WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden will be calling for free preschool for all three- and four-year-olds. A $ 200 billion investment is due to be launched as part of its comprehensive American family plan, which will be revealed in an address to Congress on Wednesday.
The government said the historic investment would benefit 5 million children and save the average family $ 13,000. It calls for federal funding to help states provide preschools with teachers and other employees making $ 15 an hour.
“These investments will give American children a head start and pave the way for the most educated generation in US history,” the administration said.
The new details are part of Biden’s $ 1 trillion package, an ambitious next phase of its massive infrastructure investment program that focuses on what is known as human infrastructure – childcare, health care, education, and other key aspects of household architecture that make up the everyday lives of countless Americans.
Combined with Biden’s American Jobs Plan, a $ 2.3 trillion infrastructure investment to be funded through a corporate tax hike, they add up to a whopping $ 4 trillion to meet his election promise to rebuild better. The American family plan would be paid for through tax increases for the richest 1% of Americans, in line with the president’s promise not to levy taxes on those who earn less than $ 400,000 a year.
Ahead of Wednesday’s speech, lawmakers urged to ensure that top priorities are taken into account.
A group of leading centrist and progressive Democrats met with the White House late Tuesday to discuss their priority of making the child tax credit permanent, which was increased up to $ 300 per month as part of a COVID-19 relief package. Currently, that benefit expires in 2022, and Biden has proposed extending it through 2025.
“We’re hopeful,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, chairman of the banking committee and advocate of permanent child tax credits. “We want it to be permanent because it is so important to the lives of so many people.”
House spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi appears to have secured a top priority for Democrats and has cut the cost of getting health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
Biden’s plan is expected to extend the expanded health insurance subsidies approved as part of COVID-19 relief instead of letting them expire in 2022, according to a Democratic adviser who has been granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Another major priority for Pelosi and Democrats – reducing the cost of prescription drugs – is unlikely to be on the package, the aide said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is also unlikely to push the final draft to lower the Medicare Eligibility Age, now set at 65, and to expand the Medicare benefits to include dental, visual and hearing aid access to seniors .
Sanders promised Tuesday to add these provisions as soon as Congress begins drafting the legislation.
“The bill we’re going to write will involve negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry to bring drug prices down, raise significant sums of money, and use that to expand Medicare,” Sanders told Capitol.
The president’s speech and the introduction of the American family plan come as Biden marks his first 100 days at the White House, a rare moment for Congressional action. Democrats tightly control the House and Senate, giving full power to the President’s party for the first time in a decade.
While Biden is determined to advocate bipartisanism, Republicans in Congress have largely viewed his proposals as a major government expense and vowed to oppose them.
Republican Senate chairman Mitch McConnell called Biden’s administration a “bait and switch” presidency to talk bipartisan but then leave Republicans behind to negotiate laws only with Democrats.
“President Biden has been moderate, but I find it hard to think of anything he’s done that suggests any degree of moderation,” McConnell said Tuesday.
But Biden’s democratic allies in Congress are equally determined to use this rare alignment of political power to achieve long-awaited priorities.
“I’d love to hear him talk about the importance of investing in the American people and our infrastructure,” said Senator Michael Bennet, D-Colo. “It’s been decades since we did this as a country.”
Republicans complain that the White House is expanding the traditional definition of infrastructure beyond roads and bridges to include EV charging stations, veterans hospitals, daycare centers and other developments.
But the Democrats counter that times have changed. “Childcare is infrastructure,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., At a news conference. “Infrastructure is about getting people to work – roads, bridges, communications – and childcare is part of that.”
The White House has portrayed its plan as a Robin Hood-style effort to tax the rich in order to spend on benefits for the middle class and the poor.
It is an argument that the hundreds of billions of dollars controlled by the richest splinter in the country would produce better results for the country if they were instead distributed to families.
In addition to free preschool, the American Families Plan would extend an expanded child tax credit through 2025, giving parents monthly payments of at least $ 250 per child.
The plan would also include free community college and paid family vacations.
Funding the initiative would be a tax hike for the extremely rich, in particular a nearly doubling of the tax rate on investment income on incomes over $ 1 million to 39.6%.
Similarly, the highest income tax bracket for households earning more than $ 400,000 is expected to decline to 39.6%, according to a Democratic adviser who was granted anonymity to discuss the planning. This was the maximum rate prior to the 2017 GOP tax overhaul approved by Donald Trump.
Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said capital gains tax revenues would “help invest directly in our children and families and in our future economic competitiveness.”
Republican leaders have said they are unwilling to overturn the 2017 tax bill, their signed Trump presidency acquisition, to pay for what they see as high Democratic spending.
No Republicans voted for Biden’s coronavirus bailout plan, which was signed into law last month. Last week, Republican senators proposed an alternative infrastructure plan that focused on more traditional highway and bridge investments and would account for a quarter of the cost that would be paid through tolls and other usage charges.