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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for listening. This could be the day that President Biden and congressional Democrats come to an agreement on the main items in the Build Back Better or Human Infrastructure Bill that we've been talking about so much, and that Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are the name dissenters on. Biden is trying to have something to announce before he leaves for Europe later today.

Now, the latest reporting is that to get Manchin and Sinema's votes, Biden will announce a new framework for the bill today, not sure what new framework means exactly. It's also being reported that of all things, paid family leave, any paid family leave, may be getting dropped from the bill. It had already been negotiated down from 12 weeks to 4 weeks, according to reports over the weekend. Also on the chopping block are the tax hikes on corporations and some of the wealthiest Americans that the President proposed to pay for some of the social benefits and anti-climate change measures. Still, perhaps in, is a more limited tax hike structured to affect an estimated only 700 American billionaires.

We'll get some details and a perspective on the changes being considered now, from Washington Post columnist, Helaine Olen, who focuses on the intersection of economics, politics, and American life. Two of her recent columns are called Debate over which democratic proposals to invest in shortchanges our needs, and This is the real reason Americans distrust the child tax credit and other government benefits. We'll get, of course, to what she thinks that real reason is, Helaine, thanks for doing this in what appears to be a critical day. Welcome to WNYC.

Helaine Olen: Thank you for having me on.

Brian: First, I know you're a columnist, not a moment-to-moment reporter, but do you have a sense of where things stand as we speak?

Helaine: I believe as we speak, Biden is either meeting with or just met with Democratic members of Congress to hammer out the final details on this Build Back Better framework that they're going to go forward with, we hope, and get everything in line before he leaves for his trip to Europe, where, as we all know, he's meeting with other heads of state next week on climate change.

Brian: Any idea what the term-- [crosstalk] Go ahead, do you want to finish the thought? Go ahead, Helaine.

Helaine: I was going to say, and what we know is that in that framework, as you pointed out, family leave is out. We know that the ability to negotiate for the cost of prescription drugs is out.

Brian: For Medicare.

Helaine: We also know that there's some big stuff that's still in and that includes universal pre-K, continued child tax credit, and some serious attempts at combating climate change.

Brian: Your column debate over which democratic proposals to invest in short changes our needs, one of the things that you cite in that column is the paid family leave proposal. I have to tell you, this being the newest development, or one of them, in the last 12, 15 hours, that paid family leave is getting dropped or may get dropped entirely from the bill, the latest Washington Post story that I saw said, "May get dropped."

How would the reported possible demise of paid family leave in this bill fit into your framing? Because a total demise of that, which I thought was popular on both sides of the aisle, meaning even with Republicans, I know this is all about putting all the Democrats together for a vote, but even Republicans, even the Trump administration, though they never got there, touted some kind of family leave bill. Why is that being dropped?

Helaine: That's a really good question. I have to say you're getting to my next column that I was working on, as you called, which is this is a major disappointment. In my view, it's a terrible political mistake, because Donald Trump has campaigned on a promise of family leave as well. His daughter Ivanka Trump actually had a proposal in Congress with Marco Rubio two years ago on it. I think it's a huge political mistake. It is, along with giving Medicare the ability to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, it is probably the two most popular provisions in what were in the Build Back Better legislation.

They were both popular, Democrat, Republican, Independent, you name it, my dog basically, almost everybody loved these two provisions. The reason family leave is out, our understanding is, was over the attempts to bring down the cost of the overall plan. Apparently, Kirsten Gillibrand, our senator in New York, was negotiating with Joe Manchin quite furiously over this. They had gotten it so that it was in at the time of only paying for four weeks of paid family leave, which is probably not adequate, especially given the United States is the only first-world country that offers no mandates, no paid family leave at all, but it was still something.

Then that still came out, and in part, it was over costs, and in part, it was apparently that Joe Manchin decided that this was something that should be dealt with separately. It simply had no role in the greater legislation. I should say, when we say Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema, it's kind of shorthand. They're often the ones that are most out there in public, saying no to various things, but it's generally thought that they're speaking for others in Congress, as well.

