Build Back Better? #198
By Hank Silverberg
By some miracle, maybe even divine intervention, Congress is finally moving forward with something positive.
Sure, miscreants like Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are still flaunting the rules and getting fined for not wearing a mask on the House floor, and Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has just been censured for posting a video on-line showing a cartoon of him shooting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), but things are looking up. Just a week after
Here's what's in the bill as it stands, before the Senate makes changes:
*Chief among all issues, $555 billion to fight climate change, which must be done this decade or the world will change rapidly enough to make living here very uncomfortable. (Much of this cost will be done through tax breaks, and this program will create an estimated 300,000 jobs.)
*$400 billion for universal pre-kindergarten, a good investment in the education of our children and grandchildren. Lack of early education has held back millions of children with great potential simply because their families couldn't afford private daycare. Parents will be able to choose public schools or the private child care program of their choice. The financial burden of daycare will be lifted for millions of families and it is likely going to help the economy as well.
*$200 billion for child tax credits that includes a one-year extension of the pandemic era child tax credit for low income families.
*$165 billion on health care spending that substantially reduces premiums under the Affordable Care Act and expands Medicare to cover hearing. It also places some restrictions on what Big Pharma can charge for drugs by putting an annual limit on price increases and out of pocket expenses for consumers.
*$150 billion to go towards building new rental and single family homes to help reduce rents and home prices, and make them more affordable to low and moderate income families. It's aimed at reducing homelessness. (580,000 Americans are currently homeless.)
And then there is the most popular of all the provisions which appears headed for some trouble in the Senate. That includes $200 billion for four weeks of paid family leave. This is not just for new parents, but also for people who may need time off to care for a sick relative. Right now only 23% of civilian workers have access to such a program.
The House Just Passed Biden’s Build Back Better Bill. Here’s What’s In It (msn.com)
So, you ask, how are we going to pay for all this?
The bill will increase taxes on large corporations and will put a tax surcharge on those who make more than $10 million a year. The legislation also includes an even higher tax on the 700 American billionaires.
The CBO says that will cover about $1.5 trillion of the BBB cost. The White House hoped to make up the last $50 million with higher taxes on anyone who makes over $400,000 a year, but that was modified after opposition from moderate Democrats.
It should be noted that the non-profit Tax Foundation says the CBO's estimates are inaccurate, but it's rare that ANY analysis can predict what will actually happen due to unknown factors. The pandemic for example, made every prediction over the last decade totally wrong.
Tax Foundation | About Us | America's Leading Tax Policy Nonprofit
These two bills combined are the most significant legislation since FDR's New Deal.
The Pandemic Is Not Over!
It's not easy to talk about or write about, but the Covid-19 pandemic is NOT OVER.
As of this writing on 11/21/21, there have been 257,667,041 coronavirus cases, and more than 5.1 million deaths worldwide.
In the U.S. there have been 48.5 million cases and 793,549 deaths, more than any other country in the world. India, which has a larger population than the U.S. and a poorer health care system, has had 465,662 deaths.
This is BEFORE the holidays, where millions of people will be traveling and spending time with their extended families.
Why?
This chart based on CDC figures may explain part of it. It highlights the 20 states where Covid cases are now spiking again at the highest rates.
Note the red circles, added by Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award winning author Laurie Garrett, are states led by Republican Governors. The blue check marks are those with Democratic governors.
Resistance to mask mandates and the vaccine are higher in the 17 red states on the top 20 list.
Leadership can make a difference.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Don't get all upset by this one. But remember that story you heard in grade school about the first Thanksgiving with the happy Pilgrims and friendly "Indians"? It was mostly hoakum.
There was apparently a feast in the Plymouth colony back in the fall of 1621 (exact date unknown) to celebrate a good harvest that would get the colony through the winter. The original 102 colonists had been whittled down to just 52, as they struggled with disease and starvation. Some members of the Wampanoag tribe, including their leader Massasoit, were there. That much was recorded in the journal of the colony's Governor William Bradford. But it was not a friendly gathering. The tribe may have crashed the party because the Wampanoag had been devastated by smallpox brought to the New World by British slavers. There were only 90 members of the tribe left. The settlers had previously robbed grain from the surrounding tribes and other items from their graves.
Ever wonder how the Wampanoag interpreter Squanto learned English? He had been captured by English explorers years earlier and taken to Great Britain where he spent several years as a slave. The enslavement of the surrounding indigenous population was common in New England until they discovered Black slaves were more suitable for the sugar plantations they owned in the Caribbean.
In subsequent years, the fragile peace between the natives and the settlers was broken many times, including an infamous attack by a band of Puritans and some native allies on a Pequot village in Connecticut in 1637. The massacre wiped out 700 tribe members, including women and children.
This is not revisionist history. This is the real story of race relations in New England in the 17th century. (See New England Bound, Slavery and Colonization in Early America, by Wendy Warren, Liverlight Publishing, 2016)
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| (Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving) |
This Norman Rockwell rendition of a Thanksgiving dinner hangs on a wall in my family room representing America's Four Freedoms, in this case "Freedom From Want."
As you sit down to eat with your family and friends this year, be thankful that we live in a country where you can still find the truth about history and can still exercise your right of free speech. And observe that there are those right now in this country who are trying to take both away by spreading misinformation and promoting divisiveness.
Dumbest Quote Of The Week!
This week's dumbest quote comes from someone I have never heard of before. His name is Matt Schlapp, and he is the President of the Conservative Political Action Committee.
His comment was on one of the greatest issues of the day--NOT!
It seems Mr. Schlapp had his underwear twisted in a tizzy because "Sesame Street" has added a Korean- American character to its neighborhood. The show has been praised for using a character with which Asian American children can now identify. But Schlapp tweeted out the following:
"What race is Ernie is Bert. You are insane PBS and we should stop funding you."
Schalpp, despite his poor punctuation, apparently
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| (Ji Young, courtesy of Sesame Workshop)) |
Sure, Cookie Monster, Elmo and Big Bird are non-human creatures with no ethnicity. But the show has had other minority characters for years. Wesley Walker and his dad Elijah, who debuted earlier this year, are Black, and a character called Roosevelt Franklin, a Black Muppet, debuted back in 1970. The human cast has been diverse since the beginning of the show more than 50 years ago.
"Sesame Street" gets about $5 million in federal grants each year, but that's a significantly lower proportion of government money than when the show first appeared in 1966. It's a non-profit organization.
Ji-Young is part of an all-star lineup and is featured in "Coming Together," a special program to air on Thanksgiving Day.
As for Mr. Shlapp? He needs to pay more attention to the real world and stop picking on Muppets.
(Your suggestions and comments are welcome)
(Copies of my latest book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at:
HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084Q7K6M5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-campaign-hank-silverberg/1126429796
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