Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and Congressman Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) recently outlined the main obstacles to passing the all important $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill, highlighting that the progressive wing of the party has negotiated in good faith and that its members are crucial to maintaining a majority in Congress.

 

Both congress members were speaking in the context of a visit by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, to the recently opened, state-of-the-art Edenwald YMCA center, located in the Northeast Bronx on Friday, Oct. 22, at the invitation of Bowman in whose district the center is based. According to Bowman’s office the purpose of the visit was to advocate for the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” agenda and policies to uplift working families.

 

“It’s an absolute honor to welcome our vice president, Kamala Harris, to the Bronx, a community of incredible resilience, culture, and diversity that for far too long has been overlooked,” said Bowman. “I’m incredibly proud to have had the chance to show Vice President Harris and Secretary Becerra what we’re about here in the Bronx, and to join them in the fight to uplift working families and bring the change that people deserve.”

 

The congressman said at every level of government, it was the job of elected officials to ensure communities like Edenwald were given targeted and reparative investments. “That starts with the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda,” he said. “With bold, public investments in care for people, communities, and the environment, we can anchor the rebirth of our country and secure our future.”

 

During the event, Bowman, a former teacher of twenty years, highlighted the positive impact of the American Rescue Plan’s expanded child tax credit (CTC), which provided the largest child tax credit ever, and historic relief to working families, since its passage in May.

 

The expanded credit provides automatic monthly payments for nearly all working families, including advanced tax relief that started in July 2021. Bowman said that over 75 percent of children in NY-16 will benefit from the expanded CTC, with 9,200 children in the district being lifted out of poverty.

 

He said the average benefit for NY-16 households is $2,800, families with children in poverty will receive an average of $4,300, and because of the larger benefit for younger children, 3,100 kids under the age of six in NY-16 can be lifted out of poverty. “I have seen firsthand in so many ways how the early years of a child’s life are the most precious and essential for development and putting our children on a pathway to success and opportunity,” Bowman said. “We need to focus on investing in those formative years so that kids can grow up healthy, realize their potential, and have better outcomes over the course of their lives.”

 

The congressman said the Build Back Better Act, also known as the budget reconciliation bill, also includes proposals on providing universal child care from birth to age 5, paid family and medical leave, and major investments in public housing and clean energy.

 

Given his focus on the importance of investment in early childhood education, and given that it seemed further negotiation was needed in order to push through the infrastructure bill, we asked the congressman, during a follow-up telephone interview after the event on Friday, if his remarks could be interpreted as him being perhaps open to scaling back the proposal to cancel student debt for public college students.

 

“Oh, not at all for me,” he said. “You know, one of the reasons why I’ve been advocating for the 3.5 trillion is because it’s essential to both cancel student debt and provide free community college, and focus on universal childcare and early childhood education.”

 

Bowman said the reason why it was important to focus on all of those areas was because for so long, there hadn’t been sufficient investment in them, or in historically neglected communities. “Communities of color have been playing catch up trying to access the American dream, while we have continued to give tax breaks to the wealthiest among us, and allow corporations to hide trillions of dollars in profit in offshore accounts,” he said. “So, it’s not one or the other.”

 

The congressman said investment in such programs would not only be beneficial for historically neglected communities but for the entire economy and the future of the country’s democracy. “The more children are educated, the better they will do in school, the better health and economic outcomes they will have across their lifespan, the more informed citizens they will be, and the more they will contribute to our democracy,” he said.

 

Congressman Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) addresses the audience at the Edenwald YMCA on Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. Video via YouTube. 

Bowman said if further negotiation was needed, less years of funded childcare might be an area they may look at. “So, instead of maybe 10 years, doing a seven-year program or maybe a five-year program, and then we go back into the fight, but the program itself, we’re fighting to keep every program in the Build Back Better Act.”

 

He added that because he and his colleagues were looking to make the child tax credit permanent, that would not be something they would look to negotiate on. “We’ve also been pushing the president to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt through executive order,” he said. “But in terms of a childcare program, if that is something that needs to be negotiated in terms of the number of years, you know, that’s on the table but the universality of it is something that we want to keep.”

 

Given that progressive members of the  Democratic Party comprise the minority, and given the need to guarantee a majority vote on the terms of the bill by party members, we asked Bowman if it came down to math at the end of the day. “Well, it’s not an issue of math. It’s an issue of priority because we have the policies ready to go that will offset the costs, so it’s important to note that this is $3.5 trillion over 10 years,” he said. “So, it’s not in one year, it’s not immediate. By comparison, we spent $7.6 trillion on our military, without that offset every ten years.”

 

Regarding progressive party members being in the minority, he said, “Right now, the Democrats have the majority [in both Houses] so if three or four folks were to go one way or the other, that could kill the bill.” He added, “More importantly, the Build Back Better Act is [U.S. President] Joe Biden’s and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s priority, and the majority of Democrats in Congress are in alignment with that priority. It’s a small percentage of Conservative Democrats like [Sen. Joe] Manchin [West Virginia] and [Sen. Krysten] Sinema [Arizona] that are stopping these bills from moving forward. The rest of us are ready to go.”

