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Speaking to reporters in Washington after spending Easter
weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland,
Biden again took aim at the 50 or 51 corporations on the Fortune
500 list that paid no taxes at all for three years, saying it
was time for them to pay their share.
Asked if raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% would
drive away corporations, Biden said: "Not at all ... there's no
evidence of that."
Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, and Republican lawmakers cut
the corporate rate to 21% in 2017 from 35%. Trump repeatedly
promised to tackle the nation's crumbling infrastructure during
his presidency but never delivered on that.
Biden's plans have drawn criticism from both Republicans and
Democrats, including Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, whose
support could be critical to ensuring passage in a Senate split
evenly between the two parties.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the
Democratic president was open to discussions with Republicans
and Democrats about how to fund the proposed investments.
Asked if the administration had analyzed the cost of agreeing to
a lower corporate tax rate of 25%, the highest Manchin says he
would accept, Psaki noted the 28% rate would be lower than it
was at any time since World War Two.
"Combined with the other tax proposals, it would pay for the
totality of the package. That’s why he felt it was a responsible
proposal to make," Psaki said of Biden.
"There will be different ideas for pay-fors, there will be
different ideas for tax proposals. That will all need to be
weighed … with leaders in Congress."
FOCUS IN REDUCING INEQUITIES
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest U.S. business group,
last month called Biden's proposed hike in corporate taxes
"dangerously misguided" and warned it would "slow the economic
recovery and make the U.S. less competitive globally."
But the International Monetary Fund backed the overall idea of
richer countries using taxes to reduce inequalities exposed by
the COVID-19 pandemic, including progressive income taxes,
inheritance and property taxes, and taxes on "excess" corporate
profits.
Biden, whose agenda is focused heavily on addressing racial and
gender inequities, said other countries were investing billions
of dollars in infrastructure, and the United States needed to do
so as well to boost its competitiveness.
"I'm going to push as hard as I can to change the circumstances
so we can compete with the rest of the world," he said.
"Everybody else in the rest of the world is investing in
infrastructure and we're going to do it here."
Biden pushed back at Republican criticism that his plan is
filled with items unrelated to infrastructure.
He listed clean water, schools and high-speed rail as key items
that also counted as infrastructure, in addition to more
traditional projects such as bridges, highways and roads.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Sunday that Biden
would prefer to secure Republican backing for his plan, but if
that failed to happen, he would likely support using a
procedural strategy called reconciliation to allow Democrats to
pass it by a simple majority in the Senate.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said last week that
Biden's infrastructure plan was "bold and audacious" but would
raise taxes and increase debt. He vowed to fight it "every step
of the way."
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Writing by Andrea Shalal and Tim
Ahmann; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Peter Cooney)
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