Brian: For you, as a watcher of politics, as well as economics, in what world is it a political plus for Manchin, or Sinema, or anyone else to go back to their constituents and say, "I stopped your 12 weeks, or your 4 weeks of paid family leave, mom and dad of small kids trying to get a decent leg into the workforce after the pandemic, or those of you trying to stay in the workforce while your 99-year-old parents and grandparents need assistance." In what world is that a political plus to have denied that when it was on the verge?

Helaine: It's an astonishing ability to seize defeat from the jaws of victory in my view. Again, this is among the most popular legislation out there. I should say, it's not simply parents. It's anybody, if you're dealing with an ill older family member, if you have a sick child or a sick spouse, or partner, you can use family leave as well. This was something that was desired by so many people.

It is something that I am utterly convinced Republicans will seize on because, in part, they had promoted a plan, at least in terms of maternity leave. Second, this was Biden's, one of his main planks when he ran for election last year, was he would give us family leave. There is no-- For the life of me, I do not understand the political calculus of that at all. It simply is an astonishing inability to see the big picture. What I would say is we do know there are a lot of corporations and big money that still doesn't want it. As we've all learned over the past several weeks, they still are basically in control of a lot of what goes on.

Brian: Who would pay for the paid family leave in the bill as it was originally written, or I guess they're still writing the language? Let's say as Biden was originally talking about it, would it be the employer? Would it be the employee out of a paycheck deduction for potential future paid family leave? I think that was the Trump version. Would it be solely the government and the employers wouldn't get dinged at all? Do we know?

Helaine: We think we know. The provision that was being written, and I should say, it was not the greatest plan, though, again, for the record, it was a heck of a lot better than what we have now, which is nothing, unless you're in nine states, including New York and California, is that the government was going to give employers money. I'm trying to simplify this greatly, by the way, and the employers were going to contract with insurance companies who were going to manage the program.

There were people who were fairly concerned about it, Matt Bruenig at the People's Policy Institute was probably the leading person who said, "I don't really think this works very well," and he was probably quite right. Because it essentially was going to force people to start negotiating with insurance companies over their family leave. It also left out a huge number of people. Depending on whose version you believe, it was either going to leave out people who hadn't worked for the employer for less than six months or a year, which is actually a significant number of people, so it was really not one of the greatest plans of all time, but again, it was better than what we have.

Just to discuss what Trump had been proposing, there had been two different clubs he was behind at various points. The Ivanka Trump one that she did with Marco Rubio came out of the conservative think tank in Washington, the Independent Women's Forum, and it would have given women leave out of social security by having them delay their retirement by an equivalent amount.

Let's say I decide to take six weeks of leave, and I would then, when I'm 62, or 65, or whatever, then turn around and say, "Oh, I was going to collect on March 1st, but I'm going to have to wait till May 1st," which doesn't sound significant, but was actually quite significant because most people who retire don't actually choose the date of their retirement.

They're either pushed out, or they're forced out because of the need to deal with family or their own ill health, and for women, especially women receive less from Social Security than men, and are more likely to live in poverty [unintelligible 00:11:13] and retirement, so it was not a great plan.

Brian: Let's go even a level deeper on exactly what you just brought up because, in your column, you tie both the family leave provisions and the eldercare provisions, which we haven't talked about yet in this conversation, but we've covered a lot on the show, more funding for more home health aides for more infirmed, elderly people to keep them in their homes rather than nursing homes, you tie these things to an underlying reality that our society takes unpaid work by women for granted, and that we're an outlier in this regard in wealthy, industrialized countries, so what are you comparing and what else would you like to say about the gender aspect of this?

Helaine: Well, I think the gender aspect, and this is something I've written quite a bit about over the past 18, 19 months, is essentially women got the brunt of a lot of the injuries of the pandemic, period. Women have been pushed out of the workforce, in part because the jobs that went away at first were often service jobs, which are disproportionately held by women, say, retail, followed by the fact that because schools did not reopen in many places in-person for over a year, or still to this day, your kid could just suddenly be out because of a COVID exposure for two weeks, women have not returned to the workforce in the numbers expected.

