Death and Taxes

Joe Biden Is Planning a Major Tax Hike (Cue the Republican Meltdown in 3…2…)

Get ready to hear unhinged cries of “socialism!” non-stop. 
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Joe Biden delivers remarks on national security in Delaware December 28.Mark Makela/Getty Images

Since Joe Biden took office nearly two months ago, Republicans and their associates in conservative media have struggled to come up with ways to attack him 24 hours a day, seven days a week. While the GOP was certainly unenthused about the $1.9 trillion relief bill the president signed last Thursday—because it treats poor people like humans—the legislation didn’t animate them in the same way as, say, attacking Obamacare for almost a decade, or devoting weeks to the alleged cancelation of Dr. Seuss and a rape-y, French, animated skunk. Luckily for both Fox News and lawmakers who think they were elected to scream “socialism” all day long, they may have a fresh target to rally around soon.

Bloomberg reports that Biden is planning “the first major federal tax hike since 1993” in order to fund a long-term economic program designed to be the follow-up to his COVID relief bill. Whereas the bill passed last week relied solely on government debt, the next one will likely include a tax increase on both individuals and corporations, the latter of which the GOP famously regards as people. According to reporters Nancy Cook and Laura Davison, the proposals currently planned or under consideration include but are not limited to:

  • Increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%
  • Reducing tax preferences for pass-through businesses, which became a major windfall for the wealthy under Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
  • A higher capital gains tax rate for individuals who make a minimum of $1 million a year
  • An expansion of the estate tax’s reach
  • Raising the tax rate on individuals earning more than $400,000

For Biden, these moves would not just help pay for important initiatives like dealing with climate change and developing infrastructure, but, per Bloomberg, “address what Democrats argue are inequities in the tax system itself.” For Republicans, they’ll no doubt be dubbed an assault on democracy and a short trip to America becoming the socialist hellhole Trump warned everyone about. Last month, Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways & Means Committee, said, “There seems to a be a real drive to tax investment of capital gains at marginal income rates,” calling that a “terrible economic mistake.” On Monday, former Fox Business host Trish Reganbooted from the network last March after calling the coronavirus a conspiracy designed to take Trump down—warned, “Get ready, America. The socialists have taken over.” Conservative columnist Ken Blackwell tweeted, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have,” a quote often falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson. Known crackpot Randy Quaid wrote: “So Biden is planning to raise taxes to the highest level in 28 years to pay for Pelosi’s 1.9 trillion favors to her friends. No wonder she needs that razor fence around the Capitol. Our money’s on the other side of it.”

The measures, which would likely go into effect in 2022, mirror many of the tax proposals Biden put forward on the campaign trail, which the Tax Policy Center estimated would raise roughly $2.1 trillion over a decade. (The actual program has not yet been revealed, but analysts generally except it to range between $2 trillion and $4 trillion.) To get it passed under regular Senate rules, Democrats would need the support of at least 10 Republicans, an extremely heavy lift given the GOP’s historic feelings about tax hikes (which is that they’re the devil incarnate).

While about 18% of the George W. Bush administration’s tax cuts were allowed to expire in a 2013 deal, and other legislation has seen some increases in levies, 1993 marks the last comprehensive set of increases, experts say. That bill passed on a two-vote margin in the House and required the vice president to break a tie in the Senate. “I don’t think it is an understatement to say the current partisan environment is more severe than 1993,” said Ken Kies, managing director of the Federal Policy Group, a former chief of staff of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “So you can draw your own conclusions” about prospects for a deal this year, he said.

While Republicans have struggled since the 2020 campaign to make the “socialism” moniker stick when it comes to Joe Biden, one person they’ll probably have considerably less trouble labeling a socialist is Elizabeth Warren, one of the right’s favorite bogeymen. That a “small army of her former aides and allies” of the senator have reportedly been enlisted to help run the Biden administration will no doubt fuel at least several weeks, if not months, of Fox News programming. Per Politico:

Warren’s expanding network in the upper echelons of the administration includes protégés who helped execute her aggressive oversight of big banks and other corporations as well as friends who share her views of the risks looming on Wall Street. But it goes beyond finance, covering pivotal posts at the Department of Education and even the National Security Council. The Warren recruits mark a victory for the progressive movement, which has supported her yearslong “personnel is policy” campaign to chip away at the dominance of corporate insiders in setting policy for Democrats. Those who took on the fight with Warren say they’re pleasantly surprised it has produced so many results under Biden, reflecting a new emphasis on inequality and challenging corporate power. Industry lobbyists, in turn, warn that banks, private equity firms and consumer lenders should pay close attention.

The appointments “confirm that Sen. Warren will be the most influential voice in the financial policy debate under the new administration,” said Karolina Arias, a former Democratic Senate aide who is now a partner at Federal Hall Policy Advisors. The records and views of many of the picks reflect a marked shift from the more centrist- and business-aligned economic policy leadership of the Clinton and Obama administrations. For Warren and other progressives, that could give them a clear advantage in campaigns on student loan cancellation, child-care financing and climate change, as well as potential tax hikes on the wealthy and giant corporations.

That sound you hear is Tucker Carlson’s producers frantically looking for a guest for tonight’s show who’ll claim Warren is fifth cousins with Hugo Chávez and that she’s running a shadow administration from which Biden takes orders.

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