 It's May the 5th, 2021. Welcome to What Now America. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And today's topic, today's title is Biden's American Family Plan, 1.8 trillion dollars. Let me go right to our guests and dive into this topic. With me today is Jay Piedale, Stephanie Dalton, and Winston Welch. Good morning, everyone. Morning. Jay, there is a lot, and I mean a lot, to unpack with the American Families Plan. We're looking at 1.8 trillion dollar proposal. Joe Biden is putting this right up there with the infrastructure plan. They have listed, I've got almost a page and a half of bullet points of what this plan entails. So let's unwrap this a little bit and then let's kind of dissect it and go from there. You know, we got a proposal to provide two years of community college education. He's proposing a 200 billion dollar package for that plan alone that will address some of that. Excuse me, 109 billion. I take that back. And an increase of 80 billion dollars in Pell Grants that already, you know, that's a lot of students go to school now is with Pell Grants. He's introducing the idea that three to four year olds will have preschool and that there's correlations between kids in early preschool and how well they do in kindergarten and then therefore in the first grade. So that's the 200 billion dollar package plan, a part of the, to help that along. And he thinks that'll save the average family $13,000 I'd have kids rather than paying the daycare out of their own pocket. He has proposed an extensive cut of support for low and middle class income families and a plan not to that no family would pay more than 7% in childcare. I mean, that's, you know, for those families out there, those parents, they know how much daycare is. Certainly they're paying a lot more than 7%. So this subsidy would greatly, greatly enhance those households. And I guess the theory is that that allows people to work full time and not have the daycare eat into their budgets. He's proposing to train teachers, $9 billion to train teachers to really prepare them and get a better, you know, a more proficient line of teachers to prepare for the 21st century. We have the health tax insurance credit, $1.8 trillion of that. He's talking about extending the family care credits to 2025. He's talking about an income credit being enhanced. He's talking about the dependent care and credit, all sorts of these things. So those were just a handful of proposals in his family plan. And what struck me was this morning he got on and he's at the podium and he said, the plan is being criticized as a welfare plan. He said, nothing further could be the truth. I want to progress the United States. I want to move it forward. I want us to not be a country that second class, third class country anymore. He wants to propel it to a first-class nation again. And I suppose that plus the infrastructure bill. What do you think about that, Jay? What do you think about the GOP thinking it is a welfare plan, maybe an extension of the great society from President Johnson back in the 60s? Well, back in the day, I would have said to you, it's too much money and we can't afford to go in a hole that way. We will have to pay it back and it will be painful to pay it back. But I have completely changed my view of that personally. Now what I see is it touches off what you were saying a minute ago, Tim. We have to remake the country. The country has gotten old and it's cracking. It's declining. And we have to throw cash at it. We have to achieve a couple of things. One is we have to have a better life for people. The other thing is we have to have an engagement with people. In other words, they should love the government. They should feel the government is part of them that cares about them. I've been watching the Roman Empire documentary on Netflix lately. And it talks in substantial part about the decline of Rome, decline of the empire. It's a great empire at once. It stretched for thousands of miles. And it involved millions and millions of people. We don't realize how big it was and how successful it was, point of view of managing people, managing assets, moving ed, technology. And they were great for a time. And then they started coming apart. And there were many, many vectors and factors and variables that made them come apart. But part of it was the public wasn't engaged in. And the government didn't care about the public anymore. And that's where we are now. We have Congress doesn't, in bottom line, doesn't care about the people. If we're going to save this democracy, we're going to have to do stuff like this. But the big question, and maybe you can ask Stephanie or Winston about this is, how likely is it that he can get these things passed? I totally agree he should do this. All of it, all of it, throw money at making us a better country and making us competitive in the world market, making us a leader. But can he do it? Yeah. You know, two points that I wanted to make. And one is the Roman Empire was a great empire, one of the greatest empires, brutal as it was. But they borrowed from the Greek Empire. It wasn't all their initial original ideas. They borrowed heavily. Secondly, you know, this plan is really 180 degrees in the opposite direction from what made Ronald Reagan