 

Bowman said if large corporations pay their fair share in federal taxes, if international corporations stop placing trillions of dollars overseas in offshore accounts, without being taxed, if the wealthy contribute their fair share, and if billionaires’ taxes are added to unrealized capital gains, it will offset the cost of the bill. He added that a new bill is also being introduced targeting 30 oil companies which are contributing to climate change, whereby they will have to pay into a fund to help clean up the environment, and said this could raise taxes by up to a trillion dollars over ten years.

 

“The problem is Sen. Manchin and Sen. Sinema do not fully support raising taxes on the wealthy or on corporations to pay their fair share,” the congressman said. Asked if he could disclose the target range of tax brackets the party was proposing on the super rich, he said, “It’s still being worked out,” and mentioned figures of 26, 28 and 29 percent. We also asked the congressman if the passage of the infrastructure bill would constitute an overhaul/reversal of the 2017 Trump Tax laws.

 

“That would be part of the conversation as well,” he said, adding that it was something Manchin had voiced his support for, last Bowman had checked, but added that Manchin also had a tendency to “change his mind every few days.” The congressman said, “And that’s a key point too because when Trump gave these tax cuts to the wealthiest among us, in the neighborhood of $5 trillion, when all is said and done, if he needed to go around the parliamentarian, then that’s exactly what he did.”

 

The Office of the Parliamentarian provides Congress with nonpartisan guidance on parliamentary rules and procedures. “Right now, some of the legislation we’re working on like immigration reform, we might have to not accept the ruling of the parliamentarian in order to finally pass comprehensive immigration reform, which I support 100 percent,” Bowman said. “But once again, we’re hoping that Sen. Manchin and Sen. Sinema support comprehensive immigration reform as well, because if they don’t, it doesn’t matter what the parliamentarian rules say because we just won’t have the votes.”

 

He continued, “Right now, we are trying to include immigration reform under reconciliation because it’s a policy change and not just a financial infusion into the economy. The parliamentarian has ruled against two of the provisions being put forth. The parliamentarian is now reviewing a third provision that we hope will lead to some form of immigration reform going forward and what we mean [by that] is a path to citizenship.”

 

Asked if that meant amnesty for the estimated 11.4 million undocumented immigrants in the country, Bowman said, “What is being presented is a plan to provide a pathway to citizenship for up to 8 million undocumented immigrants, which would be transformative, and objective economists, who are bipartisan, have identified immigration reform as something that would be tremendously beneficial to our economy.” He added, “It’s something that needs to get done right now. We’ve been working on this issue for decades.”

During his address at the event, held in honor of the vice president, Bowman referenced the other forms of support for working families the Biden administration had passed as part of the American Rescue Plan, including:

• stimulus checks to more than 9.73 million New Yorkers, totaling $22.2 billion;
• $1.3 billion in rent and mortgage relief for New Yorkers to stay safely housed;
• $2 billion in child care support for childcare facilities and families in New York State, including over $200,000 to nonprofit Rising Ground in Yonkers. He added that in New York City, the average child care costs for infants was $21,112, or about $1,760 per month, the average child care costs for toddlers was $16,380 or $1,365 per month and the average weekly child care costs for a child between 3 years of age and 5  years of age can cost $242/week or $968 per month.
• There were also increases to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) providing an additional $28 monthly for each eligible constituent in NY-16 through the summer, which included over 40,000 households.

 

The congressman’s full remarks can be watched on YouTube, as above.

 

Meanwhile, speaking to Norwood News after the vice president’s address, and asked if she could say what the main obstacles were to passing the infrastructure bill, Ocasio-Cortez replied, “the extraordinary amounts of dark money from Big Oil and Big Pharma, lobbying against making health care more affordable,” while also referencing Manchin and Sinema.

 

Asked how flexible the progressive wing of the Democratic Party would be in order to reach a deal, the congresswoman said, “Well, we have been negotiating a great deal. So, you know, I think, for us, what our challenge has been, is that we have this more conservative plank that asks and asks and asks, and we give and give and give, right?”

 

She continued, “So, for example, Medicare… Originally, we wanted Medicare to be expanded and brought down to the age of 50. They said no. Okay, 55? They said no. Okay, 60? No, and now we’re not lowering the age at all, and they’re still asking for more.”

We in the media have failed to explain to our viewers/readers what's *in* the Build Back Better reconciliation bill.

We just go on and on about $3.5 trillion.

So let me tell you what's in it, and why it matters, in just 60 seconds. Start the clock…pic.twitter.com/oysY9g1cQ1

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 7, 2021

 

The congresswoman said she doesn’t think the challenge right now is, “Is there more to give?” Instead, she said, “I think what has been demonstrated is that no matter how much we give up in negotiations, ultimately, it just seems that there’s just a level of unwillingness to act on the scale that people really need.”

 

She continued, “My fear is that the short-term desire to just pass anything will give way to a longer term resentment [from constituents].” If that road were to be taken, Ocasio-Cortez said she anticipates constituents later saying, “You told us that you’re going to help us, and you didn’t.”

 

Asked if ongoing negotiation was not part of the nature of politics, the congresswoman said, “I think there’s a certain degree where that is always a present dynamic, but I think we’re seeing it in an extreme fashion, and the question for us is, and for our constituents is, what do we accept? And that’s not just a determination that we, as individuals, make but it’s a determination that our communities make, and that we make with community.”

 

On Tuesday, Oct. 26, Reuters reported on the latest status of the bill negotiations.