The climate change and social policy measure that the House just passed includes about $2.2 trillion worth of spending programs and tax cuts. But there are many ways to tally its price tag.
House Democrats passed a large bill on Friday that aims to curb climate change, fight poverty and invest in children, workers and families. How large? Probably about $2.2 trillion. But there’s a wide range of other estimates for the price tag, reflecting the difficulties in pinning a true “score” to a plan that has changed a lot over the past weeks and months. Lawmakers, along with budget experts, haven’t settled on a headline number for the bill, which is now headed to the Senate after a Friday morning vote. That’s because they don’t agree on how to count up all the various programs that President Biden and his party have stuffed into it. Some are using $1.7 trillion, which is the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate for the bill’s total “direct spending.” The estimate is a useful measure, but not a complete one, because it leaves out some tax benefits that cost the government money, including ones meant to fight climate change. Some are putting the price tag at as much as $2.5 trillion, a calculation that includes changes to the state and local tax deduction, and which is, for accounting reasons, a bit misleading. Mr. Biden and his aides have said the bill costs nothing, because, by White House math, it would not add to the deficit over the course of a decade. But $0 is neither an accurate nor a useful way to convey the size of a sweeping piece of legislation that would build affordable housing, provide paid leave to workers, reduce child care costs, establish universal prekindergarten, cut taxes for parents, seek to cut greenhouse gas emissions through a variety of measures and much more. The simplest and best number to use when discussing the bill — and the one that is most consistent with the price tags that have been attached to earlier versions of it — is $2.2 trillion. That’s the total value of the new government spending programs in the legislation, plus the value of the new tax cuts it includes. The New York Times had initially called the bill a $1.85 trillion package. That was a number Democrats attached to the “framework” for the legislation known as the Build Back Better Act that Mr. Biden announced late last month. But two things changed in recent days, causing us to recalculate. First, House Democrats added several items to Mr. Biden’s framework, including a provision that would fund paid leave for workers.
