President Biden acknowledged Thursday that it’s unlikely that his plans to raise the corporate-tax rate to pay for his economic and climate package will survive Congress.
“No, I don’t think we are going to be able to get the votes,” Mr. Biden said during a CNN town-hall meeting.
It was the first time Mr. Biden acknowledged opposition to his proposal by moderate Democrats, including centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
The objections have left the White House scrambling to find other ways to cover the price of Mr. Biden’s ambitious, multi-trillion dollar plan to expand the social safety net.
“I’m willing to make sure that we pay for everything without anyone making less than $400,000 paying a single cent more in taxes,” he said.
“There are ways to do that,” he said without elaborating.
Mr. Biden cited the imposition of a minimum multinational tax for businesses as one way to cover the revenue gap and noted with approval that CNN had reported on that proposal.
Raising the corporate tax as well as tax rates on the wealthy, was an idea supported by Democrats in both the House and Senate. Mr. Biden had initially proposed raising the corporate-tax rate to 28% from its current level of 21%.
A compromise proposal to raise it to 25% now also appears to be unlikely.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had insisted Wednesday that Mr. Biden was pushing to raise the corporate tax.
In one of the few questions not to come from a self-identified Democrat in the first segment of the program, Mr. Biden was asked what would be the “fair share” of the tax burden that the rich and/or corporations should pay.
The questioner noted that Mr. Biden and other Democrats have said for decades that those parties do not pay their fair share.
Mr. Biden did not directly answer the question of what “fair share” would be.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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