vote.gov to encourage Americans to participate in the electoral process.
     
  • The Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Community Living will launch a new voting access hub to connect older adults and people with disabilities to information, tools and resources to help them understand and exercise their right to vote. The Indian Health Service will offer its patients assistance with voter registration.  The President’s Budget also requests a 25% increase in grants for the Administration for Community Living to distribute to state Protection and Advocacy systems, to provide a range of services that ensure that people with disabilities can fully participate in the electoral process.
     
  • The Department of Homeland Security will invite state and local governments and nonpartisan nonprofit organizations to register voters at the end of naturalization ceremonies for the hundreds of thousands of citizens naturalized each year, and will develop a new online resource on voting for recently naturalized citizens.  The Department will also provide information and resources for voters impacted by a disaster or emergency event through its training preparedness initiatives.
     
  • The Department of Housing and Urban Development will communicate with public housing authorities (PHAs) — more than 3000 authorities, managing approximately 1.2 million public housing units — through a letter to Executive Directors that provides useful information to PHAs about permissible ways to inform residents of non-partisan voter registration information and services. The Department will also assist relevant HUD-funded service providers by highlighting and sharing promising practices that improve non-partisan voting registration and voting access for people experiencing homelessness.
     
  • The Institute of Museum and Library Services will create and distribute a toolkit of resources and strategies that libraries, museums, and heritage and cultural institutions can use to promote civic engagement and participation in the voting process.
     
  • The Department of the Interior will disseminate information on registering and voting, including through on-site events, at schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education and Tribal Colleges and Universities, serving about 30,000 students.  The Department will also, where possible, offer Tribal College and University campuses for designation by states as voter registration agencies under the National Voter Registration Act.
     
  • The Department of Justice has created an online resource for the public that will provide links to state-specific information about registering and voting; detail the Department’s enforcement of federal voting rights laws and guidance it has issued to jurisdictions on the scope of those laws; and explain how to report potential violations.  The Department will also provide information about voting to individuals in federal custody, facilitate voting by those who remain eligible to do so while in federal custody, and educate individuals before reentry about voting rules and voting rights in their states.  And after the Census Bureau determines localities with specific responsibilities for language access, the Department will deliver guidance and conduct outreach to each covered jurisdiction to facilitate compliance.
     
  • The Department of Labor will issue guidance encouraging states to designate the more than 2,400 American Job Centers, which provide employment, training, and career services to workers in every state, as voter registration agencies under the National Voter Registration Act. The Department of Labor will continue to require Job Corps centers to implement procedures for enrollees to vote, and where local law and leases permit, encourage Job Corps centers to serve as polling precincts.  The Department will also provide guidance that grantees can use federal workforce development funding, where consistent with program authority, to conduct nonpartisan voter registration efforts with participants.
     
  • The Department of Transportation will communicate guidance to transit systems — including more than 1,150 rural public transit systems and more than 1,000 urban public transit systems — to consider providing free and reduced fare service on election days and consider placing voter registration materials in high-transit stations.  The Department will also work with state and local entities seeking to mitigate traffic and construction impacts on routes to the polls, particularly in underserved communities.
     
  • The Department of the Treasury will include information about registration and voter participation in its direct deposit campaigns for Americans who receive Social Security, Veterans Affairs, and other federal benefit payments.
     
  • The Department of Veterans Affairs will provide materials and assistance in registering and voting for tens of thousands of inpatients and residents, including VA Medical Center inpatients and residents of VA nursing homes and treatment centers for homeless veterans.  The Department will also facilitate assistance in registering and voting for homebound veterans and their caregivers through VA’s home-based and telehealth teams. 

“Our nation and democracy are stronger when everyone participates, and weaker when anyone is left out,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a written statement. 

“Today, as we celebrate National Voter Registration Day, we must continue the work of protecting the fundamental right to vote. The Senate must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. In addition, the President and I continue to use all the tools available to us to help advance that right. On the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in March 2021, President Biden issued the Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting.  That order instructs federal agencies to deploy resources available to them to work to promote voting access.  Agencies across the federal government have submitted strategic plans on precisely how they plan to do that.  The President and I will help ensure these plans are fully implemented, and we will continue to work closely with these agencies to bring a whole-of-government approach to making voting accessible for all Americans.”

