Ian Patrick, FISM News
The House of Representatives has passed the sweeping Build Back Better Act pushed by President Biden and progressive Democrats, a day after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their report saying that the bill will add about $367 billion “over the 2022-2031 period.”
According to the spreadsheet released by the CBO, the total amount in direct spending that the bill will incur over its lifetime – assuming the bill is implemented by the 2022 start date – is estimated to total $1.635 trillion. The CBO expects the bill to generate $1.268 trillion in the same time period, which results in the net deficit of $367 billion.
Broken down, the sector which will see the biggest increase in spending is Education and Labor with a net total of over $454 billion. The sector with the least amount of additional spending is in Homeland Security at $1.5 billion.
The CBO asserts that the bill will not be fully paid for, a claim that is constantly pushed by the White House. However, the CBO and the White House differ on how much revenue will be generated from the bill, with the Biden administration now claiming that their bill actually saves America money.
Releasing a separate report on the matter, the White House says that the bill will decrease the deficit in the same time period from 2022 to 2031. Their initial report said that the decrease would be $36 billion, but they updated their estimate after the CBO report was released to say that the decrease would be $112 billion.
Over 20 years, the White House asserts that the bill will decrease the national deficit by “at least” $2 trillion.
The discrepancy in how much the bill will cost or save mainly boils down to the amount of revenue generated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the 10 year period supported by the legislation. The CBO says in their report that an investment in the service would decrease the overall cost by $127 billion. However, they did not factor this number into their $367 billion expense total.
The White House claims that the IRS investment would generate $400 billion, which would pay for the bill in full. That, along with increased taxes on high-income earners and companies, is how they claim the bill would generate revenue.
The bill was put to a vote last night but was stalled by a historic 8-and-a-half hour speech by GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy. He broke the record for the longest House floor speech, starting at 8:38 p.m. on Nov. 18 and ending at 5:10 a.m. today.
Touching on a range of topics throughout the lengthy filibuster, McCarthy ultimately took the stand in order to blast Democrats for wanting to spend such an exorbitant amount despite being constantly taunted by Democrats during the first few hours of his speech.
.@GOPLeader completely deconstructs the Democrats’ disastrous Build Back Broke agenda.
*higher taxes for businesses
*open borders agenda
*amnesty
*tax on energy Americans need to heat their homes
*tax cut for millionaires in Pelosi's districtpic.twitter.com/LDvDq6Dza5— Tommy Pigott (@TommyPigott) November 19, 2021
The House delayed the vote to this morning, where it passed in a 220-213 vote with Democrat Jared Golden of Maine being the only one of his party to vote against it. The bill now moves to the Senate, where its future is again uncertain.
Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have publicly opposed the size of the bill and some of its provisions in the past few months, working with other Democrats to try and bring it down. Without their votes, the bill would be dead on arrival in the evenly divided Senate.
If the bill is altered again in the Senate before it passes, it will be sent back to the House for an approval vote.
You can view the entirety of the CBO report by downloading it using this link: CBO Deficit Summary