In his first 100 days in office, President Joe Biden has offered up roughly $6 trillion in spending proposals and so far has delivered on roughly a third of it.
His plans cover a range of policy goals: Lifting the economy out of the COVID-19 recession; restoring blue collar jobs; beefing up critical U.S. infrastructure; levying higher taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans; securing affordable child care for American families.
The first-term Democrat’s vision to reshape the U.S. economy has come in the form of three broad fiscal programs, each bearing a three-letter acronym distinguished from one another only by their middle initials: The ARP (American Rescue Plan); the AJP (American Jobs Plan); and AFP (American Families Plan).
Here’s where they stand:
ARP: American Rescue Plan - $1.9 trillion
Status: Passed
The first of Biden’s proposals, floated before he was sworn into office on Jan. 20, is the only of the three so far to have been enacted into law. It passed in March on party-line votes, backed by Democrats, rejected by Republicans.
Its signature components were $1,400 one-time payments that went out to most American households this spring and the extension of a $300 a week federal enhancement to state unemployment benefits until September. Those funds helped lift consumer spending in the first quarter at an annualized rate of 10.7%, among the largest gains in the post-World War Two era.
The ARP also included funds to accelerate the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and to assist the businesses and communities most affected by the pandemic. The United States has emerged as one of the world leaders in the COVID-19 inoculation effort, with 43% of U.S. adults having gotten at least one dose of vaccine and 30% now fully vaccinated.
AJP: American Jobs Plan - $2.3 trillion
Status: Blueprint
Biden announced what he bills as his “blue collar blueprint” at the end of March, and while it has been the focus of much discussion in Washington, no formal proposal has yet surfaced on Capitol Hill.
The plan’s two biggest buckets - at $650 billion each - would:
* Fund traditional public transportation projects like roads and bridges while underwriting investments in the infrastructure to kick the transition to electric vehicles into high gear; and
* Pay to refurbish aging public schools and decaying public water systems and expand broadband access for the 35% of rural Americans lacking such high-speed communications connectivity.
Other components of the AJP would provide funds for home- or community-based care for the elderly and disabled and would invest in domestic manufacturing for industries the Biden administration considers critical to the national interest, such as semiconductors and green energy.
To pay for these, Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%; eliminating all fossil fuel industry subsidies and loopholes; and establishing a minimum tax on income companies use to report profits to investors.
AFP: American Families Plan - $1.8 trillion
Status: Blueprint
The last of Biden’s proposals is a mix of new spending, totaling $1 trillion, and tax credits for working families, about $800 billion. It went up the flagpole in late April and features his first stab at getting the wealthiest Americans to pay more in taxes. Like the AJP, it has yet to get as far as a formal bill before Congress.
Its key spending elements include provisions:
* Aiming to help working parents cover childcare expenses and subsidizing daycare costs for families with kids under 5 and provide free preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds.
* Providing free community college tuition; boosting a federal tuition grant program; and subsidizing tuition for students from middle-class families attending an historically Black college or university, or HBCU.
* Extending the child tax credit, included in the ARP enacted in March, through 2025. The current credit, essentially another monthly payment from the government for most families, will sunset at the end of this year.
* Roughly doubling the tax rate paid by high earners on their investment income to 39.6% from 20% now and lifting the highest tax rate on ordinary income to 39.6% from 37%.