Senator Kyrsten Sinema refuses to raise tax rates on rich people, businesses or capital gains. President Biden and Democrats are coming up with plans to get her on board, by redesigning the tax hikes, or daring her to vote no.
Kyrsten Sinema has derailed President Biden’s domestic agenda by opposing the major revenue-increasing provisions that finance it. Democrats are working on two strategies to deal with her objections. Both of them are long shots. The first strategy is to try to craft some alternate suite of progressive tax hikes that would satisfy Sinema. Sinema has expressed opposition to increases in marginal rates for businesses, high-income individuals, or capital gains, which describe the main ways Democrats propose to raise taxes on the rich. Of course, if it’s the only way to get Sinema’s support, you do it. But the assumption that she would actually support these measures gives her far too much credit. What seems to have happened is that rich people and businesses lobbying against Biden’s plan have gotten Sinema’s ear and persuaded her that raising their tax rates will have all sorts of terrible effects on the economy ( evidence be damned). If you take Sinema’s current arguments very seriously and literally, she simply has a wonkish objection to the policy design, and her concerns can be satisfied with a different suite of tax hikes.
