The president says tax hikes for the wealthy and corporations are a fundamental part of creating a fair economy. McConnell insists they’re off the table.
President Joe Biden and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell toughened their positions Monday over the tax increases for millionaires and corporations that Biden has proposed to fund his sweeping infrastructure and education plans. “We’re open to doing a roughly $600 billion package which deals with what all of us agree is ‘infrastructure,'” McConnell said at an event in Kentucky. “And to talk about how to pay for that in any way other than reopening the 2017 tax reform bill.” Raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, up from 21%, is the linchpin of Biden’s proposal to pay for the American Jobs Plan, a massive revamping of the nation’s infrastructure and energy sector that would create jobs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. But McConnell on Monday called the 2017 tax cuts among the most significant domestic accomplishments of the past four years under former President Donald Trump. “We’re not going to revisit that,” he said. McConnell’s insistence on protecting the 2017 tax cuts effectively pours cold water on the best chance that the White House and congressional Republicans had to reach a deal on at least one part of Biden’s sweeping domestic agenda. “I don’t think there’ll be any Republican support, none, zero for the $4.1 trillion grab bag, which has infrastructure in it, but a whole lot of other stuff,” said McConnell. But it wasn’t just McConnell who drew a line in the sand on Monday.