so popular and so successful is that government can't do anything right. So let's get the government out of our lives. And let's be self sufficient and really spur America forward without the hindrance of government. What are your thoughts about the departure from the Reagan days and that philosophy, which seemed to be very popular back in the 80s? It was popular. He was a great speaker and a great propagandist for that notion, for that ideology. But we're way beyond that. In fact, it didn't work. Reagan's plan, Reagan's economic system didn't work. Now we have a challenge that's greater than what Reagan had for sure. We have the country at a tipping point. And, you know, I don't know if people fully understand that. I don't know if the administration of Washington fully understands that we are at a tipping point. We must save ourselves. We must take dramatic steps. We must remake America. That's what he's doing. And I hope he can do it. Because, you know, the dark side of this that goes to the Christmas future is if he can't do it. And we continue down the same path that Trump has taken and revealed. I think it's going to be like old fashioned Rome. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Jay. Hey, Stephanie, of this family plan, do you see any downside to it? Any provisions that, and again, there's many, so we didn't cover them all. But do you see any obvious downside to the plan? And if so, why? Go, Joe. No. I like the way he comes on with big, gives him some maneuvering room in the event that there were, that was needed. But of course, as Rachel Maddow made clear last night, Mitch McConnell has already said there will be no one voting for this bill. So that takes a lot of burden off the Democrats to just get on with making it happen through reconciliation. So I think, you know, before those tunnels in Pennsylvania start dropping down on people, I mean, those things have been erect since one of those cross country trips when I was a kid, you know, things were already not, not good. So and certainly these, these are not innovative ideas, but these are necessary activities is to get the kids into preschool, all the kids. So we can get out from under these kids at third grade, fifth grade, eighth, not, not reading because they didn't have a decent beginning. And we've just got to pull this Education Act together to at least be comparable to our international peers, okay, industrial. And it's just shameful where we are right now. And of course, on the other end of the scale, then, you know, of course, they come on about the education, I mean, getting that community college thing to happen for people, so that they got a little time to mature because by 16, 17, 18, when they graduate from high school, sometimes nobody's paying attention to anything. And so you get a little more maturity as you go closer to 20 and get in the classroom then with the community college and a different sense of let me let me chime in on the points you're making on this. Now what's not part of this and I think it's a different part of either an executive order. What's your thoughts about President Biden potentially canceling existing college debt? And if you support it, how much should, how much of the students debt should be canceled? All of it? Some of it? What kind of institutions should be canceled? That's a really good question, Tim. I really don't, I've really not thought that through. I'm not so inclined towards it because, you know, there are a lot of people that didn't get the debt because they didn't go to Princeton or they didn't go to the expensive private institution, you know, that's why we have public university debt, it's a huge land grant universities that we've had for 100 years in our, the envy of the world that we have these fabulous institutions out there that are doing the same kinds of things as the private and well funded and endowed ones. So I don't know, that's going to have to get worked out through. He actually did address it during the candidate debates when he was asked a question about paying off more debt, I think, than the proposed $10,000 and he said absolutely not. So it was my impression that President Biden was more in favor of canceling debt that pertain to community colleges or public state colleges, but certainly not private colleges. Exactly, because with the, you know, the comparison to the empires, Greece and Rome, and of course, it's Athens that's, you know, our democratic model, and they're trying to, you know, re-up the Parthenon and get it fixed so we can all enjoy it for another thousand years. But, and then in the Roman Empire too, so, you know, you had more tutoring and that sort of thing going on. And that's one of the reasons those empires were successful is because they were doing the big thinking and the ideas that were driving the way they were working. And then Rome comes and did that too. And then they kind of got away from that with some crazy emperors, but, and then over simple. I've heard the rise and fall alone in two sentences. Crazy emperors, crazy emperors. We won Crazy Emperor, we got a candidate, you know, so we can go that way too. But no, I mean, it's just getting this citizenship up to the, to the challenge of being a democracy. I mean, obviously, that's an issue