Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden told potential campaign donors at a Monday event that he would end President Trump’s 2017 $2 trillion tax cut, even though many of them might not like it.
During a virtual fundraiser that raised at least $2 million, according to CNBC, Biden said the current economic situation, coronavirus pandemic and systemic racism highlighted by George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis are intertwined.
“Folks, this is going to be really hard work and Donald Trump has made it much harder to foot the bill,” Biden told the potential backers, according to a pool report from The Wall Street Journal’s Ken Thomas. “But even before the crisis, his irresponsible sugar-high tax cuts had already pushed us into a trillion-dollar deficit, and imagine what we could do now if we weren’t in that circumstance.”
“I’m going to get rid of the bulk of Trump’s $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that, but I’m going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis,” Biden continued.
Biden said he also plans to “raise the corporate tax of 20 to 28 percent, which is estimated now to raise $1.3 trillion over 10 [years],” in addition to other tax initiatives.
Trump signed the sweeping GOP tax bill into law in late 2017, slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent.
The former vice president vowed that, if elected, “I’m going to start working right away to, number one, beat the virus for good. Build a stronger, more responsive public health system for the future. Boost oversight to get economic relief out to working families and small businesses that need it the most.”
He also said that he would “invest record sums of money in clean energy innovation and infrastructure.”
“We have to get small businesses a restart package to cover their reopening costs, from everything from administering tests, taking temperatures, to being able to pay the rent,” he added.
Biden said, “I think people are ready to do things that they weren’t before and I think we can significantly grow the economy, grow the GDP [gross domestic product], but also do it in a way that we provide dignity for people.”
Last month, Biden pledged that he would not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 annually. An analysis of Biden’s tax plan released earlier this year by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center found that people with incomes of over $837,400 would see the largest tax increases.