President Biden's "Build Back Better" (BBB) agenda certainly has a catchy name. It implies that through this legislation, America will be catapulted into a new, and brighter, future.
President Biden is right about one thing: This will remake America into something we have never seen before, but I question if it's a remaking America needs or wants.
The House of Representatives recently passed the $1.75 trillion BBB reconciliation bill on party lines, sending it to the Senate where it will be argued over, rewritten, and likely changed significantly before it returns to the House for another vote. The advertised price tag of $1.75 trillion is an unimaginable amount of wasteful spending, but is also a highly suspicious lowball figure that was derived through Herculean budget shell games.
What would American taxpayers get from this wasteful spending? To summarize over 2,000 pages, this bill funds a slew of radically liberal line items designed to remake the government's role in Americans' lives, giving the government control of almost every aspect of life from cradle to grave. From government paid-for leave, to government paid-for preschool, to expanded government paid-for health care, to government paid-for electric car subsidies for high-income people able to purchase them, there's almost no aspect of your life that the "BBB" doesn't pay for or regulate.
President Biden and House Democrats repeatedly claimed this bill costs zero dollars. That's untrue. On top of the billions of dollars of new taxes that Americans would be paying to offset some of the costs, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which President Biden once called the "gold standard" in legislative analysis, predicts that this bill will add over $350 billion to the national deficit.
That's over $1,200 per American in deficit spending for this one bill alone. That means Americans will see their taxes rise and prices skyrocket as a result of reckless spending on programs Americans do not want or need. These programs include amnesty for up to 8 million illegal immigrants, a civilian climate police, and federal funding for abortions.
Additionally, the second-largest provision in the bill is a massive tax cut for millionaires and billionaires who live in high-cost, high-tax, liberal cities and states. The bill gives them a tax credit worth $80,000 per year to offset the costs of their state and local taxes. That's right, Arkansans who demand that their state government live within its means are going to be subsidizing the ridiculous tax-and-spend policies of millionaires in New York, New Jersey, and California.
To compensate for this portion of the giveaway, Democrats are going to hire tens of thousands of new IRS agents to monitor the bank accounts of everyday Americans to ensure we're paying our "fair share." The last thing hardworking Americans need is to pay more or have the IRS snooping on their bank accounts just so Sen. Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi can have a tax break.
The silver lining--if you can call it that--is that the Senate will certainly change this legislation before it has a chance of becoming law. Democrat Senators have already publicly chided House Democrats for the ridiculous tax breaks for the wealthy and for the overspending that is rampant in the bill.
While I think Democrat leaders in Congress should scrap this terrible bill entirely and start over, I'm hopeful that a small group of reasonable senators may be able to stand up for the American people and against the free-spending, America-remaking BBB that will do far more harm than good.
U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman represents Arkansas' 4th District.