{"id":407551,"date":"2021-11-27T16:09:36","date_gmt":"2021-11-27T16:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=123830"},"modified":"2021-11-27T16:09:36","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T16:09:36","slug":"manchins-better-way-to-pay-for-build-back-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/27\/manchins-better-way-to-pay-for-build-back-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchin\u2019s better way to pay for Build Back Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazing but true: One of the best ideas to pay for Build Back Better came from Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV).<\/p>\n

Yes, Manchin is a big reason that president Biden\u2019s landmark bill is taking forever to get through Congress. Yes, Manchin personally vetoed a tax on billionaires that passed muster with everybody except, well, billionaires. \u201cI don\u2019t like the connotation,\u201d he said<\/a>, \u201cthat we\u2019re targeting different people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manchin wouldn\u2019t take that route. Instead, in words that go to the heart of tax fairness, he called for all hands on deck: \u201cI\u2019m supporting basically that everyone should pay their fair share.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, everyone isn\u2019t paying their fair share when billionaires<\/a> can game the system and pay little to nothing. Just as important and just as inequitable, there\u2019s also no fair-sharing when the vast majority of upper-income Americans are walled off from any tax increase.<\/p>\n

President Biden long ago laid down a no-new-taxes threshold of $400,000. That\u2019s a big number, and it can hamstring a president with big safety net plans. It seriously shrinks the tax base, giving a free pass to millions of the most affluent families in America.<\/p>\n

That $400,000 is roughly six times the median<\/a> household income in the U.S. If taxpayers making that kind of money were asked to help pick up the tab, the Democrats might have avoided cutting back on universal pre-K, or family leave, or anything else.<\/p>\n

Biden isn\u2019t the first president to create a tax comfort zone for the affluent. President Obama<\/a> did the same, and his top line was $250,000; Hillary Clinton<\/a> chose the same number when she was campaigning to succeed him.<\/p>\n

The idea may be good politics but it\u2019s risky policy, and the risks may have gotten the upper hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally think the president made a mistake by having this red line that nobody below $400,000\u201d would pay any more in taxes. The words came from Bill Hoagland, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He delivered them to a fellow tax expert, the Tax Policy Center\u2019s Howard Gleckman, during one of the Center\u2019s virtual<\/a> sessions on fiscal policy.<\/p>\n

Hoagland argued strongly that everybody should be pitching in: \u201cThis is a social welfare system that we\u2019re talking about, and it shouldn\u2019t be limited to just a select few that have to bear the burden.\u201d\u00a0 Gleckman set the stage, lauding Europe\u2019s \u201crobust social safety nets\u201d financed by taxes that everybody pays.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean, of course, that those with the most shouldn\u2019t be targeted at all. President Obama was able to reduce inequality<\/a> for the first time in years with tax levies on top-tier incomes. The current budget bill no longer includes a tax aimed just at billionaires, but it does call for increases<\/a> on the top 1 percent.<\/p>\n

The hikes make sense, but they don\u2019t really address our saddest and most basic divide: We\u2019ve lost our sense of the common good, of the plain truth that we\u2019re all in this together.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not in this together when \u201cpeople<\/a> with healthy six-figure incomes\u2026convince themselves that they are somehow in the same economic boat as ordinary Americans, and that it is just the so-called super rich who are to blame for inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quote is from a Richard Reeves op-ed that previewed his 2017 book The Dream Hoarders<\/u>. In the book and ever since, Reeves has laid out the case that it\u2019s the top 20 percent\u2014not the top 1 percent\u2014who have done the most to shred America\u2019s social fabric and reinforce inequality.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not in this together when those \u201chealthy six-figure incomes\u201d (Biden\u2019s $400,000, Obama\u2019s $250,000) become the yardstick for tender loving tax treatment.<\/p>\n

Lastly, we\u2019re not in this together when the biggest single cost in Build Back Better could well be a tax break for the affluent\u2014the repeal of the $10,000 limit on the deduction of state and local taxes (SALT). Its two-year price tag of $180 billion dwarfs<\/a> the costs of any of the bill\u2019s social welfare benefits, and the money would go overwhelmingly to people who don\u2019t need it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine anything more regressive. It flies in the face of what Joe Manchin reminded us: everybody should be paying their fair share.<\/p>\n