Build Back Good

There’s that old saying “don’t let the perfect (Better) be the enemy of the good.” And perhaps now is the time for the Democrats to take that admonition to heart. Manchin has been fairly clear about his demands: Cap spending right around 1.75 trillion dollars and make sure the programs last for the whole 10 years of the budget cycle.

So, looking at one version of the CBO scoring and doing some back of the napkin math—pushing everything currently in the Build Back Better bill out for the whole 10 years would make it cost approximately 4 trillion dollars; this is 2.25 trillion more than Manchin is willing to spend.

The costliest item is continuing the enhanced child tax credit ($250-300 per child per month for 35,00,000 families) and the earned income tax credit (assistance for 17,000,000 poor people), that the current bill only funds for one additional year. These tax credits cost 203 billion dollars for one year, but jumps to 2 trillion dollars when multiplied by 10 years. Universal pre-K for 3 and 4-year-olds, and capping childcare costs at 7% of a family’s income, was a 6-year program costing 381 billion dollars, so increasing it to a decade would cost approximately 636 billion dollars. Similarly, the bill planned on shoring up the ACA and Medicare for only 4 years, pumping it up to 10-year costs 420 billion. And covering the cost of hearing aids with Medicare was planned as a 7-year program, bumping it up to 10 pushes the cost to 51 billion dollars. Helping the 800,000 Americans who need home healthcare but can’t currently get it, tackling climate change, and expanding the Pell grant for college students, are all unaffected by Manchin’s constraints.

With all that in mind, there is still room for the Democrats to do some big things and tell the story about how they’re helping the American people. Here are a few examples of “Build Back Good” bills that would fit Manchin’s demands:

 

Protecting Our Children, Our Planet, and Our Health

This configuration just takes the four costliest items in the Build Back Better bill, minus the tax credits that Manchin isn’t so keen on.

$636 Billion—Universal PreK & Child Care

$570 Billion—Climate

$420 Billion—ACA & Medicare

$158 Billion—Home Health Care

 

Investing in our Future

              One of Manchin’s concerns about the tax credits is that they are too universal and should only help poor folk. So, what if number crunchers cut the eligibility for the credits in half, so something like head of households making less than $56,250 and couples making less than $75,000 are eligible for this type of help?

              This version of the bill would focus fairly exclusively on helping younger Americans.

$1.015 Trillion—Modified Tax Credits

$636 Billion—Universal PreK & Child Care

$39.8 Billion—Expanded Pell Grants

 

Our Health, Our Home

              Or finally, what if the focus is on good sustainable healthcare, climate resilience, and plentiful affordable housing?

$420 Billion—ACA & Medicare

$158 Billion—Home Health Care

$51 Billion—Hearing Aids

$570 Billion—Climate

$148 Billion—Housing

 

              All this just to say, $1.75 trillion is still a lot of money, and doing one or two big things that could help a lot of people for the next decade ought not be seen as a consolation prize. It is worth at least imagining what is possible within the constraints of the present.