The White House continued to insist Wednesday that a revived social welfare spending bill is fully paid for.
After being left for dead in December, Democrats are heading back to the drawing board on a smaller Build Back Better bill. It’s unknown what programs will make the cut this time around, but the Biden administration again says they won’t add to the federal deficit.
HOYER: ‘BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD’ ON BUILD BACK BETTER
“Who is saying it’s not paid for?” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday in response to a reporter’s question. “Because there have been a range of economists saying it’s entirely paid for.”
The Congressional Budget Office score concluded that the original Build Back Better bill would add $367 billion to the deficit over the next decade. An alternate score that didn’t assume social programs will sunset projected it would add $3 trillion.
Those concerns, along with worries about rising inflation, helped push centrist West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to effectively ax the bill in December.
A top House Democrat said earlier this week that party lawmakers in Congress will start over on a new version of Build Back Better and that it could be far more narrow than the $2.4 trillion bill that stalled in the Senate last month.
“We’ll have to go back to the drawing board,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Politico during a virtual news interview Tuesday.
The measure may be limited to universal preschool, expanded Obamacare subsidies, and limited environmental provisions that meet Manchin’s approval, Hoyer acknowledged.
Still, any new spending with inflation already at 7% will raise eyebrows.
“Many people believe that government spending is a big factor in the current inflation levels,” the reporter asked during Wednesday’s press briefing. “Can you speak to concerns that spending plans that come out of Build Back Better aren’t paid for and so could mean higher deficits and more inflation in the future?”
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Psaki seemed surprised by the question.
“Build Back Better is paid for,” she said. “It has been concluded by a number of Nobel laureates and from a range of economic experts on the outside that it will not contribute to inflation. So those are the global experts that we would point to.”
