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NEW: A Build Back Better bill all Democrats can get behind
PPI's Ben Ritz for The Washington Post
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President Biden is trying to build consensus around a $1.9 trillion to $2.3 trillion reconciliation bill, after several lawmakers in his own party made clear they could not support the full $3.5 trillion proposal working its way through Congress. Although some on the left are understandably disappointed, this package would still be an enormous accomplishment: Combined with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, it would represent the third pillar of the largest and most progressive public investment since the Great Society over 50 years ago. But to get this transformative win across the finish line, Democrats must agree to spend smarter, not bigger and coalesce around a plan to pay for it.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) recently published a report detailing what such a package could entail. Our blueprint includes $925 billion for a permanently expanded Child Tax Credit, universal preschool and a more robust system for non-college-educated workers to acquire marketable skills. To combat climate change, we propose $600 billion for tax credits and other incentives that would encourage the adoption of affordable electric vehicles and technologies such as carbon capture, hydrogen and geothermal energy and advanced nuclear power. Finally, we propose $425 billion to strengthen the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by giving coverage to working families who don’t already have it and pairing that with other measures to control health-care costs.
by Ben Ritz, Director of PPI's Center for Funding America's Future
for The Washington Post
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Hot Off the Press
By PPI President Will Marshall
"In politics, success tends to beget success. That truism apparently eluded leftwing Democrats on Sept. 30 when they refused to vote for President Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Instead of basking in accolades for having passed a second landmark achievement to go with Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, Democrats are treating the public to an extended exhibition of their inability to forge the internal consensus necessary to govern."
New York Times: Biden Scales Back His Agenda in Hopes of Bringing Moderates Onboard | 10.5.21
By Jim Tankersley and Emily Cochrane
"On Tuesday, the centrist Progressive Policy Institute issued a report outlining a potential $2 trillion plan built around efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a means-tested prekindergarten program, an expansion of the Affordable Care Act and a more modest extension of the tax credit for parents than Mr. Biden has championed."
 NBC News: Centrist Democrats outline a scaled-back budget bill | 10.7.21
By Chuck Todd, Benjy Sarlin, Mark Murray and Ben Kamisar
"As Democrats begin to contemplate cuts to their $3.5 trillion 'Build Back Better' bill, the centrist Progressive Policy Institute took a crack at a $2 trillion version this week.
It’s one of the more detailed pitches for a smaller bill so far, and there’s some overlap between the group’s perspective and holdouts like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., so it’s worth taking a look at how they got there."
Bloomberg: Tariffs on China Are Destructive and They Are Here to Stay | 10.7.21
By Ramesh Ponnuru
"The trade war hasn’t shrunk the U.S. trade deficit, either. It’s higher than it was beforehand. Ed Gresser, a former assistant U.S. trade representative who studies trade for the Progressive Policy Institute, says that economic theory suggests that tariffs will not move trade into balance. Now, he adds, 'there’s been an experiment and the results are in.'"
 
Washington Post: Liberal Democrats have become the mainstream of the party and less willing to compromise with dwindling moderates | 10.10.21
By Marianna Sotomayor
"DelBene’s group has pitched preserving three specific priorities, including fully funding the child tax credit enacted earlier this year, making permanent insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and expanding access to Medicaid in states under Republican control, and addressing climate change.
The pitch is backed by the Progressive Policy Institute in a new report that categorizes priorities into three buckets to reach the $2 trillion price tag Biden suggested to progressives due to the objections of Manchin and Sinema to the larger price tag."
BuzzFeed News: Here’s What It Actually Means To Cut $1 Trillion From The Democrats’ Big Social Spending Bill | 10.11.21
By Paul McLeod
“'If you set up programs so they are automatically going to expire, that creates the risk that they actually do expire,' said Ben Ritz, a director at the Progressive Policy Institute. 'I think it’s very problematic for Congress to create a new benefit that people come to rely on and then a few years later it goes away.'
Ritz pointed to the Affordable Care Act signed into law, permanently, by President Obama. Republicans have failed to actively repeal the ACA despite years of vowing to do so. But it would be a very different calculus if they could simply do nothing and let it expire on its own.
Ritz put together a framework of what a roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act could look like."
 CNN: Kids could be the budget bill's big winners -- or losers | 10.12.21
By Ronald Brownstein
"'There's no question the initial Biden proposal had a lot of great investments in kids and families that would be ... forward-looking,' says Ben Ritz, director of the Center for Funding America's Future at the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank. 'It's a question of whether they survive the process. I think there is a real risk of taking our eye off the ball.'"
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New from the Experts
PPI President Will Marshall: Democrats need a win — now
⮕ The Hill
Reinventing America's Schools Project Co-Director Tressa Pankovits: Senate Must Undo House Appropriations Committee's Discrimination Against Students
⮕ RealClearPolicy
Center for Funding America's Future Director Ben Ritz: Reconciling with Reality: the Top Priorities for Building Back Better
⮕ PPI
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Recently, the Progressive Policy Institute’s Center for Funding America’s Future released a focused blueprint for delivering on President Biden’s promise to Build Back Better while addressing the concerns of moderates who cannot support $3.5 trillion of new spending.
Ben Ritz joined the Radically Pragmatic podcast to give listeners a walk through of the current state of play in Congress, top priorities for building back better, and how PPI’s must-read blueprint offers a bold and pragmatic solution to the current stalemate.
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Why does the policy world underrepresent women's voices, and what can we do about it? Jasmine Stoughton of the Mosaic Economic Project joins the show to talk about the Mosaic Project's work to amplify the voices of women experts in policy areas like technology, economics and more.
We discuss the talent pipeline for women with expertise, how to break up the 'Old Boys Club' in Washington, D.C., and why representation matters.
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Don't Miss These PPI Events
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TODAY: Curtis Valentine in Conversation with Maritza Guridy
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Coming up soon, Reinventing America's Schools Project Co-Director Curtis Valentine joins Maritza Guridy of the National Parents Union, for a conversation on teaching, the future of education, and more.
Don't miss their conversation today at 4:00pm ET!
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Don't Miss These PPI Reports
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Reconciling with Reality: Top Priorities for Building Back Better
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New from PPI's Center for Funding America's Future:
“When combined with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill, this package would represent the third pillar of the largest and most progressive public investment since the Great Society over 50 years ago," said PPI's Ben Ritz in "Reconciling With Reality."
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