President Biden touted a massive corporate tax hike in his State of the Union address Thursday night, while targeting billionaires such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as well as others. He plans to criticize wealthy Americans.
Opinion polls show that voters disapprove of his handling of the economy, and Biden, 81, is trailing Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee.
In a speech Thursday, the president will respond by calling for a 28% corporate tax rate to repeal Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a senior administration official told reporters Wednesday.
white house thursday morning fact sheet Biden also said he would call for a 25% income tax on people with a net worth of more than $100 million.
Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, said the proposal, which is almost certain to fail in Congress unless Biden wins re-election and Democrats take the House and retain the Senate, “would make the tax system fairer. and reduce the deficit by making large corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share.”
Mr. Biden will also call for increasing the minimum corporate tax rate for companies with profits of more than $1 billion to 21% from the current 15% and raising the cap on business income deductions for executives to $1 million.
He also called on Congress to expand a $3,600 annual per-child tax credit for eligible households and another tax credit for low-wage workers, extending other Trump-era tax cuts. I’m planning to make a promise.
“None of his policies will raise taxes a penny on anyone making less than $400,000 a year,” Brainard argued. “The president wants tax cuts for working families, but Republicans in Congress want even more tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations, while increasing the debt by more than $3 trillion.”
The Biden campaign started the year with a huge fundraising campaign, raising $42 million in January and $130 million in cash on hand.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has just $65 million in cash on hand as of December, as legal costs mount as it defends four criminal charges.
Musk, who is worth nearly $200 billion, reportedly met with President Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, as the former president seeks deep donors for his campaign.
Tesla’s CEO harshly criticized the Biden administration’s border policies, which are allowing record numbers of immigrants into the United States, saying earlier this week that the president’s actions were “rebellion”
Musk said on Wednesday that he would not donate to either Trump or Biden for the 2024 election.
Mr. Bezos has yet to participate in a presidential election by donating directly to either campaign.
