Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Working To Pass President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda To Reduce Costs And Improve American Lives

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the need to pass President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda to reduce costs and improve the lives of millions of families. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Now that President Biden has enacted his once-in-a-generation Infrastructure Bill, Democrats are taking the next steps towards passing the rest of his Build Back Better plan.

The last year and a half have been unlike any in modern US history: we’ve had a once in a century pandemic followed by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

We’ve come a long way this year as we’ve lifted our country out of the depths of these crises—but the challenges, of course, aren’t over. Americans right now want us to lower costs for things like health care, prescription drugs, child care.

We have a responsibility to pass legislation that will cut costs and improve American lives.

That’s why we need to keep working on passing Build Back Better. We know that passing this critical legislation will lower costs for some of the most basic and essential things in everyday life.

And as economists from leading rating agencies said yesterday, Build Back Better will not add to inflationary pressures in the U.S. economy.

The child care provision could alone save families thousands of dollars each year. Families on average spend about $10,000 annually on child care for each child under 4. A generation ago this was unheard of.

Build Back Better will dramatically lower costs for millions of families by providing the largest investment in child care in American history.

The same goes for prescription drugs. If you are one of the roughly 10 million Americans who relies on insulin to manage your diabetes, chances are you’ve been spending more and more as the cost of this once-affordable drug has skyrocketed. It’s truly one of the perplexing and frustrating trends of the past two decades.

Well, Build Back Better will make it so Americans with diabetes don’t pay more than $35 per month on insulin, by enabling Medicare to directly negotiate prices in Part B and Part D.

Again: lowering costs, improving the lives of millions of families.

The examples go on and on, how people will have more money in their pocket given their expenses: Build Back Better cuts taxes for parents raising kids, it makes Pre-K universal for the first time ever, it will provide help for small businesses to invest within the US and hire American workers, and ultimately it is the BEST thing we can do to recapture that sunny American optimism that’s been the key to our country’s success.

Creating Jobs, lowering costs, fighting inflation, keeping more money in people’s pockets. These are things Americans want and what Americans need and it’s what Build Back Better does.

We are going to keep working on this important legislation until we get it done.

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