The female workforce participation rate is now about back where it was when I graduated from college in the late 1980s, so we've essentially wiped out 30 years of women's progress in the workforce during this period, which is astonishing, I think, to a lot of people. Second, of course, was the need for elder care, which was another reason women were pushed out. Since I will say I'm a middle-aged woman, you guys can't see me on radio, I actually know several people in this position personally.

Women were basically needed to handle an increased amount of family responsibility on that end too because again, the vast majority of elder care is handled by women. One of the provisions in Build Back Better, which is still there, to some extent, but not in full, was that Biden had pushed to give several 100 billion dollars to wipe out the Medicaid backup list, which were about three years for people who were eligible for in-home assistance so that they don't have to go to nursing homes. That's now down to about--

Brian: They are eligible on paper, but they can't actually get the home health aides because the financing is lagging.

Helaine: Right, and the backup is about three years right now in many places. Some of that's going to get taken care of, but not in full again. The United States traditionally leans on women to do this job that in other places, there's just a lot more support for. In Europe, I have a friend who is from Spain, for instance, and her mother has Alzheimer's, prior to the pandemic, there was literally a bus that came to their door every day and took her mother to essentially an elder care for several hours so her sister who lives with the mother could work and have a bit of a personal life. We obviously don't have much like that here. I'm using that as an example of what Americans often don't realize other people have. Instead, we have women who often give up a lot of their lives to take care of people.

Brian: We're going to take a short break here and then continue with Washington Post columnist, Helaine Olen. We'll start to include your calls. We haven't gotten yet to her column, This is the real reason Americans distrust the child tax credit and other benefits. We also haven't gotten to the tax changes yet. Very interesting, besides being right or wrong, that they're trying to structure some kind of tax that targets billionaires in particular.

Though I gather there are even constitutional questions that might prevent that one from getting in the bill, so there's a lot to do here on this day that President Biden is hoping to come to, yes, with Manchin and Sinema and everybody before Biden leaves on his trip to Europe on this Build Back Better bill. Listeners, as we still cover the Human Infrastructure Bill negotiations, how many days out of the last two months does it seem like that's been the only topic, deal or no deal, folks? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

What will leave you enthusiastic about a compromise that at least launches programs, even if in a smaller way than the President originally proposed, but maybe with paid family leave entirely out, and what will leave you feeling flat if you were for these things in the first place? 212-433-WNYC or if you want them out, you can call in too, 212-433-9692. Same with the tax provisions that we'll get to or any questions that you have for political and economic columnist, Helaine Olen, from The Washington Post because she's in the weeds on these things, and I know some of these things like on the tax laws and stuff can be complicated. She can also explain. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll continue after this.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer, WNYC, with Washington Post columnist, Helaine Olen and Don in Oak Ridge, New Jersey, you are on WNYC. Hi, Don.

Don: Hello, Brian, thanks for taking my call. I first got to define myself as a progressive, who has been a progressive for many, many years. I think a lot of these arguments that are being made about the weaknesses in the second reconciliation bill are very logical, but I think the most important point of all is being missed. The infrastructure bill that was passed by the Senate needs to go through to show some kind of a positive influence taking place. I think we're totally losing sight of this picture. We're giving this away and if this doesn't go through soon or at all, we're going to be giving Trump the biggest gift he ever had.

Brian: Don, I think that's pretty much understood at this point that we'll go through and what the progressives are doing that I think you're criticizing is refusing to vote for the physical infrastructure bill until the details of the human infrastructure bill are worked out and they know that Manchin and Sinema and maybe some others won't be in a position to kill it, so they're going to get to yes on something and that yes is going to include the physical infrastructure bill, don't you think?

Don: Brian, if I can just interject?

Brian: Please.

Don: You are missing the point. Why are they holding the first infrastructure bill hostage? This is utter stupidity. Can't you see that?

