November 7, 2021

Five Things You Didn’t Know Were in “Build Back Better”

And five Republican amendments that are dead on arrival.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

As soon as Congress sent its $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to President Joe Biden’s desk on Friday, the media focus quickly shifted to the other, major piece of Democratic legislation still awaiting approval: the sprawling Build Back Better Act. That bill includes a host of progressive priorities—paid family and sick leave, public housing, child care, and universal preschool—along with $550 billion aimed at fighting climate change. 

Originally House Democrats had intended to pair the bill with the bipartisan infrastructure package, but opposition by moderate Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to the bill’s price tag—roughly $1.85 trillion in its latest iteration—and ambitious scope led the Democratic leadership to uncouple the bills. With Build Back Better in limbo, six leading progressive Democrats resisted a vote on the infrastructure bill and ultimately voted no—with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) calling it “bullshit”—but there was enough Republican support to get it past the finish line. 

To pass Build Back Better, Democrats need every one of their members’ votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster—whether moderates sign on is anyone’s guess. But the legislation itself, for all the horse-trading about its future, contains some initiatives you probably haven’t heard about. ProPublica reporter Lydia DePillis went through the bill and noted plenty of under-the-radar items:

A safety net for new mothers

More than $1 billion toward pandemic prevention

A huge grant to study the supply chain crisis

A commitment to mental health treatment and suicide prevention

Nearly $100 million for programs to increase composting

Contributions from the other side
The five items above are just a small sampling of the current bill, which will undergo further revisions as it moves through the Senate. And here, from the other side of the aisle, are five amendments—all introduced by House Republicans—that almost certainly will not appear in the final version:

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) proposes to…prevent the Build Back Better Act from doing anything!

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) is no fan of universal pre-K:

The bill provides nearly $79 billion to bolster the ability of the IRS to pursue high-income tax cheats.

Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) has a different figure in mind:

Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) aims to water down the bill’s environmental justice provisions and give the fossil-fuel industry a break:

Last but not least, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), evidently not a fan of wasting anyone’s time, gets right to the heart of the matter:

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate