Biden’s $3 trillion ‘Build Back Better’ legislation contains an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, which will encourage more to sneak across our border. Hot Air describes the provision:
A provision in the Build Back Better Act provides about 6.8 million illegal immigrants with five-year parole and no threat of deportation. Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas will be allowed to issue parole to certain illegal immigrants.
When the BBB bill comes up for a vote, not today, placed inside the hundreds of pages of text in the $1.75 trillion spending package is a provision that allows Mayorkas to grant five-year amnesty – Section 60001. Illegal immigrants have to file for parole, pay an administrative fee (not disclosed), and submit to a background check “to the satisfaction of the Secretary of Homeland Security,” until September 30, 2031. This only applies to those who entered the U.S. before January 1, 2011.
“Only” those who crossed the border illegally before January 1, 2011, adds up to about 6.8 million illegal aliens. That’s not a small number to be given breathing room to remain in America without fear of deportation. Though, it can be argued that in Biden’s America, no one is being deported if they have been living here for a while. ICE has been told to stand down except in the most violent of circumstances. The new provision includes the requirement that the person has lived in the U.S. since coming here illegally. It allows them to obtain travel and work permits, as well as drivers’ licenses or state identification cards. Breaking U.S. laws pays off, right? They can stay without fear of reprisal, travel, work, and drive, all with U.S.-issued recognition.
The current policy of the Biden administration is parole to qualified illegal immigrants entering the U.S. but this provision allows the same for those who have been here for a decade or longer. Section 60001 prohibits the DHS secretary from revoking parole unless he or she “determines that the individual is ineligible for parole, based on the policies and implementing guidance that were in effect when the individual was initially granted parole.” In other words, the Biden administration is reaching back and providing amnesty (parole) five years at a time.
Biden’s Build Back Better legislation had a supposed price tag of $3.2 trillion, which Congressional Democrats are using accounting gimmicks to shrink. But “once stripped of accounting gimmicks…this leviathan’s true, 10-year cost” totaled “$5.9 trillion. That equals $41,172 for each of America’s 143.3 million taxpayers.” That will increase the national debt, because it is financed by only $2.3 trillion in tax increases.
On Twitter, President Biden claimed that “My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars….And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.”
But even progressive media admitted that claim was false. “All the new spending” means the bill would “add up to closer to $4.7 trillion over a decade,” reported the New York Times. It would increase the national debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, by “as much as $4.3 trillion of more debt over the next decade.” While the White House gave its legislation a price tag of $3.5 trillion, it actually contained at least “$5.0 trillion to $5.5 trillion worth of policies.” Much of that would be paid for through increased budget deficits: Economists at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School said it would increase taxes by $2.4 trillion, far less than its cost.
Hot Air noted that the bill will inflict “pain” on many taxpayers, and reward illegal immigration:
“Illegal aliens will be having a field day. Not only will they continue to be allowed to flood into the country largely unimpeded thanks to the Biden border crisis, but they will be immediately eligible for free college enrollment, student loans, and the child tax credit, effectively giving them a permanent guaranteed basic income….Keep one hand on your wallet because the bill imposes $2 trillion in tax hikes that will impact those making under $400,000 per year. Wait… didn’t Biden specifically promise that this wasn’t going to happen?”
The Build Back Better Act contains large marriage penalties. It would subject more than a million married couples to higher tax rates than unmarried couples making the same income. “Marriage penalties in the proposed structure can total $130,200 annually in higher taxes” for some high-income couples, says the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
It would also take away thousands of dollars worth of tax credits from low-income people if they marry. As CNBC explains, those people could lose their earned-income tax credits if they marry: “a childless worker marrying someone with a kid may eliminate the benefit. It may also reduce what their spouse with a child would have received if they were single.” The Republican Study Committee complains that the bill “penalizes marriage: The bill would permanently double the EITC’s marriage penalty on childless worker benefits.”
The Republican Study Committee also argues that the Build Back Better Act will cost thousands of Americans their jobs in sectors such as energy and daycare, while subjecting small businesses to crippling fines. “The bill blocks the ability of many faith-based providers from participating in the childcare system and will lead to many of their closures.” It “requires pre–K staff to have a college degree.” It is biased in favor of left-wing unions, “subjecting employers to penalties that exempt union bosses and officials.” It “drives up costs on Americans’ utility bills” and imposes “a tax on natural gas up to $1,500 per ton that could cost the American economy up to $9.1 billion and cost 90,000 Americans their jobs.” It grants illegal aliens “welfare and other entitlements.”
By driving up the national debt to dangerous levels, the Build Back Better Act would shrink the size of our economy.
“The existence of the debt saps the rest of the economy,” says the University of Pennsylvania’s Efraim Berkovich. “When the government is running budget deficits, the money that could have gone to productive investment is redirected.…You’re taking away from the capital that we need to grow our economy in the future.”
Past increases in spending by the Biden Administration backfired and shrank our economy by reducing employment. Economists had expected that the economy would add more than a million jobs in April 2021, because it had been growing rapidly since fall 2020. But after Congress passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” in early March, employment grew by far less than expected, resulting in 700,000 fewer jobs.