Brian: They're holding the bill hostage, they would say, because without doing that, they're not going to get any meaningful reconciliation bill or human infrastructure bill, they believe, and the physical infrastructure bill is going to go forward at the end of this process. Is it so stupid to think that?

Don: But that makes no sense. These arguments can still go on. These same arguments about the second bill can still go on.

Brian: The arguments can go on, but they may lose their leverage. Don, I'm going to move on because I don't want to go round and round on the same thing. Helaine, do you want to comment on any of that?

Helaine: I would just interject to totally back you, Brian, and add that one of the things the caller just did without even realizing it is we've lived in this world for several decades where the congressional moderates are seen as the reasonable ones and the congressional progressives are seen as the far-out-there lefties demanding unreasonable things, when in fact, our nation has been starved of human investment for decades. That is not unreasonable, those are things that are taken for granted as I've said earlier, by almost every other first-world country. The fact is that it is perfectly reasonable to insist that we start addressing this issue and improve the lives of Americans, and that when there is no guarantee it will go forward if the infrastructure bill goes first, it is perfectly okay to indulge in politics and insist on both going forward at the same time.

Brian: Dominic, in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dominic.

Dominic: Hi, Brian, hi, thank you for taking my call. I say no way to this deal. I hope that whatever passes for progressives, that they insist, as the writer said-- I'm sorry I missed your name. There is no way that-

Helaine: It's Helaine.

Brian: Wait just so you know, Helaine Olen, Washington Post economics and politics columnist and so everybody knows, Dominic, go ahead.

Dominic: Thank you. Yes, I think the initial was $3.5 trillion, which is still not enough. It's been watered down. You have two senators who are holding your so-called Democratic Party hostage and it's aggravating. I pay a small percentage every two weeks into a fund through my union that guarantees that if I need to take care of a sick person, an elder, or parents that I will have extended leave. I will never need that, but I pay into it because I think it's the right thing to do, and to not want to tax billionaires, 700 of them, I guess they are protecting Americans, 700 of them. You can watch Sinema housing it up with very rich people. She's a sellout. Manchin is just consistently a Republican who looks like a Democrat, so I think it's crucial that the progressives hold out. You know what, if it brings us back Trump, we as a nation have asked for it, thank you.

Brian: Wow, so, let me ask you the opposite question that I asked the previous caller. Wouldn't it be better to make a deal on what you can get in the real world after all this negotiation after the physical infrastructure has been held up to be linked in the real world of politics when Manchin does after all represent West Virginia with its politics, and Sinema who knows what her thing is, nobody seems to be able to figure that out, but that's where she is and you need 50 votes, and launch these programs that might be smaller than a lot of people want, but it gets the ball rolling on some things that would be transformative? That's politics, let's get to whatever yes we can, rather than no, and then move on from there why not?

Dominic: Brian, might I add? We've been waiting. I remember Reagan, and I remember all those promises. I'm sorry, but I think it's time with the Striketober, with workers saying enough of this, with the momentum in this country, that a lot of people agree that we should be able to take care of mom and dad and not be penalized. I think now is the time for the progressives to finally take a stand, and say, "No, we are not going to compromise anymore. We've already done it." 3.5 trillion was a compromise and that is the problem with the Democrats.

Helaine: Can I interject for a second?

Brian: Dominic, thank you very much for your call. Call us again. Helaine, want to jump in?

Helaine: Yes, I want to say on one level, Dominic, you're completely right. This process is so politically dysfunctional, it's almost like on some levels, we're the proverbial frog in the boiling pot. We don't even realize how screwy this really is. The fact is however, the Republican Party has essentially refused on many levels, especially when it comes to the human infrastructure plans, to work with the Democratic Party on this at all. You're dependent on pulling together a majority in a party that literally spans from people on the far left to borderline Rockefeller Republicans, as we would have called them, a couple of decades ago.

