Joe Biden wants to raise taxes? Huh. Oh, right, only on “the rich”. Which is what Democrats always say, and then raise the taxes on the middle class, because why would they raise taxes on the rich people who sustain the Democratic Party?
Biden Wants to Raise Taxes, Yet Many Trump Tax Cuts Are Here to Stay
Donald J. Trump has left the White House. But many of his signature tax cuts aren’t going anywhere.
A lot of his stuff was done through the legislature, rather than jamming everything with an EO, so, it is much harder to get rid of
Democrats have spent years promising to repeal the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Republicans passed without a single Democratic vote and was estimated to cost nearly $2 trillion over a decade. President Biden said during a presidential debate in September that he was “going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts.â€
By “cost”, they mean less money that people worked hard to earn will go to the federal government.
Mr. Biden is now in the White House, and his party controls both chambers of Congress. Yet he and his aides are committing to only a partial rollback of the law, with their focus on provisions that help corporations and the very rich. It’s a position that Mr. Biden held throughout the campaign, and that he clarified in the September debate by promising to only partly repeal a corporate rate cut.
In some cases, including tax cuts that help lower- and middle-class Americans, they are looking to make Mr. Trump’s temporary tax cuts permanent.
Interesting: they finally admit that the 2017 tax cut bill lowered the taxes of lower and middle class Americans, after years of saying that it raised them.
Mr. Biden still wants to raise taxes on some businesses and wealthy individuals, and he remains intent on raising trillions of dollars in new tax revenue to offset the federal spending programs that he plans to propose, including for infrastructure, clean energy production and education. Much of the new revenue, however, could come from efforts to tax investment and labor income for people earning more than $400,000, in ways that are not related to the 2017 law.
Here’s an idea: the GOP should propose a tax increase that would hit the big tech companies, entertainment industry, major sports players, and news outlets. And for all those millionaires and billionaires saying they want their taxes raised? Increase the capital gains tax for them. Let’s see how they all like this, and see if Joe and the Democrats support it.
Plenty more in the NY Times screed.
Read: Bummer: Biden Will Have A Tough Time Raising Taxes Due To Trump Tax Law »
During her confirmation hearing, Janet Yellen–Biden’s nominee for Treasury Secretary–promised to employ the authority of the Treasury Department to combat climate change.
As the U.S. enters “what may well be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus,†President Biden is putting forth a national COVID-19 strategy to ramp up vaccinations and testing, reopen schools and businesses, and increase the use of masks, including a requirement that they be worn for travel. (snip)
The speed and scale of the response to COVID-19 by governments, businesses and individuals seems to provide hope that we can react to the climate change crisis in a similarly decisive manner – but history tells us that humans do not react to slow-moving and distant threats.
But Biden made the most of it, emphasizing in his speech to a relatively tiny crowd — limited by COVID-19 and security concerns — that “democracy has prevailed,†despite the Trump-incited violent mob that tried to stop Congress’ certification of electoral votes.
Tackling the existential risk posed by the climate crisis will be made harder by the growing gap between rich and poor triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Economic Forum has said.
President-elect Joe Biden plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on Day One of his administration, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status, a massive reversal from the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies.
