The White House has planned a meeting for Wednesday between President Joe Biden and CEOs to try to talk them into hyping Build Back Better. Reuters reports that the CEOs of Ford, General Motors, Corning, Microsoft, and Siemens are on the list to take part alongside other CEOs.
According to Reuters, Biden is meeting with these corporate leaders to blow smoke about his pet legislation, which to date has failed.
A White House official said Biden “will meet with CEOs who support passing Build Back Better to discuss the ways his (BBB) agenda will make the U.S. economy more competitive, increase worker productivity and workforce participation, lower inflation over the long-term, and strengthen business growth.”
In other words, Biden wants to make sure that corporate America is singing from the same hymnbook as the administration and Congressional Democrats.
One of the features that Biden wants to hype the most is the set of tax breaks for electric vehicles. In BBB, the tax incentive for purchasing an electric vehicle goes up to $12,500 (provided the car is union-made, naturally), along with a $4,000 tax break for used EVs and incentives for businesses to purchase EVs for fleet use.
As Biden shoots for 50% EV usage across the U.S. by 2030, he’s willing to throw billions of dollars in loans at the automotive industry to make that happen.
Corporate CEOs are also interested in discussing the child tax credits and other child care provisions in BBB.
Related: Jayapal Calls for Biden to Enact Build Back Better by Executive Order
But is this new push from CEOs really going to make the difference? It was almost painful to watch the slow death of BBB in its initial form.
The president has already admitted some level of defeat. Last week at his epic press conference, Biden said that he may need to break BBB up into smaller bites to allow Congress to digest it.
“I think we can break the package up, get as much as we can now, and come back and fight for the rest later,” he stated.
The thing is, this CEO push may not be enough. With the Democrats holding the slightest of majorities in the Senate and Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) willing to buck the Biden agenda, the president has had an uphill battle to get anything he wants passed.
Bless Joe Biden’s heart. He’s desperate to have some sort of big accomplishment take place during his first (and maybe only) term in the Oval Office. The bipartisan infrastructure bill wasn’t enough, apparently. Joe Biden probably goes to sleep every night dreaming of his historic legislative victory.
Like Don Quixote, Biden keeps tilting at windmills to try to make Build Back Better’s success a thing. (Which isn’t to be confused with Biden recommending windmills to Colorado wildfire victims.)
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