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NOVEMBER 11, 2021

Meyerson on TAP

How the Build Back Better Bill Fights the Rising Cost of Living

Adding an anti-inflation pitch to the case for the BBB bill

Up to now, to the extent that the Democrats have made the case for their
Build Back Better bill, they've made it, all too inaudibly, on the
benefits it will be providing. They need to do that far more
emphatically now, but with one all-important twist. As inflation has now
become a very real national problem, and not necessarily one that's
all that ephemeral, it's time to make the case that the bill reduces
the very expenses most Americans struggle to meet.

Joe Manchin-whose closest biblical analogue appears to be the God who
torments Job-now says that inflation may be sufficient reason for him
to back off his commitment to President Biden to support a $1.75
trillion bill. The logic behind such a shift is nonexistent: Rather than
fueling higher costs, the bill will lift a host of financial burdens on
our citizenry. Indeed, the bill targets a number of sectors where prices
have been out of control for years.

For instance, drug prices. The bill significantly reduces the ceiling on
seniors' out-of-pocket yearly drug payments from $6,000 to $2,000 and
authorizes the government to negotiate down the price of a number of
medications (not a high enough number, but it's a start).

For instance, child care. The bill allots funds to ensure that a
family's child care payments don't exceed 7 percent of their income
and establishes universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds.

For instance, child-rearing. The bill extends the Child Tax Credit,
albeit for only one year, but that doesn't preclude its extension.

For instance, the cost of college-well, that was addressed in the
original bill's provision to make community college tuition free, but
the dull adamance of Manchin & Co. caused this anti-inflation provision
to be dropped from the current bill.

Assuming, as appears likely, that the bill makes it through the House
next week, there's one provision that the Senate should add to it when
it then comes before them that would help Americans cope with the rising
cost of oil and gas: additional subsidies for heating oil this winter.
Republicans are already poised to unanimously reject all these various
anti-inflation provisions; as they're determined to vote down heating
oil subsidies as part of the bill, too, well, let 'em.

The causes of the current bout of inflation-supply chain gridlock, a
shift in purchases from services to more costly goods-have nothing to
do with government spending, the blather of the Manchinites to the
contrary notwithstanding. Rather than using inflation as an ostensible
reason to further cut the BBB bill, Democrats need to highlight how it
will reduce the expenses for which Americans are compelled to shell out
every day.

Want to cut costs? Pass the damn bill.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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A Nuclear Cop-Out in Glasgow

If the international community can't make headway on nuclear energy
goals at COP26, when, if ever, is it going to happen? BY GABRIELLE
GURLEY

Toxic Ads and How to Counter Them

Anticipating and rebutting likely lines of attack is the best strategy,
on both partisan and civic grounds. BY RICHARD LEMPERT

Gensler Punts in Fight Over Auditing Watchdog

The SEC chair installs a corporate defense lawyer to run the Public
Company Accounting Oversight Board. BY MAX MORAN

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