here. We've got to have people who are capable of doing some critical thinking and substantive thinking and understanding what it takes to get an operation like this United States of America or any country or a state, you know, to work and work for everybody in a way to give them the best quality of life. Can I chime in on this issue if you don't mind? Of course, yeah, of course. Forgiving debt is nice and everybody will be very happy about that. But clearly, you know, for the government, the government to achieve a better, more better informed citizenry, the citizenry that can appreciate and follow on in good democracy. It's not that helpful. All it does is alleviate people's debt. Okay, good, but not great. The important thing is to give people and educate people who didn't otherwise afford, be able to afford an education, give them an education now and support that education and support the schools and support programs that make them better citizens. And that's where, you know, the bulk, I think, of the money should go. It's very important and we have to start right away. So, you know, paying off debt is one thing, but incentivizing conduct and institutional development to make a better country. You have to look forward, not back. Okay. Winston, to you, based on Jay's comment just now, and that is, you know, in the sense the great society programs back in the 60s created by President Johnson, we have focused a lot of those target dollars towards the disadvantage, the economically disadvantaged. Joe Biden's message for this election that he won was I need to help the middle class get ahead. It's the middle class that's falling behind, not just the economically disadvantaged below the poverty line, but also the middle class. And so these programs are designed not only for the low income, but also the moderate income. Is that the right approach? Number one, and number two is of the family plan proposed by President Biden. What do you think is the most attractive aspect of it? Great questions, Tim. You know, he's hitting this right on the head. I think he's appealing to a broad swath of Americans, middle class, certainly. If you've got kids, it's expensive to keep them in daycare. You're making $50,000, $60,000 a year. It's still expensive to keep them in daycare. The idea of having universal preschool, as Stephanie says, as an educator, is proven to lead to long-term benefits for these kids and for our society. So I think while in the past, yes, we have the great society that appealed towards bringing everybody up, this is just part too. And as you go to the White House website, they outline what this is for. And they mentioned one thing is that it targets also some specific things, historically Black colleges and universities, because they disproportionately, even though they're a small number of our colleges, they vastly are disproportionate in the number of judges and people like that that come out of these colleges. So whether it's tribal colleges or other minority colleges, this is the America that we have today. And we know, let's not kid ourselves that if you're a minority in this country, you're still facing some structural disadvantages. They may not be intentional. They may not be in your face, but they're there for whatever reasons. And we, as a society, want to give everybody an equal opportunity. And the way we do that is providing by these equitable solutions. So I think that whether it's earned income tax credits for the child-free being raised, or whether it's subsidies for folks going in the workforce who need childcare, or it's very thoughtful things like the Pell Grants for being increased and just letting know how expensive colleges become for people. And this is a very thoughtful plan. It's not just including that, but it's including things like paid family leave and bereavement leave and getting this up to sort of civilized standards. It only calls for 12 weeks of aid parental leave. We need two years of aid parental leave. We can afford this as a society. But as we're looking around at the plan, it also covers dreamers and DACA. Let's just get rid of that already. Legalize these folks. These kids that have been here all their lives, they don't speak another language, have never lived in another country. Let's get that irritant off the table and just do this. It also includes things like subsidizing nutrition programs. When we know that huge numbers of children in this country are going hungry or not being fed properly, let's feed them in the schools. It's not just children, but also for those who are incarcerated, that are now not incarcerated, the SNAP program is eligible for them. Now, can you hear the GOP running up the wall and back down the wall saying you want a plan that helps ex-cons? That's exactly what we need. We need plans in prison training these folks with the skills so that they can come out so that it's not a... I mean, if you're going to prison in this country, and one out of three people I think is arrested at some point in America, if you're in prison, it's criminal justice. But out of that justice, we also have to recognize that a lot of those people can't even read Stephanie's point that a lot of prisoners never learned how to read or they were born to crack dependent parents or