Infrastructure Bill Update

Written by Cooper Melvin, J.D.

In a previous Beyond the Bottom Line, we introduced a summary of the Reconciliation Bill. Earlier this week, there were proposed changes to the bill to garner more support from centrist democrats. As a result, Congress has proposed decreasing the bill budget to $1.75-$2 trillion. This is down nearly 50% from the original $3.5 trillion proposal. Congress proposes the following major additions and cuts from the original bill to decrease the budget:

• Dropping two years of free community college which is estimated to save $109 billion,
• Expanding the extended child tax credit for one year instead of through 2025 which is projected to save over $400 billion,
• Adding mandatory reporting of bank transactions over $10,000 (this replaces an earlier proposal of $600 transactions) to identify more taxable income,
• Focusing on expanding Medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing as well as expanding elderly benefits,
• Abandoning the clean electricity program and using the earmarked $150 billion towards other climate measures,
• Including significant money towards affordable housing, but much less than originally proposed, and
• Cutting federal paid leave to four weeks instead of the original twelve weeks.

Democrats vow to remain focused on passing significant climate policies and hope to get a deal finalized before Biden’s upcoming trip to Scotland for an international climate change meeting. Though centrist democrats, that originally expressed concern for the bill’s amount, are expressing more support, it remains unclear when or even if the proposed legislation will pass. Democrats are confident that most of their priorities will get through, just on a lesser scale than originally planned. If you have any questions about how this affects you or your business, please contact your BMSS professional.