So many paradigms are shifting its hard to keep up. Now, tax.
So I don’t know if you’ve clocked this, but the whole way nations approach taxation is changing.
It’s just one of the paradigm shifts being ushered in by the Biden administration.
Basically, cutting corporate tax rates is out. Hiking corporate tax rates is the new black.
And Biden’s not even sorry:
President Biden on Wednesday pitched his plan to hike taxes on the wealthy and corporations, saying “trickle-down economics has never worked.”
“It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom and the middle out,” the president said during his first address to a joint session of Congress.
Biden has proposed paying for his $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan through tax increases on corporations, and his new $1.8 trillion plan focuses on helping families through tax hikes on high-income individuals.
“It’s time for corporate America and the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans to just begin to pay their fair share,” Biden said. “Just their fair share.”
The president referenced a recent report from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that found that 55 large corporations paid zero in federal income taxes last year.
“We’re going to reform corporate taxes so they pay their fair share and help pay for the public investments their businesses will benefit from as well,” he said. “And we’re going to reward work, not just wealth.”
Wow. How things have changed.
It’s not just that this is something Trump never would have said. It’s something Obama never would have said. It’s something no American politician ever would have said.
But here we are, in the strange new reality that Covid has given us, bashing corporations and raising taxes.
This is a total turn around. For over 40 years, corporate tax rates have gone lower and lower.
(Hello 1980s Germany with a 55% corporate tax rate! Hope we ‘re not going back there!)
But going back we are, as countries around the world start or at least start talking about hiking taxes on business.
Of course, the Republicans – the faithful friend of business – are not having it.
Oh no, actually, the Trump faction is selling itself as anti-business now too. Here’s 2024 Presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, going on the offensive:
The vanguard pushing the GOP to become more populist in Trump’s image include Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) — two potential 2024 presidential candidates — who say they will no longer accept corporate PAC contributions.
“Starting today, I no longer accept money from any corporate PAC. I urge my GOP colleagues to do the same. For too long, Republicans have allowed the left & their big-business allies to attack our values & ship jobs overseas with no response. No more,” Cruz tweeted on Wednesday.
That prompted an enthusiastic response from Hawley, who retweeted Cruz the following day.
“Yes! Corporate America has put Americans last. They ship our jobs to China, mock middle America’s way of life, try to control our speech and run our lives,” Hawley wrote. “It’s time we stood up to them. I won’t take corporate PAC donations & I’ll fight to break up their monopoly power.”
The bashing of corporations is striking a discordant tone with other Republicans at a time when they’re trying to marshal a unified defense against Biden’s plan to raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, from 21 percent, to pay for his infrastructure agenda.
And this is exactly why Biden is pushing so hard.
Trump’s populism has opened up a fault-line in the Republican party, and people feel that unfettered capitalism has failed them.
Big business is on the nose.
And taxing the bejeepers out of them is obviously the way to fix it.
Obviously.
JG