(Headline USA) President Joe Biden will call for free preschool for all 3- and 4-year-old children, a $200 billion expense to be rolled out as part of his sweeping American Families Plan being unveiled Wednesday in a joint address to Congress.
The administration said the pricey, big-government investment would benefit 5 million children and save the average family $13,000. It calls for providing federal funds to help the states offer preschool, with teachers and other employees earning $15 an hour.
“These investments will give American children a head start and pave the way for the best-educated generation in U.S. history,” the administration said.
But it comes as government debt—already reaching alarming levels due to the coronavirus shutdown—swells to unfathomable heights from the so-called moderate Democrat’s proposed spending sprees, which he has couched under the phony label of “infrastructure.”
The new details are part of Biden’s $1 trillion-plus package focused on so-called human infrastructure—child care, health care, education and other core aspects of the household “architecture” that undergird everyday life for countless Americans.
It is the first time such initiatives have ever been classified as such, with the reasoning being that Democrats would be able to railroad them through the Senate using the disputed “reconciliation” process with a party-line vote.
No Republicans voted for Biden’s coronavirus rescue plan, which was criticized for being 90% Democrat pork with only 10% direct financial relief in the form of payouts to those in need.
Last week, Republican senators proposed an alternative infrastructure plan focused on more traditional highway and bridge investments that would be one-fourth the cost, paid for by tolls and other user fees.
Under the Left’s new “infrastructure” proposal, expenditures ostensibly would be paid for by hiking taxes, although Biden continues to claim he would not to raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 a year. Regardless of whether he keeps that promise, the hike will have a trickle-down impact on suppressing the national economy at a delicate moment as the US continues to recover from the pandemic.
Along with his recent overtures toward raising the minimum wage and surging indexes for cost-of-living and inflation directly resulting from his policies, it could lead to even more hits on small, independent businesses that will, in turn, lead to large-scale layoffs.
Before Wednesday night’s address, with details of the plan still in flux, leftist lawmakers pushed to make sure key priorities were included in this next phase of Biden’s massive infrastructure reinvestment program.
A group of leading Democrats met late Tuesday with the White House to discuss its priority of making permanent the Child Tax Credit, which was increased to as much as $300 a month as part of a COVID-19 relief package. Right now, that benefit expires in 2022 and Biden has suggested extending it to 2025.
“We continue to push,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the chairman of the Banking Committee and advocate for a permanent child tax credit, said late Monday evening. “We’re hopeful. We want it to be permanent because it’s so important for so many people’s lives.”
The package builds on Biden’s proposed $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, a massive expenditure in infrastructure that goes beyond roads and bridges to include veterans hospitals, child care centers and other developments.
The White House has portrayed its plan as a Robin Hood-style effort to tax the rich in order to spend on benefits for the middle class and poor.
It’s an argument that the hundreds of billions of dollars controlled by the wealthiest sliver of the country would lead to better results for the country if they were distributed instead to families.
In addition to extending an expanded child tax credit through 2025, giving parents monthly payments of at least $250 per child, it would provide free community college and paid family leave, among other benefits.
Funding the initiative would be a near doubling of the capital gains tax rate on incomes above $1 million to 39.6%.
Similarly, the top income tax bracket for those households earning beyond $400,000 is expected to revert to 39.6%, according to a Democratic aide granted anonymity to discuss the planning.
That had been the top rate before the popular 2017 GOP tax overhaul approved by Donald Trump.
Initial reports of an increase in capital gains taxes triggered a stock market sell-off last week. But Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, tried to assuage voters Monday by saying just a fraction of the country would be paying more.
“We believe that it’s not only fair, but it would also help to reduce the kinds of tax avoidance that significantly undermines trust and fairness in the tax code itself,” Deese claimed. “The revenue from this provision would help invest directly in our kids and our families and our future economic competitiveness.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
