During the Obama administration’s first year in office, as it crafted the health care proposal that would become the Affordable Care Act,...
During the Obama administration’s first year in office, as it crafted the health care proposal that would become the Affordable Care Act, it also ignored key policy details in its budget tables. Similarly, the Trump administration’s first budget offered few details about its ambitions to overhaul the tax code, a priority that materialized later that year.
But both of these omissions happened in the early months of administrations, before White House politicians or congressional negotiators had time to develop the finer points. Mr. Biden’s domestic policy agenda, by contrast, has been the subject of numerous white papers, policy speeches and pieces of legislation – including a bill passed by the House in November.
Tax overhaul and Obamacare were major projects for these administrations, but they did not represent the range of their national ambitions in the way that Build Back Better does for the Biden White House.
The Biden administration’s plan, crafted as a single piece of legislation that could go through a special process without requiring Republican votes, included a range of tax, social and climate policy ideas, forming part of much of the program Biden’s presidential campaign. According to the details, the proposal is expected to increase both spending and revenue by $1 trillion or more over a decade.
And though Trump’s budget office declined to elaborate on tax details in 2017, he pledged to include substantial cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act as part of his plan to “repeal and replace” the Health Act.
Ironically, the Biden administration’s budget includes proposals, like an increase in the corporate tax rate, that lawmakers have already stripped from legislation in their recent negotiations.
Last year’s budget featured more of Mr Biden’s domestic policy plan, detailing programs to tackle climate change and expand child care, for example, which became part of the proposal Build Back Better.
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