Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday faulted the Biden administration for injecting trillions of dollars in stimulus spending into the U.S. economy, arguing that the recent round of one-time checks and other aid have driven up prices and deterred people from returning to work.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has cautioned privately against overreacting to anecdotes of worker shortages.
Janet Yellen later reversed herself, showing the difficult tightrope she walks in her new role
The early pledges from party lawmakers threatened to create even more political tension around a package that is already facing no shortage of it.
Inflation is also rising in certain areas, but Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said that those increases aren’t expected to persist through the entire economy.
Universal preschool and free community college are among a plethora of initiatives that would be paid for by tax increases and IRS changes.
The White House’s proposal would direct hundreds of billions of dollars to child care, paid family leave, tuition-free community college, and a slew of other initiatives.
The approach marks a break with Biden, who is only expected to endorse an extension of the plussed-up child tax credit for five years as part of his upcoming proposal known as the American Families Plan. Biden is set to unveil his thinking during his first-ever address to Congress on Wednesday evening.
Republicans have long sought to shrink the tax-collecting agency, but Biden aides believe hundreds of billions of dollars go uncollected each year.
- Analysis
Low-interest policies helped stabilize the economy, but they also set off a multitrillion-dollar run-up in markets, which overwhelmingly benefited the richest 10 percent of Americans.
Congressional Republicans spent the past four years racking up big bills under President Donald Trump. Now, they’re straining to reclaim their message of fiscal discipline in Democrat-dominated Washington.
Big spending increases and tax changes will test the Democrats’ majority and the GOP’s willingness to stand in the way.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said President Biden “fully expects that Congress will meet its obligations as it did on a bipartisan basis three times during the Trump Administration and amend the debt limit law as needed.”
The package marks a significant departure from the roughly $2 trillion blueprint put forward by President Biden earlier this month.
The lawmakers signaled they may oppose any future increase to the debt ceiling unless Congress couples it with comparable federal spending cuts, raising the specter of a political showdown between GOP leaders and the White House this summer.
At a time when the White House is seeking a massive expansion in the role of government — and major boosts in spending to boot — congressional Democrats and Republicans alike have unleashed a torrent of lobbying to try to steer new federal dollars to their states and districts
White House closes in on ‘families plan’ spending proposal centered on child care, pre-K, paid leave
The American Families Plan, the second part of the administration’s Build Back Better agenda, is expected to be unveiled ahead of President Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress on April 28.
