The Biden administration released a new analysis Thursday touting the president’s economic agenda, as outlined in the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package, as providing tax benefits for millions of small businesses.
The analysis, performed by the Treasury Department and distributed by the White House, estimates that 3.9 million small business owners will see reduced tax burdens should Congress pass the larger infrastructure package. The majority of that number comes from a five-year extension of the expanded child tax credit included in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
BIDEN’S INFRASTRUCTURE PUSH HIGHLIGHTING DEMOCRAT DIVISIONS
The administration added that the reconciliation package, as currently outlined in the blueprint released by Senate leadership earlier in August, would also make permanent tax credits for small businesses that supply employees with healthcare coverage through the federal government, lowering the tax burden for an estimated 900,000 small businesses in the process.
The reconciliation package faces significant challenges before President Joe Biden can sign it into law.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of her own caucus are currently jockeying over the timeline on which the House will vote on the president’s two infrastructure proposals.
Nine centrist House Democrats wrote a letter to Pelosi on Tuesday voicing inflation-related concerns with parts of the larger package, and they threatened not to vote for it unless the speaker first scheduled a vote on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan, physical infrastructure package first.
“As we begin the reconciliation process, we have concerns about the specific components of that potential package,” the group wrote in the letter. “These specifics are crucial, particularly given the combined threat of rising inflation, national debt, and the trillions recently, and appropriately, allocated to the COVID-19 emergency.”
Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia have both voiced similar concerns over the reconciliation package, despite initially voting yes on a procedural hurdle last week.
Pelosi responded in kind on Sunday by seeking to tie the two packages together.
“I have requested that the Rules Committee explore the possibility of a rule that advances both the budget resolution and the bipartisan infrastructure package. This will put us on a path to advance the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill,” Pelosi wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter to House Democrats. “Passing the two bills before us will give us the leverage that we need to expand the Biden Child Tax Credit, Child Care, paid family and medical leave, universal pre-K, workforce development, education, climate, housing and other initiatives that many Members have worked on for years.”
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The Biden administration analysis on Thursday also outlined a number of other supposed economic benefits of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, including tightening tax loopholes for the 55 large corporations that paid no federal taxes in 2020 and funneling “billions” in new investments toward minority-owned and other “underserved” small businesses.