It's going to be a compromise and I think we need to keep our eye on the fact that there is some fantastic stuff in there. It is the largest effort so far to address climate warming. It is going to give us universal pre K which is a tremendous thing, as all of us in New York know. It will continue the child tax credit, it will continue to offer support for people who need the Affordable Care Act up to an income of $300,000 which again, was a terrific thing because previously the aid had a very sharp benefit cliff and left a lot of people unable to afford health insurance, who otherwise felt fairly prosperous. I think that you have to keep your eye on the big picture here and realize we're not going to get everything at once.

Brian: Let me get to the tax provisions with you because I'll admit, I don't understand a lot of what's being proposed, specifically, this proposed tax that targets about 700 billionaires. Remember when Biden was originally talking about tax hikes on people making more than about $400,000 a year to pay for a lot of things, now it's down to 700 billionaires, but how would that work?

Helaine: That's not going to happen. What essentially happened was, Biden had proposed raising taxes in all sorts of different ways on the wealthiest Americans. Some of it doing away with some tax cuts of a few years ago, but also in raising the capital gains rate, in raising some inheritance taxes, going after the infamous carried interest provision, which never ended up happening, and so on down the line. Almost none of this has come to pass and again, it was the supposed objections variously of either Sinema or Manchin, who, again were probably speaking for others in Congress as well.

What finally happened was that a few days ago, literally almost out of nowhere, congressional Democrats began talking about something Elizabeth Warren had been talking about on the campaign trail in 2019, early 2020, which was a billionaires tax, which would be a surcharge on the tax of billionaires. There is a lot of theory about this, billionaires, as Warren Buffett has famously pointed out, because they are able to access so many tax breaks, pay less of a percentage of their income in taxes than most of us who receive wages.

They are also able to hide income in one kind of extraordinary way, which is a thing called a pledged asset line, which essentially allows them to borrow money at about 1 to 2% interest against their assets so that they show almost no income. It's actually quite extraordinary. [unintelligible 00:27:59] has done a lot of work on this. Essentially, what the billionaire tax would have done, I believe it was the top 700 billionaires, they were going to simply impose a surcharge on their untaxed wealth, so their stock holdings. Even if they didn't sell stock and run up a capital gains bill, they were going to have to pay on a percentage of it. That was the argument.

This, as I said, came sort of out of the bill, and it was in part a response to the fact that billionaires had done fantastically well over the course of the pandemic in large part because of the run up in the stock market. Anyway, it didn't come to pass, and no surprise, a lot of billionaires were against it. Who could have predicted that? Though the only ones who really spoke up were Elon Musk who claimed that they were going to come for all of us eventually, and Leon Cooperman the hedge funder who goes on CNBC to say Elizabeth Warren is a socialist-communist every so often because she hates the American capitalist spirit. It was clear a lot of people were opposed to this and it has apparently vanished from the plan.

Brian: Even that one you're saying has vanished from the plan, so how will they pay for whatever degree of programs are finally included in the bill? Is there any kind of tax increase to help cover the cost?

Helaine: Yes, there are a couple of tax increases. Again, as of now, I haven't checked in the past half hour while I've been on here. [unintelligible 00:29:46] possible.

Brian: [laughs] Yes, it is moving that fast.

Helaine: [unintelligible 00:29:48] changed. They were going to insist on a 15% minimum on corporate profits as well on profits that corporations are stashing abroad, which is actually no small thing is getting at that money. Another was going to be a 1% tax on corporate stock buybacks. There was also going to be a millionaire surcharge of a sort, which was going to be an additional 5% tax on incomes above 10 million and another 3% on incomes of above 25 million. Which, no doubt leaves the average middle-class multi-millionaire rather annoyed right now because they're not the ones always going with the pledged asset line. These are not unsubstantial things, but again, I want to say in a lot of ways, this is a victory for the Democrats. It's just after everything that was desired and wanted, a lot of people are going to see it as not at all.

Brian: Monica in West Milford, you are on WNYC. Hi, Monica.

Monica: Hi, this is my first time calling. I'm a little nervous, but I just wanted--

Brian: Relax, we are all friends here.

