Following the American Rescue Plan earlier this year, which mandated $1,400 stimulus checks for most Americans, the Biden administration has unveiled its latest big pieces of legislation aimed at helping Americans during the pandemic, with bills known as the American Jobs Plan and the American Rescue Plan.

But even as the Biden administration plans to begin its push for those bills, with President Joe Biden set to address a joint session of Congress Wednesday night, one powerful Democratic member of Congress is introducing his own plan. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass) has introduced a bill that’s called the Building an Economy for Families Act. The bill, per CNBC, would provide universal paid family and medical leave of up to twelve weeks, while also offering “a new refundable payroll tax credit of up to $5,000 per year for wages paid by certain child-care providers and would create a new information network to give parents and guardians real-time information about available child care.”

The bill would make the extended child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and the child and dependent care credit permanent. And Neal’s bill proposes the institution of a  Worker Information Network, “to assist workers in accessing paid leave, unemployment insurance benefits and child care.”

Rather than permanent, the Biden plan proposes extending those credits to 2025. According to Roll Call, the Biden plan would gradually phase in the twelve-week paid leave benefit over ten years.

“We wanted to develop a design and then we will address the issue of revenue,” Neal told the news channel. “But treat this as an economic investment. This is about increasing productivity. This is about increasing stability in our homes.”

Neal has touted the tax credit for a while, even on Twitter. 

“This money is going to be the difference in a roof over someone’s head or food on their table. This is how the tax code is supposed to work for those who need it most, and so long as I am Chairman of [the Ways and Means Committee], it’s what you can expect to see from us.”

“For our economy to fully recover from this pandemic, we must finally acknowledge that workers have families, and caregiving responsibilities are real,” Neal said in a statement introducing the proposal. “Through sensible, but bold investments, we can put workers’ minds at ease and ready our country to come roaring back. All while lifting millions out of poverty by permanently extending the hugely popular expansions that the Ways and Means Committee made to key tax credits in the American Rescue Plan.”

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for the National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters