By Tom Campbell | Press-Enterprise 7/26/2021
The U.S. Senate is on the verge of passing the largest budget in American history, $3.5 trillion dollars, with the votes of only Democratic senators.
Among the provisions likely to be included are to:
• lower the eligibility age for Medicare while expanding its benefits,
• provide free community college tuition,
• extend higher Medicaid benefits in states that opted out of those higher levels under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” or “Obamacare”)
• offer free pre-kindergarten and free school meals for all, regardless of income,
• repealing the 1947 “right-to-work” provisions of federal labor law, so that non-union members could be compelled to pay fees to unions,
• require employers to provide free family and medical leave,
• enact many other policy priorities of both the traditional and far-left wings of the Democratic Party,
• and increase taxes on corporations and individuals making more than $400,000 to pay for the new spending.
The Senate rules allow any provision that affects spending or revenue to be included in budget reconciliation bills, and thus avoid a Republican filibuster.
There is an exception: the “Byrd Rule,” named for former Democratic Rules Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, for “measures that produce a budgetary effect that is merely incidental to the non-budgetary policy change.”
That exception was applied last February to exclude an increase in the federal minimum wage from the 2021 fiscal year budget package.
More:
https://www.pe.com/2021/07/26/u-s-senate-should-strive-for-consensus-not-partisanship/