whatever. So, while they may have made more choices, we as a society, they're being released back to us. So what do we want to do? Do we want to give them the best chance possible, despite their offenses? I would argue yes, because otherwise they're going to commit other crimes and go back into the system, and that is not beneficial for us as a society or for them as individuals. So, absolutely, he's hitting it right on the head here, and thoughtful things. Like I said, when they look at colleges, they're talking about wraparound services. So they realize that people have a... they might be working during college, but they get fired from the job and they need those extra two months of emergency support, or maybe they need childcare on campus or whatever it is. There's... they're very thoughtful programs, I think, that that that he's proposing here. And obviously, it is a large expansion of what we've been used to, but in fact, it's exactly what this nation needs, because we're making long-term investments in our society by starting educating children at three years old, feeding them correctly, and moving on up. Then we're going to have less people going into prison, because they're going to be well-educated, and their mothers are going to have expanded SNAP benefits. We can afford this as a society. It's... we're only talking about a... So you're saying it's better to have a pro-active program than a reactive. What a... what a nominal thought in this country. Nominal thought and... and it feels... he's appealing to people because saying if you make 400,000 or less, then your taxes aren't going to go off. He's continuing this tax credit that we got last year, which I think is really quite smart. And I think that this is not about hitting on the wealthy. As was the Chairman Mao said, to be rich is wonderful or something like that. This is the society that's not going to prevent you from... we're talking about the tax increase from 36 to 39% for those a million bucks. So if you're at that level, is another $30,000 tax really going to kill you or not? I don't think so. So being rich, getting wealthy, that's not an issue. That's not what he's fighting against. He's saying, we need to raise this whole bottom up so that more educated, rich consumers can buy the wonderful products that you're making and an educated workforce that can be on the stage. Good point. Good point. All good points, Winston. Ladies and gentlemen, Cynthia Leeson Clair. Here's the question, Cynthia. Okay. This family plan, do you see any deficits, dude? Do you see any fault lines? Or do you like the program as is? Joe Biden said he's willing to negotiate aspects of it and certainly how to pay for it. He's willing to negotiate with Republicans on that. Your general thoughts about the plan and specific things you don't like about it, or are there anything you don't like about it? Okay. Well, in regards to college being three junior college, two years of college, if Alabama can do it, the country can do it. And Alabama for, I think, 20 years now has provided three junior college. It was a Wallace leftover, a George C. Wallace leftover thing he started. So it seems to me that if Alabama, one of the, you know, the poorest states in our country, can manage to give kids two years of free junior college, then it seems to me this country can do it also. So as far as college goes, as far as daycare goes, I'm absolutely on board with everything that Joe Biden has said. My oldest boy spends almost a third of his income on child care, a third. That's a lot. So I think that's just too much. And yet, you know, child care workers don't need to have their, you know, money cut in any way. So subsidies are really the only option for that, if you ask me. I think about sometimes when I hear, you know, the president talking about how he's willing to negotiate. And I think about real estate deals or when you sell a car, you always ask for more than what you really want. So that when you do bargain and come back down, you know, you're negotiating. And so I'm hoping that's kind of what he's done is sort of added a little bit of a buffer to his ultimate, you know, act knowing that the Republicans are going to want to knock it down. But in my mind, the Republicans, I don't know, as I think that it's worth trying to negotiate with the capital, that, you know, our congressional Republicans, because real human, you know, regular people, Republicans are really way on board with this. Well, we got 70% that is on board. So I think it's the ones in Congress that are really doing us a disservice. And I'm not quite sure what to do about that. I know there's a lot of talk right now about getting rid of Liz Cheney. And that shows everything. They want to oust her because she's not willing to lie. Now, what does that say about every other Republican, then? They are willing to lie. And they don't want anybody that isn't willing to lie. And that, to me, says everything we need to know about the Republican Party and how much they even deserve, excuse me, but and how much they even deserve to try to work with them. Okay, well, let me hit that point, because Joe Manchin said that he's absolutely convinced that the Republicans need to be a part of this negotiation, as with the infrastructure plan. To what