OAN’s James Meyers
1:33 PM -Monday, March 11, 2024
President Joe Biden has revealed his election-year budget plan, which calls for $5.5 trillion in tax increases by raising rates on prosperous companies, which includes billionaires to pay a minimum 25% tax rate.
Biden’s $7.3 trillion proposal for fiscal year 2025 would also reduce the federal deficit by close to $3 trillion, according to the White House. The newest budget would limit corporate profit sharing.
According to Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute focusing on budget and taxes, the new budget will result in “the highest sustained taxes” ever in the United States.
“The highest peacetime burden in American history, as well as the highest sustained taxes in American history.”
“Not only is the president raising taxes, but he’s using a substantial portion of it for new spending rather than deficit reduction, which just means even bigger tax hikes down the road when it’s time to rein in the deficit,” Riedl said.
This comes after Biden mentioned the newest budget plans in his State of the Union Address, which included raising the income tax rate for corporations to 28% and increasing the minimum corporate tax rate from 15% up to 21%.
“You know, there are 1,000 billionaires in America. You know what the average federal tax is for these billionaires? They are making great sacrifices: 8.2%,” Biden said mockingly, adding that his tax hike would “raise $500 billion over the next 10 years.”
“Under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in federal taxes,” he added. “Nobody. Not one penny. And they haven’t yet.”
However, Reidl argued that the White House “widely debunked” the 8% tax rate and that it was “essentially made up by White House economists.”
“They do not count the corporate and estate taxes paid by the wealthy, but they also expand their income to include all sorts of things like unrealized capital gains that will be taxed in a future year,” Riedl said.
“America has the most progressive tax code in the entire [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] and billionaires do not pay an 8% tax rate.”
However, budget requests typically do not become law, and Biden’s should not be an exception, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats controlling the Senate.
Meanwhile, before Biden’s State of the Union speech, House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas.) released a budget resolution to reduce deficits by $14.2 trillion and add a budget surplus of $45 billion.
“At a time when the state of our union is in sharp decline, President Biden has proven he is unwilling to make the tough decisions to confront the reality of our nation’s unbalanced budget and weak economy,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement about the proposal.
“The reckless spending and economic damage done by this Administration and years of Democrats’ control has increased everyday costs for the American people.”
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