{"id":179816,"date":"2021-11-22T16:36:06","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T00:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eugeneweekly.com\/?p=184818"},"modified":"2021-11-22T16:36:06","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T00:36:06","slug":"building-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/22\/building-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Support"},"content":{"rendered":"

One way that Rep. Peter DeFazio describes President Joe Biden\u2019s Build Back Better Act is by comparing it to former President Donald Trump\u2019s tax cuts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 only benefited people making more than $400,000 a year and corporations, DeFazio said at a Nov. 22 press conference.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But Biden\u2019s $1.75 trillion bill? It\u2019s the inverse of Trump\u2019s signature legislation, he added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs written in the House, 95 percent of the benefits will flow to people who earn less than $400,000 a year,\u201d said DeFazio, who\u2019s also the chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. \u201cWe\u2019re turning what Trump did on its head. And we\u2019re not borrowing to do it like he did.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Nov. 19 the House of Representatives passed Build Back Better, a legislative package that DeFazio said would be the greatest anti-poverty legislation<\/span>\u00a0since former President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s Great Society legislative agenda. Johnson is credited for creating Medicare and Medicaid and many other social programs still in use today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Three days later, at a virtual press conference that featured a panel of Oregon-based experts on subjects from child care to environment, DeFazio stressed the importance of what could be Biden\u2019s signature legislation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is part two of the president\u2019s plan to move America to the 21st century,\u201d DeFazio said at the Nov. 22 virtual event. The first part, Biden\u2019s infrastructure bill, was about physical infrastructure, he added. \u201cThis is the Build Back Better, a much larger investment when dealing with climate change but also a large investment in the social infrastructure of the United States of America, which lags behind the rest of the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s Build Back Better Act, which the House approved on party lines on Nov. 19, funds child care programs, lowers the cost of some prescription drugs, provides money to lower greenhouse gas emissions and more. It\u2019s now awaiting Senate approval.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the provisions in the Build Back Better legislative framework that DeFazio focused on was subsidizing child care. \u201cAn average Oregonian with two young kids pays 19 percent of their income on child care, per year,\u201d he said. \u201cThis bill would say you would pay no more than 7 percent of your income for quality child care. This will cover nine out of 10 children in the state.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Andrea Paluso is the executive director of Family Forward Oregon, a caregiver grassroots organization. Paluso spoke at the press conference and said the legislation in Build Back Better provides \u201ccritically overdue\u201d investments in child care, pre-kindergarten and elder care. \u201cWe cannot come back equitably from the COVID health and economic crisis in a way that reaches all of our communities without the investments in Build Back Better,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Paluso said the legislation provides affordable and quality child care to many families. \u201cThis will be a huge financial relief for families in Oregon, where the average annual cost for child care is over $10,000 a year,\u201d she said. \u201cCare work is the work that makes all other work possible. With these investments, the Build Back Better act helps us build an equitable recovery for women who simply cannot work or stay working if they don\u2019t have access to child care.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Biden signed the infrastructure bill into law Nov. 15, <\/span>DeFazio said it didn\u2019t go far enough for climate change-related investments<\/span><\/a>. But at the Nov. 22 press conference, he and others spoke highly about the climate provisions in Build Back Better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Environment Oregon State Director Celeste Meiffren-Swango said after 18 months of record-breaking drought, heat and wildfires in Oregon, the advocacy group was happy to see the House pass the legislation, which she called the largest federal investment in climate solutions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the bill\u2019s provisions are incentives for people to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. Meiffren-Swango pointed to an extension of the 10-year extension and expansion of the U.S.\u2019s clean energy incentives. The bill has provisions that include decreasing the cost of installing solar panels, providing Americans with up to $12,500 on electric vehicles through rebates and offering incentives for e-bikes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DeFazio said Build Back Better is a reconciliation bill, so the Senate needs a simple majority to pass it rather than a two-thirds. But he added that the Democrats need all 50 senators to vote in favor of it, hinting at the party\u2019s trouble of having senators. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia fall in line in the past.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But DeFazio expressed optimism for the bill\u2019s future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s make it a year-end gift for America,\u201d DeFazio said about Build Back Better as he ended the press conference.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One way that Rep. Peter DeFazio describes President Joe Biden\u2019s Build Back Better Act is by comparing it to former President Donald Trump\u2019s tax cuts.\u00a0 \u2026 Continue reading\u00a0\u2192<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,101,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-ew-extra","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/extra.eugeneweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}