degree is this negotiation going to be just for show? I mean, it is going to be a budget reconciliation process, 51 votes. Yeah, they need Joe Manchin for sure. But to what degree is there going to be sincere negotiations versus we try to negotiate, they wouldn't come along, we're going to vote for budget reconciliation, we're going to do the 51 votes. What do you think about that? Do you think this is going to be a drawn out negotiation or is it going to be quick and fast? And it was just for show? I don't think it is just for show. I believe that Joe Biden honestly 100% believes in five partisan work and believes in his goal to try anyway to reunite the Senate a little bit. And well, all of Congress, right? I believe he is genuine in wanting to do it. And I hope that it will not be drawn out because while I believe Joe Biden has good intentions, I don't believe we can trust the intentions of the Republicans. Alrighty, I'll leave it at that. Jay, your topic, my topic, our favorite topic, taxes. In this case, tax increase. Our favorite, every American's favorite topic is taxes. Joe Biden said this morning that those that are impacted are not going to feel any pinch to their wealth. Yeah, it'll be minor inconvenience. But right now there's 35 Fortune 500 corporations that paid zero taxes. He said, in what country is that right? He mentioned some of the loopholes and how corporations are getting around paying taxes. This plan addresses the loopholes where capital gains is being used from hedge fund CEOs, and they're getting around paying their taxes at 15% versus 39.6%. You've thought about how these tax proposals are laid out, how they're designed to close some loopholes that have been in place for decades. Do you think it's fair or do you think it's going to work? I need sweeping tax reform in this country. We can't let wealth accumulate at such fantastic, fabulous levels as it has been for a very small percentage and let everybody else struggle. When Trump came into office, the very first thing he did, and I don't know how this happened really, the very first thing he did is, what you name a bill is so important because people judge the whole bill by the name. And if the name is inaccurate, then people are deceived. So he called it the tax reform bill. And I think it was Boehner, went along with him, Ryan went along with him. And before you know it, the whole country thought that we're going to get a tax reform bill. I'm here to tell you guys, it was not a reform bill at all. It was a deception. It was a deception of the middle class and the disadvantage, and it was a gift to the rich and the corporations. And I found it was extraordinary. It was completely the wrong direction. And this is an attempt to roll that back. So I commend him on doing it. I want him to do it. And you know, I have a master's in taxation, so I don't come at this with naive day. I mean, on a public policy basis, this is needed to happen for a long time. But I want to go to one of the points before we run out of time here, that is this. You know, one guy that I know, when the tax reform bill was being proposed, I said, do you support this? And he said, of course, I have a small business, and I'm going to get some money out of this. It's going to make it's going to make my business better, more, more feasible. And, you know, I'll do swell under this bill. I said, what about the fact that a lot of people are being screwed by this bill? And a lot of people are being, you know, inappropriately rewarded by this bill. He said, I don't care about that. I care about my tax return. I care about my economics. And I support it. That's my silo. I said, good for you, but not good for you. Okay, what I'm getting at is that people in this country, and this is why I think we're at a tipping point, are interested in their own welfare. We had a show about India yesterday, was it? And, you know, and we've seen on the media a lot of things about India. And we've seen that in India in the time of COVID, there are people who volunteering to help the dead and dying. They go out of their way for free. They join volunteer organizations. I wish there are many right now in India to help people with COVID. And so the press asks, you know, one person is a volunteer, why are you doing this? Are you doing it for money? No, I'm a volunteer. It's free in my time. And you're putting it all this time. You're doing it for the community, for your neighborhood, you know, for your friends, your family, you're doing it for them. I said, no, I'm not doing it for them. Well, are you doing it for India? Are you doing it for the country? I said, no, I don't do it for India. Why do you do it? I do it for humanity. And my point about all of that is, you can have a silo that says, I'll make a few hundred or a few thousand dollars because of, you know, Trump's tax reform bill. And that's for me. I don't care about the rest of you. I do not care about the rest of you. Or you can, you know, think of your community and work on that silo. Or even think of the nation, which is commendable, and work on that silo. But why can't we work on humanity? This country has lost touch with helping the people, helping the country and helping humanity. We have a long way to go. And Congress is in such a pit over