U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, voted for the Build Back Better Act, the piece of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda often compared to the New Deal, which passed today in a 220-213 vote along party lines. This $1.75 trillion legislation passed on the heels of Biden’s $1.2 infrastructure bill, which he signed into law earlier this week.
“I have been clear about what I wanted in this bill,” Slotkin said in a statement. “So clear, in fact, that I laid out my priorities directly to the president when he visited Michigan’s 8th District in early October: I needed this bill to be transformational for Michigan by making important changes on pocketbook issues like childcare and the cost of prescription drugs; and I needed it to be targeted, meaning that it was paid-for without adding to the debt – and not on the backs of middle-class families.”
Slotkin said she and her team took the past few weeks thoroughly reviewing the details of the bill.
“It’s not perfect,” she said. “There are things I would have preferred to be taken out of the bill, and that I believe the Senate will now slim down. But coming from the national security world and years of international negotiations, I know that no one ever gets everything they want. On net, this bill is positive for my district and my state, so I voted for it.”
Slotkin called the legislation the “biggest investment in American families and kids this country has seen in half a century.”
“By capping what middle class families spend on childcare at 7% of their annual income, this bill recognizes childcare for what it is: a family issue, a kids issue, a women’s issue, and, most directly, an economic issue.”
In addition, the bill provides every American child access to pre-kindergarten.
The Build Back Better legislation also addresses the out-of-control costs of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare Part B and D to begin negotiating for lower prices, caps the month cost of insulin at $35 a month, and caps seniors’ out-of-pocket costs of medications at $2,000 a year.
“At the end of the day, this will make life more affordable for middle class Michigan families,” Slotkin said. “I was elected to make life better for Michiganders, and this bill does without saddling the middle class with new taxes.”