Monica: I agree with the last caller, and I just wanted to add that the senators and everybody in Congress, in general, are out of touch, but mostly, the senators I would think. They don't really go[inaudible 00:31:27] in of people that are suffering. They don't really care much. We know that Manchin is getting all this support from people from the fossil industry, and like you said, we don't know what's the story with Sinema, but she seems to just be stubborn because she wants to. These people should be forced to pay their own healthcare and they should take less salary so that they are a little bit feeling the pain of everybody else.

I work with seniors, low-income seniors, I'm a case manager for seniors. Let me tell you, people that get $500, $900 on social security for the month, and they have to make miracles. They have to depend on food stamps, on any other services that are available for free for them. It's just incredible that they survive with this little bit and the people in government have no idea what's really going on with the people in general. These people we can't even get a home health aide for them because their pay is so low that nobody wants to work for it. They have to address [unintelligible 00:32:57]

Brian: That's right. That's one of the things in the bill is actually higher pay for home health aides as well as more availability of home health aides. Monica, you did great on your first call, don't make it your last, okay?

Monica: Thank you.

Brian: Thank you very much.

Helaine: I just want to add, Monica, I'm always nervous when I come on too, but I got to say that-- I am, it's true. I just want to say you're absolutely right on the basic level and this was part of the other column of mine that Brian actually mentioned [crosstalk] because while--

Brian: I was just going to say that Monica's call perfectly sets up your column. This is the real reason Americans distrust the child tax credit and other benefits. Go for it.

Helaine: Okay. The premise of the column is when the child tax credit passed, it was generally thought by a lot of people, including myself, that this would be an extraordinarily popular thing. Child allowances are pretty much a staple in Europe at this point, and it has, by the way, especially been embraced by the right-wing in Europe. We all thought that this was going to be a hugely popular thing. It has turned out to be one of the least popular things in the package, despite the fact that it is literally within a few months, cutting child poverty in this country by 40% and has resulted in a significant reduction in child hunger in this country, again, in a few short months, and has helped families enormously otherwise. As we all know, if you have children, they are extraordinarily expensive.

The question was why. One of the theories that started going on out there is that Americans have this unique belief in the sanctity of work. If you talk to people like focus groups, they would say things like, "Well, I think everybody should be working." As if everybody is just going to start slacking off because they're getting a $300 a month payment for a child. The number of children you would have to have to pay the average rent in this country is extraordinary at that point, right?

This was what was getting said. I actually went and polled up a bunch of focus groups because I got actually got quite interested. What I found was that that wasn't quite what people were saying. What they were saying was that they didn't think they were going to ultimately benefit. They started telling stories of how neighbors, friends, acquaintances, fill in the blank, who had slightly lower incomes were able to access things like Head Start when they, because they work hard and earned just over the limit, could not.

I kind of realized that it is the damage of our several decades of semi-austerity and insisting that we would only help in the kind of the meanest way possible, only the lowest of the low income. The result was that people who still needed help but were out there working, were often not getting the help they needed. Since this is the United States where we do have a way of worshiping wealth and looking down on people who don't earn, they would instead of seeing what was really going on, which is, of course, in other countries, everybody gets help when they need it, they would turn on the people just below them and say, "'This isn't right." It's going to take a long time, I think, to repair that damage, unfortunately. I don't think it's something that's going to be fixed overnight, but I think it's something we need to really talk about and talk about again.

Brian: Even as Elon Musk says, "First, they'll come for me and other billionaires. Next, they'll come for you, home health aides." There we leave it, with Washington Post columnist, Helaine Olen, on this, which could be the day that President Biden and Congressional Democrats come to an agreement on the main items in the Build Back Better or Human Infrastructure Bill. He's at least trying to get that done as the President before he leaves for Europe later today. Helaine, thank you so much, we really appreciate it. For somebody who said she was nervous, I couldn't tell at all. Thank you.

Helaine: Thank you, and thank you for having me on.

 

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