Nothing less than Joe Biden s legacy as president of the United States is riding on the success of the budget reconciliation plans Democrats unveiled Monday.

The outline includes policies affecting much of the economy and could have a big impact on American life so long as Senate Democrats can pass the resolution this week, after the Senate finishes its bipartisan infrastructure bill, and then follow it up later this fall with legislation that appeases both moderates and progressives.

Here are some of the most notable elements of the $3.5 trillion framework. The actual budget resolution gives committees budget targets but leaves it to them to sort out the details in a later reconciliation bill.

Benefits For Parents

Democrats intend to continue the new monthly benefits for parents that they launched as part of the American Rescue Plan. Nearly every family in America started receiving $300 per child under 6 and $250 per kid age 6-17 last month, but the benefits wont continue past this year.

Democrats still have to sort out how many additional years of benefits to include in the bill. Since it costs $100 billion per year or more, even extending the payments through 2025, as Democrats have previously suggested theyd do, eats up a significant amount of the $3.5 trillion of spending room Democrats plan to allocate themselves.

But theres not much question the monthly checks will make life easier for parents and put a sizable dent in child poverty. Democrats arent shying away from big historical comparisons.

Before President Roosevelt created Social Security in the 1930s, half of American seniors lived in poverty, said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee and a key architect of the coming legislation. This new monthly child benefit is Social Security for our children, and represents a fundamental reordering in the commitments this country makes to its children and their families.

Paid Leave

Democratic lawmakers have found a way to get around the Senates budget rules and include a national paid leave proposal in their reconciliation package. Policy advocates and leading lawmakers have proposed essentially creating a new entitlement program giving most Americans the right to federally paid leave.

They would expand on the Family and Medical Leave Act, which currently guarantees 12 workweeks of unpaid leave for workers at companies with more than 50 employees. The program wouldnt quite be universal and the breadth of the policy depends on how much Democrats allocate.

For many advocates and lawmakers, this bill is seen as a do or die moment for national paid leave in the United States; the U.S. is the only developed country without some kind of paid leave policy on the books, a gap in coverage that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated.

For advocates, researchers, business leaders, and most of all, workers and families, who have been asking and marshaling evidence for national paid family and medical leave for years, the Finance Committees priority list for budget reconciliation with paid family and medical leave at the top is a sweet victory, said Vicki Shabo, a paid leave expert with the liberal think tank New America.

Still, there will be a tough fight ahead to win enough money in this reconciliation package to ensure this paid leave program is robust.

I am stressed, yes, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who has been one of the biggest champions of the policy, told HuffPost.

No Debt Limit Hike

Democrats are daring Republicans to vote against an increase in the debt limit, setting up a high-stakes game of chicken in the coming months that could lead to catastrophic economic consequences. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed no GOP support for an increase to the limit , which restricts the total amount of money the federal government can borrow. He wants Democrats to do it on their own and make Democratic senators facing tough reelection fights pay for it on the campaign trail. But Democratic leaders are showing no signs of backing down so far. The Treasury Department estimates Congress will need to raise the debt ceiling sometime in September or October or else risk a first-ever default.

Taxes

Unlike the three major coronavirus relief bills Congress has passed, Democrats plan to offset the cost of the budget reconciliation package by raising taxes. They say theyll target corporations and the wealthy without burdening families earning less than $400,000, which was a key campaign pledge from Biden.

A chunk of revenue will come simply through increased IRS enforcement of current laws, since the government misses out on as much as $1 trillion annually due to taxpayer noncompliance. Presumably, much of the rest of the tax increases will come through reversals of the tax cuts Republicans enacted in 2017. But Democrats have said theyll undo that laws limit on federal deductions for state and local taxes, a provision that targeted wealthy households in blue states like New York and California.