Hawaii’s four Congress members discuss the myriad of benefits to residents and cost hurdles of the “Build Back Better” Plan.

Build Back Better: From climate to infrastructure, plan fairer for all

By U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz

Once in a generation, an opportunity for life-changing progress comes about. In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal created Social Security and the National Labor Relations Board, providing economic security and a right to collectively bargain that still remain. In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society established Medicare and Medicaid, programs that provide health care for hundreds of thousands of people in Hawaii. Today, President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda represents our chance to make Hawaii more fair and prosperous — and we must act on it.

Build Back Better starts with solving the climate crisis. We face a now-or-never moment to act, and our legislation contains a suite of investments and incentives to deploy clean energy on an unprecedented scale. These climate policies — which integrate Native wisdom and the best science, mixing cutting-edge technology with conservation practices that have been used for millennia — will reduce air, water and land pollution, protect our coastlines, and save our communities from worsening storms, floods and heat waves. They will also be much cheaper than spending trillions of dollars responding to more extreme and frequent disasters every year.

More immediately, Build Back Better levels the playing field for everyone. It addresses health care costs by lowering prescription drug prices and expanding home care for seniors and people with disabilities. It also tackles the affordable housing shortage by increasing housing tax credits and building new homes and apartments. We’ll pay for these measures with a fairer tax code, repealing the Trump-administration tax cuts and ensuring the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share. Under our proposal, families and workers will be the ones seeing a tax cut.

Build Back Better also provides a much-needed upgrade for our state’s infrastructure. Billions of dollars in federal funding will be used to rebuild our roads and bridges and make them safer, expand our public transportation, and improve our broadband capabilities. We’ll expand a broadband benefit that helps low-income families afford high-speed internet access, and targeted funding will go toward providing broadband access to more Native Hawaiian families.

The measures in our Build Back Better agenda will keep more money in people’s pockets, and put more people in Hawaii back to work. Together, they will create a stronger, fairer economy.

But each of these measures also works toward something else: a society that better lives up to our values. By investing in infrastructure, we’ll make it safer and easier for Hawaii families to get around. By building affordable housing, we’ll help prevent another parent from having to choose between struggling to get by and moving to the mainland. By transitioning to clean energy, we’ll save our oceans and beaches and preserve our unique way of life.

President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda will have an immediate impact, and an enduring one. It’s legislation that will be good for Hawaii, and good for America. It’s a chance we might never get again. It’s an opportunity we can’t waste. Let’s get it done.

Brian Schatz is one of Hawaii’s two U.S. senators.

Build Back Better: Working families get help on child care, living costs

By U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono

On Friday, the families of 255,000 Hawaii children received their fourth advance Child Tax Credit (CTC) payment of up to $300 a month per child, made possible by the American Rescue Plan. Not a single Republican voted to support the CTC. What difference has this money made? Already, CTC payments are reducing child poverty by half nationwide.

Families across Hawaii have seen the benefits of the CTC firsthand. Robyn from Kapaa shared with me that with the cost of living rising, most of the time her family has to choose between paying for rent and paying for food. This tax credit allows her family to make ends meet. Raychelle is a single mom of four living in Hilo. She uses the CTC to buy what her children need — and still pay all her bills on time. The money has even allowed her children to join sports this year.

But without further congressional action, the payments will end in December. Senate and House Democrats are committed to continuing the CTC through the Build Back Better Plan — again, with absolutely no help from Republicans.

The Build Back Better Plan should make key investments to create jobs, improve health care, cut taxes, lower costs for working families, and address the existential threat of climate change. For too many families in Hawaii and across the country, the pandemic confirmed the systemic difficulties that working families — especially working mothers — face.

Negotiations on the final Build Back Better Plan are ongoing. Right now, we have an opportunity to make bold, transformational investments that build on the American Rescue Plan to make lasting changes that support Hawaii’s families.

Hawaii consistently ranks as one of the most expensive places to live in America. On Oahu, the median home price is over $1 million — and statewide, we need tens of thousands of new, affordable housing units. The Build Back Better Plan should make key investments to expand affordable rental housing.

For many families, affordable child care and preschool remain out of reach. Child care in Hawaii on average costs more than $1,100 a month. The Build Back Better Plan should include a number of programs to bring these costs down and provide early childhood education options.

It is past time for all workers to have paid family and medical leave, so people don’t have to choose between their jobs and taking care of their families. This legislation could provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave.

Medicare should be expanded to cover dental care, vision, and hearing aids for our kupuna. The Build Back Better Plan should make these investments.

Some have expressed concern about the cost of these bold programs, arguing that investing in working families — many of them headed by women — is not worth the money. The fact is the entire Build Back Better Plan is paid for, largely by making sure that the richest people and corporations in our country — who got more than $1.9 trillion in tax breaks from the Republicans — pay their fair share in taxes. Why is this idea so popular? Because it is only fair.

The Build Back Better Plan includes ideas that have been proposed for many years to dramatically change how we support our communities and families. Clearly, Republicans, having helped the richest people and corporations in our country, are uninterested in helping working Americans. Not one Republican voted for the American Rescue Plan, and they have vowed to oppose the Build Back Better Plan. They have even threatened to default on our nation’s debt to prevent us from passing the bill. Democrats must come together to do the job. Families in Hawaii have waited long enough.

Mazie Hirono is one of Hawaii’s two U.S. senators.

Build Back Better: Our chance to lift Hawaii’s families is now

By U.S. Rep. Kaiali‘i Kahele

The COVID-19 pandemic casts a glaring light on the extreme income inequality throughout our state and our nation. As we continue to recover from the pandemic’s lasting economic effects, we have a choice to make: protect billionaires and rich corporations, or invest in Hawaii’s families.

