Build Back Better will Lift People Up and Move the Country Forward

One thing is certain as the Democrats in the United States Senate starts to craft their own version of the Biden/Harris Build Back Better Plan.

Whatever emerges will lift people up and move the country forward.

The current version of the plan includes headline items like:

• an extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit (the current version, passed earlier this year, has reduced child poverty and will expire at the end of December unless renewed.)
• Universal Pre K.
• an increase in Pell Grants and apprenticeship programs.
• major investments in child and home care.
• major investments and tax credits in clean and sustainable energy technologies.
• health care expansion for millions of disadvantaged and middle class Americans.
• Paid Family and Medical leave.
• A version of negotiating drug prices.

As CNN reported, there are also many "smaller items" in the House version of Build Back Better that can be just as significant to the American People. They include:

• tax credits for purchasing e bikes.
• a $35.00 cap on insulin costs.
• a years Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (C.H.I.P.) coverage for all new mothers.
• ensuring children on SNAP get fed during the summer.
• assistance for the unemployed to secure health insurance.
• aid to local news outlets which would be great for struggling local journalistic operations.
• college completion grants.
• public housing repairs.
• cleaning up national forests and parks.
• salmon conservation.

In the below exchange with Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, California Representative Katie Porter skillfully frames that these components in the Build Back Better Plan are analogous to building blocks that will lead to the country successfully competing in the global economy.

The above exchange between Porter and O'Donnell also rightly pointed out that the concerns, expressed by some like Joe Manchin, over inflation, did not materialize with the passage of the Defense Bill.

The Senate version of Build Back Better will contain changes from the House bill.

There is a chance that the Family Leave provisions may be stripped.

So will, probably, any attempts to install immigration reform, in it.

The investments in green and sustainable energy may be reworked as well (although not stripped.)

The point is that whatever emerges from the Senate will still contain major investments in the American People and the United States that will benefit millions and move the country forward.

Universal Pre K for example, would be huge, if it was just a standalone bill.

So would the extension and expansion of the Child Tax Credit.

The takeaway from what emerges from the Senate is take what you get and come back for more later.

Pass Build Back Better now so that the American People will have a brighter tomorrow in 2022.