WASHINGTON — In March 2010, with Tea Party activists protesting loudly in the hallways of Capitol Hill and the political wind in their faces, 34 House Democrats — including Representative Stephen F. Lynch of Massachusetts — broke with their president to vote against passage of the Affordable Care Act.It was not enough to kill the bill, but more than enough to register deep concerns about its reach in American society — and its potential impact on the midterm elections.On Friday, Mr. Lynch and every other Democrat but one cast votes for about $2 trillion in spending on social welfare and climate change programs that arguably go much farther than the health law — farther, in fact, than any government intervention in half a century. And the concerns that peeled so many Democrats away from the health measure more than a decade ago were hardly in evidence — at least on their side of the aisle.“I’ve served a couple of times in the minority, a couple of times in the majority,” said Mr. Lynch, the last remaining House Democrat who voted against Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. “I’ve got a better sense of time and how these moments are rare when you can seize on something and make real change.”The political and economic shifts in the United States in the decade between the first vote and the second may explain how a party still divided could unite around legislation of such sweep. The worst public health crisis in a century laid bare economic stagnation in the middle class and the soaring wealth of the super rich. The recovery from the coronavirus crisis is still held back by child care costs and poor educational access that have kept parents home instead of working.Searing heat waves, record wildfires and waves of battering hurricanes have underlined the reality of climate change. And the killings of Black men and women, captured on video and spread instantly around the world, raised awareness of racial injustice and inequality just as a new generation of progressives was rising up in the Democratic Party.“I’ve always said courage comes out of crisis,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and the leader of the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. “You just couldn’t ignore this stuff anymore. It was intolerable to watch.”Those forces appeared to unite Democrats as they made their way to the Capitol to vote. There were no shouts from angry opponents, like the ones that greeted Democrats in 2010 as they prepared to approve the Affordable Care Act. Their main barrier to passage was an eight-hour speech by the House Republican leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California. Beyond the chamber, the only activists in evidence were a small clutch of supporters singing old union songs and someone dressed like the Build Back Better Act, modeled after the bill in the old “Schoolhouse Rock” video.ImageRepresentative Pramila Jayapal of Washington and the progressive Democrats she leads in the House were eventually able to compromise with moderates.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe social safety net and climate bill still must navigate a tortuous road through the evenly divided Senate, where a single defection would bring it down. If it is able to clear that chamber, it most likely will have to go back to the House for a final vote, devoid of some of the items that drew Democrats to support it on Friday. But if it is enacted, it will touch virtually every American life, from birth to death, akin to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal or Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society.Its generous subsidies for child care and universal prekindergarten are designed to lift the struggling working class into a less precarious economic position. Ample housing support, more higher education aid and worker training programs in the bill would reach well into the middle class. Home and community health care, a new hearing benefit for Medicare and price controls for prescription drugs would ease the lives of older Americans.All of that could reasonably be described as big-government excess, and Republicans have made that case repeatedly for months. The scope and cost of the bill, if anything, is understated by its roughly $2 trillion price tag because Democrats kept the cost down by phasing in some measures and arbitrarily ending others well before the expiration of the bill’s 10-year window, some after a single year. In all, according to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, if the entire Build Back Better Act were made permanent, the 10-year cost would be $4.9 trillion, which would exceed the inflation-adjusted, four-year cost of World War II, as Mr. McCarthy charged repeatedly over eight hours.Yet a combined assault by business organizations like the U.S.By: Jonathan Weisman
Title: Painful Changes in Society Eased Passage of Bold Safety Net Measure
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2021/11/19/us/politics/democrats-economic-bill.html
Published Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2021 16:55:31 +0000
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