Biden Administration, Child Care, Joe Biden, News & Photo Features, Taxes

How Biden’s Build Back Better Framework Will Support the ‘Sandwich Generation’

President Biden’s Build Back Better plan will address the caregiving crisis by lowering costs both for families with young children and households with elderly members – and for millions of sandwich generation adults © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

The White House provided this fact sheet on how President Biden’s Build Back Better framework will support the “sandwich generation”:

Too many Americans struggle with the high costs of raising children, caring for a sick family member, providing long-term care for people with disabilities or older adults, and addressing the myriad other caregiving challenges.  These pressures are particularly acute for those with multiple caregiving responsibilities.  As of 2018, more than one-in-ten parents (12 percent, or over 8 million parents) had a child under 18 in the home and were providing unpaid care to an adult, making them part of the “sandwich generation.”  This work is especially likely to fall on women, as 5 million mothers are part of the sandwich generation, compared to 3.2 million fathers.  Three-quarters of these mothers are employed, and more than half work full-time, making their schedules especially hard-stretched. 

These millions of sandwich generation adults are caring for multiple generations of family members with few or no formal support, leading them to face difficult, if not impossible, decisions and high economic costs.  
 
The price of child care has risen sharply, increasing faster than incomes over the last several decades.  Child care prices increased by 210 percent from 1990 to 2019, while the median family income rose by 143 percent during the same period.  Research suggests that lower-income families experience these cost pressures more than higher-income families, which means that basic goods and services, including child care, cut into family budgets more today than in the past. In turn, only 57 percent of children under six years old have parents who report that there are good options for child care where they live. And the United States is one of the only countries in the world that does not guarantee paid leave – 95 percent of the lowest wage workers, who are predominately women and workers of color, lack any access to paid family and medical leave. Still, the United States invests fewer public dollars in early childhood education and care relative to gross domestic product (GDP) than almost all developed countries – ranking 35th out of 37 countries tracked by OECD.
 
The need for high-quality, accessible, and affordable elder care is also increasing. By 2060, there will be nearly 95 million adults over the age of 65, which is almost twice the number of adults over the age of 65 in 2016.  People age 65 today are estimated to have an almost 70 percent chance of needing some type of long-term care services in their remaining years, and 20 percent will need care for five or more years.
 
Meanwhile, there are not enough care workers to provide the care that is needed, in part because care jobs are often not family-sustaining jobs, making it challenging to recruit and retain a high-skilled workforce. Child care workers are among the most underpaid workers – the average pay is only $24,320 a year and nearly half of child care workers rely on public assistance. With low pay, child care workers turn over frequently – national estimates suggest that 26 to 40 percent of the workforce leave their job each year.  Similarly, home care workers are extremely underpaid and 40 to 60 percent of home care workers turn over each year – high levels of churn even relative to other low-wage jobs. An analysis conducted in 2017 estimates that there will be a national shortage of 151,000 direct care workers by 2030 and 355,000 workers by 2040.
 
Limited access to high-quality care leaves many Americans to fill the gap in professional caregiving by providing unpaid care to their loved ones.  The disproportionate caregiving burden that women bear makes them more likely to reduce working hours, choose lower-paying jobs, or leave the labor force entirely, all of which contribute to the gender wage gap and reduce family economic security.
 
To keep the middle-class in reach for millions of Americans and strengthen our economic security, we need to address our caregiving crisis. President Biden’s Build Back Better plan will lower costs both for families with young children and households with elderly members – and for millions of sandwich generation adults.
 
The President’s Build Back Better plan: 