this, it doesn't even understand what I'm saying. So I said before, and I'll close with this, I said before it's not all that clear that any of Biden's, you know, liberal bills, which I support completely, we all do, will pass. They'll be fragmented. They'll be turned around in some way where they won't pass. And this is very troublesome because this shows you are going down the wrong end of the typical. Yeah. Okay. You know, again, this morning, Joe Biden brought up the point you just made, and that is when the corporate tax cut was made from 28% down to, no, as higher than that, down to 21%, the big selling point to giving corporations a break was they were going to take all those tax savings and invest back into their employees, either through wages or capital reinvestment. And what did they do? They re-bought their stock back. And they gave themselves raises. Don't forget that. Yeah. And they gave themselves raises. So that money never really worked fully back into the economy, back into the pockets of Americans, back into the retail sales. Yeah. Reganomics. For me, it was a dream that the fiduciary responsibility of the corporation is to its shareholders. It is not to the nation. It's not to the workers. If it works out in their interest to be so, then that's true. But I also remember that back in the day, when a corporation would reinvest in its capital machinery or things that make it operate better and more efficient and more profitable, that used to be the order of the day when a corporation would do is when they had excess capital lying around, they would reinvest in their own corporation. Those days seem to be gone. Well, whatever maximizes shareholder wealth is what the bottom line is. Yeah. Good point. All right. Guess what? Last comments, folks, because we've run out of time, but I'd like to get everyone's last comments. Winston, starting with you. Last comment. I think we should make West Virginia the richest state in the nation by all means possible. Here goes the golden toilets again. Golden bridges, golden toilets, golden schools. There you go. Keep Joe Manchin happy. Keep Joe Manchin happy. Cynthia, your last comment. Let's see. My last comment is, I would like to appeal to all Republicans out there to please, please open your minds and open your hearts. And then I want to appeal to all Democrats out there. Call your Republican friends and try to reason with them if you can. Okay. That's an aggressive wish. Okay. Okay. Stephanie, your last comment. Thank you, Cynthia. Thank you. I mean, that's a nice thought. I think we've learned about the usefulness of that. I wanted to just make a point again about education, the amount of money that Tim stated earlier that's given over to the professional development of educators. And I want to say that without that, this is a matter of Biden's following through and paying attention to the details. Because if we're just paying to get kids babysat again, that is not going to get us there. So babysitting them from three instead of from five doesn't make it happen. We've got to have people that understand what we know about cognitive development, which is better than brain surgery. Okay. We now know a lot about it. And it starts that early. And we need to make sure that educators know what they're doing and how to do that for all of our kids that have the capacity to do so. And I think that Hawaii, the state of Hawaii is such a good example of this. Hawaii has always had child care because women have always worked here. They came and went on to the plantations. There's never been a woman's movement or anything like that that made a difference. The point is that our kids have been in care from very early on and all the way through to the end of high school and look at where we are with our schools. So the question is, just having the kids covered and babysat is not going to get us to the critical thinking, the analytic thinking, the ability to make judgments, synthesize, analyze and make good decisions to be democracy citizens. So we've got that piece of money is really important that that get in there. So we get these people up to speed. We need quality education, not just babysitting, but we all know how important babysitting is. Well, you're a life educator. Your career is education. And so your words are very salient and very, very credible. And I thank you for them. Jay, your last comments, please. Well, Biden's programs make it clear that we are way behind, way beyond where we should be, way behind other places in the world in terms of developing our nation, developing the social fabric and the relationship of government and the citizenry. So all I can say is what you said at the beginning of this part of the show, we're out of time. We are out of time. You know what? I want to, my last comment is how much I appreciate each and every one of you, that what you bring to the table on this topic and all the other topics that we've discussed in the past and we'll discuss in the future. We've run out of time. I'd like to thank Jay Fidel, Daphne Dalton, Cynthia Leeson, Claire, which we don't see, but we hear, and Winston Welch. Thank you one and all. Join us next week at 11 o'clock Wednesday for What Now America. I'm Tim Epitulio, your host, and we'll see you soon. Aloha.