{"id":192615,"date":"2021-06-04T17:08:01","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T17:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=805976d0a3d7c66b643ba66fdd893983"},"modified":"2021-06-04T17:08:01","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T17:08:01","slug":"biden-offers-to-keep-trumps-tax-cuts-to-win-gop-backing-for-infrastructure-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/06\/04\/biden-offers-to-keep-trumps-tax-cuts-to-win-gop-backing-for-infrastructure-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Offers to Keep Trump\u2019s Tax Cuts to Win GOP Backing for Infrastructure Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>
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As Democrats and Republicans in Washington continue to negotiate over an infrastructure bill, President Biden is reportedly considering dropping his demand to roll back the 2017 Trump tax cuts \u2014 which primarily benefited corporations and the richest people in the country \u2014 in order to gain support for infrastructure spending of at least $1 trillion. Biden is offering to keep Trump\u2019s tax cuts and shrink the size of his infrastructure proposal in exchange for a minimum 15% corporate tax rate for all companies. Economist Jeffrey Sachs says a capitulation on the Trump tax cuts would be a huge mistake for the Biden administration. \u201cThe corporations have had an unbelievable run of unjust and unaffordable tax cuts,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

TRANSCRIPT<\/h2>\n

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/em><\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> This is Democracy Now!<\/em> I\u2019m Amy Goodman, as we turn to the fight over corporate taxes. President Biden has proposed scrapping his plan to raise the corporate tax rate, if Republican lawmakers agree to support at least a trillion new dollars in infrastructure spending. Biden had previously called for rolling back Trump\u2019s corporate tax cuts by increasing the rate from 21 to 28%. But he is now offering to keep Trump\u2019s tax cut and shrink the size of his infrastructure proposal in exchange for a minimum 15% tax rate for all companies. This all comes as President Biden is heading to the G7 meeting in Britain, where he\u2019s expected to push for a global minimum tax rate to make it harder for companies to stash their earnings in tax havens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Still with us, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.<\/p>\n

So, your comments on what\u2019s happening here in the United States and also the corporate overall tax rate? You are very critical of Biden for not his original infrastructure plan, but what he\u2019s doing now with the Republicans.<\/p>\n

JEFFREY<\/span> SACHS<\/span>:<\/strong> Well, I was shocked and dismayed, and I hope that it doesn\u2019t go anywhere. But the corporations have had an unbelievable run of unjust and unaffordable tax cuts. That\u2019s true for decades. The corporate taxes right now collect a little bit more than 1% of GDP<\/span> in a booming period of corporate profits. In other words, we\u2019ve given away the store. The Republicans, especially, gave away the store in 2017.<\/p>\n

President Biden said, \u201cOK, we\u2019ll restore half of what was given away.\u201d It\u2019s still leaving the companies effectively with a tax cut from 35% to 28% under Biden\u2019s plan. And then, yesterday, apparently, he said to the Republicans, \u201cWell, maybe we\u2019ll leave it at 21%.\u201d God, I hope that this doesn\u2019t happen. It would be the biggest single defeat for basic social justice and affordability of what we need to do through government that I can imagine, because everybody that looks at this understands that what was given away to the corporations was both unjust and unaffordable.<\/p>\n

And so, Biden\u2019s plan, while it was only partial, at least pointed in the right direction. Why did he put that on the table? He didn\u2019t even have a deal. What kind of negotiating is that? And, of course, this is because we are a plutocracy. We are a corporate-driven society. Our infrastructure is crumbling. And the companies say, \u201cYeah, build the infrastructure, but don\u2019t charge us for any of it.\u201d In the meantime, the CEOs are laughing at us, because their compensation is now more than 300 times average workers\u2019.<\/p>\n

So, please, President Biden, we put you in office to help fix this country, not to continue with the Trump plan, for God\u2019s sake. It\u2019s simple. It\u2019s not even complicated. What is this negotiation about? To preserve the Trump tax cut? That\u2019s why we had the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> So, what do you think it would take?<\/p>\n

JEFFREY<\/span> SACHS<\/span>:<\/strong> You know, part of the problem is we have two Democrats who are seemingly more Republican than Republican in this, Senators Sinema and Manchin. I don\u2019t get it, because Joe Manchin\u2019s constituents need this program perhaps more than any other state in the whole country. And Manchin is holding out, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t want to vote for anything that the Republicans don\u2019t agree to.\u201d In the meantime, Mitch McConnell says his 100% effort is to destroy this administration and to preserve the Trumpisms of the last four years. So, what is Manchin doing? Is he representing the people of West Virginia? Is he laughing? Is he a corporate shill? I don\u2019t get it. But this is what we\u2019re facing right now.<\/p>\n

This is a big issue for this country, because if we can\u2019t pay for the basic things we need, if we can\u2019t pay for a clean energy system, for safe water, for digital access to people who can\u2019t afford it, for a transport system that can work for the 21st century, and if the corporations say, \u201cCount us out. We just love our billions, and we don\u2019t want to put in anything,\u201d well, what are we going to have as a country?<\/p>\n

And President Biden is there to turn this around. And he made a perfectly fine proposal, and he should take it to the American people and make the case, because right now all of the opinion polls show overwhelming American support for taxing the corporations, overwhelming American support for taxing the rich. It\u2019s probably the biggest consensus in this country. It\u2019s just not the consensus of the plutocrats in Congress, the Republican Party, in the hands of billionaires. It\u2019s pretty simple stuff, and Biden should not be backing down.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> So, President Biden calls out Sinema and Manchin on Tuesday, when he gave this Tulsa race massacre address in Oklahoma. And on Thursday, he caves to the Republicans, and Manchin and Sinema continuing to say they will not back off of supporting the filibuster. But let me take that corporate tax global. Your comment, finally \u2014 we just have about 30 seconds \u2014 on the G7 finance ministers agreeing to support a global minimum corporation tax rate? What would that mean globally?<\/p>\n

JEFFREY<\/span> SACHS<\/span>:<\/strong> Well, this is an important step. Let\u2019s make sure it\u2019s also not filled with loopholes. The United States, the U.K., Switzerland, Netherlands and a very few other countries created a tax abuse system, which we call tax havens. It\u2019s a system for cheating. So they need to close it up. They made it, and they can stop it. And putting in a minimum tax for corporations so that they can\u2019t abuse all of us is a first step. So I\u2019m hoping that this is real and that it\u2019s going to go through. It is an important, positive step.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Jeffrey Sachs, I want to thank you for being with us, director of the Center for Sustainable Development \u2014<\/p>\n

JEFFREY<\/span> SACHS<\/span>:<\/strong> Pleasure.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> \u2014 at Columbia University, president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Latest \u2013 Truthout<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Economist Jeffrey Sachs says a capitulation on the Trump tax cuts would be a huge mistake for the Biden administration.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1462,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1328,19363,17199,463,28193,5953],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192616,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192615\/revisions\/192616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}