  • Expands Access to Long-Term Care Services under Medicaid. Families feel the financial impact of caring for aging relatives and family members with disabilities, and there is a financial strain for people with disabilities living independently to ensure that they are getting care in their homes. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people who need better care are unable to access it, even though they qualify under Medicaid. Aging relatives and people with disabilities deserve high-quality care that meets their unique needs and personal choices. President Biden is calling on Congress to invest billions toward expanding access to quality, affordable home- or community-based services (HCBS).
  • Cuts costs of child care by more than half for most American families.  The President’s plan also enables families to access more convenient, higher quality care where workers receive a better wage and benefits.  It fully covers the cost of high-quality child care for young children for the most hard-pressed working families, and ensures that families earning up to 1.5 times their state’s median income will pay no more than seven percent of their income for high-quality child care for all children under age five.  In addition to reducing the cost of child care and freeing up money for other spending, providing access to affordable, high-quality child care also increases parents’ incomes, as they continue working and earn more over time.
  • Offers universal free preschool to all three- and four-year old children. Only about one-fifth of all preschool aged children are enrolled in a preschool program, and free preschool will help offset the costs of child care that families face or help parents providing unpaid caregiving to go back to work. The President is calling for a national-state partnership that offers preschool to all families in the setting of their choice – whether in a school, Head Start, or child care setting. These investments will especially benefit low-income families and families of color, whose children are less likely to be enrolled in preschool.
  • Lowers Seniors’ Health Care Costs.  The Build Back Better plan would reduce health insurance premiums, saving 9 million people an average of $50 per person per month, and add dental, vision, and hearing coverage to Medicare.  By closing the Medicaid coverage gap for low-income Americans, the President’s plan would help 4 million people gain coverage. President Biden’s plan will lower prescription drug costs for Americans by letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, so consumers are no longer at the whim of pharmaceutical companies.  Lowering these costs will help reduce the burdens families face. Take, for example, a family in Arizona with two parents who together earn $85,000 per year and care for an elderly parent who needs arthritis medicine, which costs $5,500 per year out-of-pocket, and an eye exam to get a new pair of glasses.  Prescription drug reform like that outlined in the Build Back Better plan would cap out-of-pocket costs for the elderly parent’s prescription drugs, saving the family $2,400 per year, while new vision benefits under Medicare would pay for the elderly parent’s eye exam and new glasses and lenses.
  • Creates a National Comprehensive Paid Family and Medical Leave Program.  The program will ensure workers receive partial wage replacement to take time to bond with a new child; care for a seriously ill loved one; deal with a loved one’s military deployment; find safety from sexual assault, stalking, or domestic violence; heal from their own serious illness; or take time to deal with the death of a loved one.  This program guarantees twelve weeks of annual paid parental, family, and personal illness/safe leave, and also ensures workers get three days of bereavement leave per year, by year 10.  The program will provide workers up to $4,000 a month, with a minimum of two-thirds of average weekly wages replaced, rising to 80 percent for the lowest wage workers.  A study of California’s paid leave program, which began in 2004, indicated that paid leave also helped to reduce nursing-home utilization: About one in ten person-years spent in nursing homes were prevented by paid leave, likely because the policy gave workers sufficient flexibility to provide informal care to family members on the side.
  • Boosts compensation of child care and home care workers. The President’s plan would ensure child care and preschool teachers are paid a living wage, one that is comparable to kindergarten teachers if they have similar credentials. The President’s plan to expand HCBS under Medicaid will support well-paying caregiving jobs that include benefits and the ability to collectively bargain. Investment in higher labor standards for care workers improves these jobs and attracts more workers to the care industry.
  • Significantly Expands the Child Tax Credit.  The Build Back Better plan increases the amount of the credit from $2,000 per child to $3,000 per child six-years-old and above, and from $2000 to $3,600 per child for children under six.  It also makes 17-year-olds eligible for the first time, and makes the credit fully refundable on a permanent basis, so that low-income families—the families that need the credit the most—can benefit from the full tax credit.  For a family with two parents who earn a combined $100,000 per year and have two children under six, the Child Tax Credit expansion means the family’s credit would go from $4,000 total to $7,200 total, an additional $3,200 per year in tax relief.  For a family with two parents who earn a combined $24,000 per year and have two children under six, the expansion means even more; they would see roughly $4,400 in additional tax relief because the full credit was not previously available to them.

Provides low- and middle-income families a tax cut based on care expenses.  Families would receive a tax credit for up to half of their expenses related to caring for a child under age 13 or a loved one with disabilities.  This would extend the dramatic expansion of the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) enacted in the American Rescue Plan.  With this expanded credit, families earning $125,000 can receive up to a total of $4,000 for one dependent or $8,000 for two or more.  And families earning up to $400,000 would get at least as generous of a credit as they receive today.