{"id":46822,"date":"2021-11-05T15:24:08","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T15:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=46822"},"modified":"2021-11-05T15:24:08","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T15:24:08","slug":"whats-in-bidens-1-75-trillion-build-back-better-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=46822","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in Biden\u2019s $1.75 trillion \u2018Build Back Better\u2019 package?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"article__subhead css-1wt8oh6\">The legislation proposes sweeping changes for US housing, climate, healthcare, tax, education and other policies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"44\">\n<p>The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives was expected to vote on Friday on a sweeping, $1.75 trillion social policy and climate package that accounts for much of Democratic President Joe Biden\u2019s domestic agenda.<\/p>\n<p>The package has been scaled back and modified extensively during months of negotiations, and is likely to be modified further in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Here is what the latest version contains, according to the White House:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Family benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Free preschool for all three- and four-year-olds<\/li>\n<li>Support for childcare costs: Families that earn less than $300,000 per year would pay no more than 7 percent of their income on childcare<\/li>\n<li>Tax credits worth up to $300 per child per month<\/li>\n<li>Bolsters coverage of home care costs for the elderly and disabled people through the Medicaid health programme<\/li>\n<li>Expands free school meals and provides $65 per month in grocery money during summer months for 29 million low-income children who are eligible for free lunches at school<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Climate<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Rebates and credits to cut the cost of rooftop solar systems by 30 percent and union-made electric vehicles produced in the US by $12,500<\/li>\n<li>Incentives to encourage US manufacturing of clean energy technology and shift other industries to reduce carbon emissions<\/li>\n<li>Creates 300,000-strong Civilian Climate Corps to work on environmental and climate projects<\/li>\n<li>Creates a Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator to invest in climate-related projects, with at least 40 percent serving disadvantaged communities<\/li>\n<li>New spending on coastal restoration, forest management and soil conservation\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Healthcare<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Enables the Medicare health plan for seniors to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs that have been on the market for at least nine years<\/li>\n<li>Penalises drug companies that increase prices faster than inflation<\/li>\n<li>Caps out-of-pocket prescription drug prices at $2,000 per year and lowers insulin prices to $35 per month<\/li>\n<li>Expands Medicare to cover hearing aids<\/li>\n<li>Reduces Affordable Care Act premiums by an average of $600 per person per year<\/li>\n<li>Expands Medicaid coverage to low-income people in the 12 states that have opted not to expand the programme on their own<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Housing<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Expands affordable housing, public housing and rental assistance programmes<\/li>\n<li>Broadens downpayment assistance to bolster homeownership<\/li>\n<li>Expands lead paint removal efforts<\/li>\n<li>Supports community-led redevelopment in low-income neighbourhoods<\/li>\n<li>Encourages local governments to ease zoning restrictions that limit housing density<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Education<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Increases Pell Grants for college costs<\/li>\n<li>More aid for historically Black colleges and other minority-serving schools<\/li>\n<li>Boosts the Labor Department\u2019s job training programmes by 50 percent\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Immigration*<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$100bn in \u201cimmigration reform\u201d, which is additional funding beyond the $1.75 trillion<\/li>\n<li>Efforts to reduce backlogs, expand legal services and improve border processing and asylum programmes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Other programmes<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Expands a tax credit for low-income workers to cover those who do not have children<\/li>\n<li>More money for rural projects<\/li>\n<li>Supports community violence intervention<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Taxes<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>15 percent minimum tax on corporate profits for companies with more than $1bn in profits<\/li>\n<li>1 percent surcharge on stock buybacks<\/li>\n<li>15 percent minimum tax on foreign profits of US corporations<\/li>\n<li>5 percent surtax on personal income above $10m<\/li>\n<li>Additional 3 percent surtax on income above $25m<\/li>\n<li>Close loophole to prevent the wealthy from avoiding 3.8 percent Medicare tax<\/li>\n<li>Bolster the Internal Revenue Service to improve customer service and focus enforcement on wealthy tax evaders<\/li>\n<li>Expands a deduction for state and local taxes that primarily benefits upper-income households in high-tax states. Republicans had reduced that benefit in their 2017 tax cut package<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>*Immigration provisions could be removed from the legislation by the Senate parliamentarian<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The legislation proposes sweeping changes for US housing, climate, healthcare, tax, education and other policies.The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives was expected to vote on Friday on a sweeping, $1.75 trillion social policy and climate package that accounts for much of Democratic President Joe Biden\u2019s domestic agenda. The package has been scaled back and modified&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":46823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}