Facing the Future

This week on Facing the Future, we turn our attention to the health care provisions in the House-passed version of the Build Back Better Act. Those include expanded premium subsidies for health insurance plans purchased under the Affordable Care Act, a new Medicare hearing benefit and price negotiation for Medicare pharmaceuticals. Will they get through the Senate?  We discuss this with Josh Gordon, Director of Health Policy for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

This week on Facing the Future, Concord Coalition Policy Director Tori Gorman and Chief Economist Steve Robinson joined me for a look at the challenges ahead for the Build Back Better Act, which has now passed the House and moved on to the Senate. Then, Concord’s Communications Director Av Harris joined me and Steve for a discussion of Steve’s latest issue brief, “Will President Biden Raise Your Taxes and How Will You Know?”

This week on Facing the Future, we looked at some of the hurdles for the Build Back Better Act as it moves to the Senate. Democrats still have some internal disagreements on substance while the administration looks for the right messaging strategy. We also took a virtual trip to West Virginia for a conversation with Professor Karen Kunz and two of her graduate students in public administration at West Virginia University.

This week on Facing the Future, we explore the potential economic effects of the Build Back Better Act and the cost of making its temporary provisions permanent. A vote on the House version of the bill is expected next week. Then we’ll consider the economic feedback of federal spending on infrastructure, a subject that is front and center with final passage last week of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.   Helping us sort through these issues is Kent Smetters, Faculty Director of The Penn Wharton Budget Model.

Democrats in Congress are pushing to finalize a broad social spending and climate change plan that would cost about $1.8 trillion over 10 years and be paid for with a number of new tax provisions targeted at large corporations and households earning more than $400,000 a years. This week on Facing the Future, we discuss the economic strengths and weaknesses of this plan (i.e., the Build Back Better Act). Our guest is Bill Gale a senior fellow in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. Concord Coalition Policy Director Tori Gorman joins the conversation.

This week on Facing the Future, we look at various proposals on paying for the roughly $2 trillion social spending bill that Democrats hope to pass soon. These include familiar ideas like raising rates on corporations and upper-income households, to new ideas like implementing some form of a "wealth tax."  We'll also look at the potential for raising revenue through better enforcement of existing laws and the amount we lose through ill-targeted "tax expenditures." Tax policy expert, and former top congressional staffer,  Pete Davis is our guest.

This week on Facing the Future our guest is Ben Ritz, of the Progressive Policy Center. He is the author of a new paper titled, “Reconciling with Reality: The Top Priorities for Building Back Better.” Concord Coalition Policy Director Tori Gorman and I ask Ritz about those priorities and the chances of getting a deal between progressive and moderate factions of the Democratic Party anytime soon. Later, Concord's chief economist, Steve Robinson, will discuss this year's Social Security cost-of-living adjustment -- the largest since 1982.

This week on Facing the Future we took a step back from the day-to-day budget battles in Washington to consider the overall fiscal outlook. Our guest was Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who recently published a comprehensive chart book on federal spending, taxes and deficits. Among the questions we discussed were: What is driving CBO’s projected $112 trillion deficit over 30 years, and why the deficit could top $3 trillion yet again within a decade? Later, Concord Coalition Chief Economist Steve Robinson joined me and Gorman for an update on developments in Washington, including the short-term ($480 billion) bipartisan compromise to lift the debt limit.

This week on Facing the Future we’ll sort through the various internal divisions among congressional Democrats as they try to pass both a bipartisan physical infrastructure bill and a much larger human infrastructure bill with no Republican backing. We'll also look at the ongoing standoff over the debt limit, which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says could be breached as soon as October 18th. Our guest is Tom Kahn, former Democratic staff director of the House Budget Committee.