As Joe Biden prepares to unveil a nearly $4 trillion infrastructure plan, some moderate Democrats are demanding the package be paid for with tax increases — while others demand it include a tax cut for wealthy households.
Happy moderates are all alike; every unhappy moderate is unhappy in their own way. Or so it may seem to the Democratic leadership. Earlier this month, a contingent of centrists in the Senate gave the White House an ultimatum for its impending infrastructure bill: “It’s got to be paid for.” Specifically, Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, and Angus King told the press that their appetite for deficit spending was nearly exhausted by the American Rescue Plan, and that they would only support Biden’s next legislative priority if the bulk of it were offset with new taxes on corporations and high earners. But now, moderates in the House have presented Biden with contradictory demand. Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Tom Suozzi told Axios this week that they will not vote for the infrastructure bill unless it includes roughly $357 billion in tax cuts for the affluent (with about $200 billion of that sum going to households in the top one percent). Specifically, these lawmakers — and, if Axios is to be believed, several others who prefer to remain nameless — demand Biden repeal the cap that Republicans placed on the State and Local Income Tax (SALT) deduction. In addition to directly increasing inequality (in defiance of the White House’s stated goals), such a measure would exacerbate the difficulty of finding enough revenue to reconcile Biden’s ambitions for spending with his pledge to raise taxes on no one except the rich. But there are a lot of rich Democrats in the state of New York — and so Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reportedly plans to make restoring the full SALT deduction a priority in negotiations with the White House.