In Hawaii and across the United States, the middle 60% of Americans who make between $27,000 to $141,000 every year now hold a smaller share of U.S. wealth than the top 1%. The pandemic accelerated this concentration of wealth into the hands of a fraction of the population.

While the ultra-wealthy hide behind their assets to profit, COVID-19 continues to ravage our communities, taking the lives of more than 700,000 Americans and the livelihoods of millions more.

However, in 2021, the American people sent Democrats to the House, Senate and White House to pass a bold agenda for the people. And it is working. The first phase of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan — the American Rescue Plan — has already made a tremendous impact for Hawaii’s families. It is their personal stories that remind me our work must continue.

A mother from Waianae, Oahu, writes about how the American Rescue Plan helped her: “The Child Tax Credit has benefitted my family. I’m learning to care for my family and myself by buying things I always needed, but just couldn’t afford without worry.”

Another mom from Kalaheo, Kauai, expressed, “because of the monthly (Child Tax Credit) payments, my family is now able to afford rent, clothes, utilities and paying off debt.”

But there are only two monthly Child Tax Credit payments left for these mothers and the 90% of families in Hawaii who qualify.

Soon, many will be without this crucial financial support, which has lifted nearly 10,000 children in our state out of poverty. We cannot allow our families to lose their homes or our keiki to go to school without proper clothing and supplies.

We have to act now.

The final phase of the Build Back Better Plan is comprised of two bills that must be passed together to enact Democrats’ vision for the future. The Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act will fix our decades-old roads, bridges and highways, expand access to broadband, and address our wastewater infrastructure — all of which will create millions of new construction jobs for years to come.

At the same time, the Build Back Better Act, will stabilize the economy by making critical investments in America’s most valuable asset: our people. This is our solution to lift Hawaii’s families. It is sound policy and the right thing to do.

The Build Back Better Act invests in our people by providing:

>> Home-based care for seniors and people with disabilities.

>> Lower prescription drug costs.

>> Dental, vision and hearing coverage under Medicare.

>> 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.

>> Two years of free community college.

>> Universal pre-kindergarten.

>> Funding to fix crumbling public housing.

>> Permanent support for our unhoused neighbors.

>> Aggressive action on climate change.

These are the necessary benefits that will be funded by finally ensuring the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share in taxes, taking the burden off of working families who have disproportionately shouldered these costs for decades.

Let’s be clear: No one making less than $400,000 a year will pay a penny more in taxes.

Our chance to enact meaningful legislation to correct the imbalance in our economy, provide for our keiki, protect our kupuna and unburden working families in Hawaii and across the United States is now.

I choose to invest in our Hawaii and our nation.

Kaiali‘i Kahele represents Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District (rural Oahu, neighbor islands) in the U.S. House.

Build Back Better for all: meet real needs with real revenues

By U.S. Rep. Ed Case

I reject the hyper-division and disinformation which would hijack President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda into a death struggle between two extremes: one demanding a massive increase in the size, scope and expense of federal government regardless of need and resources; and the other demanding a massive reduction regardless of need and consequences. We can and must achieve transformative change that targets critical needs without crippling our social, economic and financial foundations.

As proposed, Build Back Better (BBB) is two separate initiatives:

(a) the American Jobs Plan (AJP), a multitrillion-dollar reinvestment in our nation’s crumbling physical infrastructure, from roads, waterlines, ports and airports, to schools, broadband and climate resiliency; and

(b) the American Families Plan (AFP), with massive federal programs from health care to child care, education, family and sick leave and further climate change initiatives, billed at $3.5 trillion, but actually $5-6 trillion through a standard 10-year budget.

We consider BBB amidst great need and uncertainty along with severe deterioration in our federal finances. In just 20 months, our federal government has spent some $6 trillion (four years of usual federal spending) in critical COVID-19 emergency assistance. That was all borrowed, resulting in our largest deficits and debt ever, both absolute and as a percentage of our economy.

In August, the U.S. Senate overcame division and passed a bipartisan AJP. At more than $1 trillion, it would be the largest infrastructure reinvestment in our history. It is largely paid for with revenues, meaning it won’t worsen our federal finances. It would create some 2 million jobs nationally and send more than $2 billion to our Hawaii. It is widely supported across our country on its merits and as proof that our dysfunctional government can still work. I fully support it, and have done everything I can to get it passed by our U.S. House as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, it has been held hostage as “leverage” against passage of the AFP (or “reconciliation”). I strongly disagree with this approach because (a) we should pass what we can now and get money out, people to work and our infrastructure fixed; (b) reconciliation should and can pass on its own; and (c) delay risks the entire BBB agenda.

I support much of AFP/reconciliation. Like the president, House speaker and others, I believe that, except for climate change which commands urgent action, we cannot pay for huge programs by further federal borrowings. I also believe that we cannot tax excessively. To do either will be to (1) fail these and other critical programs over time; (2) worsen inflation (already at a 13-year high); (3) undermine our economy, jobs and revenues; and (4) limit our ability to meet other unexpected challenges. But we can still achieve a largest-in-our-history social infrastructure investment by reversing the Trump-administration tax cuts on corporations and wealthy individuals, cracking down on prescription drug prices, and other fair revenue generators, all of which I support.

The president now recognizes that the sweet spot, where real needs are met by reasonable revenues (and where reconciliation can actually pass Congress), is around $2 trillion. That will require hard decisions on prioritizing among many worthy AFP proposals. My own guides are to (i) target fewer programs with the broadest impact over time; and (ii) target actual need rather than universal applications that benefit those with means at the expense of those in true need.

I am optimistic that, if and as we rise above anger and rhetoric and extremism and focus on actually governing, we will enact a Build Back Better agenda that will work for all Americans today and tomorrow.

Ed Case represents Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District (urban Oahu) in the U.S. House.