A Biden administration would renew the anti-business climate of the Obama administration and put any sort of quick economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in real doubt.
August 4, 2020
Joe Biden’s Anti-Growth Agenda Surrenders the Economy to the Radical Left
In his attempts to appease the far left ahead of the November election, Joe Biden has embraced some of the most radical anti-growth policies being debated amongst Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders. Two of those three ran for President and failed largely due to their extreme rhetoric and policy proposals.
Taking center stage in Biden’s attempt to placate the left is an anti-growth economic agenda that calls for crippling tax policies, but with a little hand out to rich people in high-tax blue states who just happen to be the fundraising base of the Democratic Party.
WSJ: “Repeal the $10,000 cap on the deduction for state-and-local taxes, giving a bigger break to places like San Francisco and New York.”
In exchange for giving a hand out to rich people in blue states, Biden is going to apply a 12.4% social security tax and raise the top marginal tax rate from 37% to 39.6%. All in all, it would be a huge tax increase for a targeted group of people.
WSJ: “Economists say the payroll tax falls mainly on workers, even though half is purportedly “paid” by employers. All together, including Mr. Biden’s 39.6% rate on income, the federal government’s top marginal tax on labor would be higher than 50%.”
In an unsurprising political move but one that would hurt American workers, Biden is proposing to raise the corporate tax rate that was just slashed in the Trump Tax Cuts. Biden would raise the rate to 28% from 21%, a significant increase that would incentivize companies to move their headquarters overseas — a formerly common trend that was reversing itself after the latest round of tax cuts. The increase would largely fall on workers.
WSJ: “An American Enterprise Institute study from June assumed that a fifth of the higher corporate tax would fall on workers “in the form of lower compensation.” If so, taxpayers in the 80% to 90% decile, earning around $170,000 to $248,000, would carry an additional $725 tax burden in 2021, on average. For those in the 90% to 95% range, earning less than $353,000, the figure would be $1,368. “Overall,” the report says, ‘24.7 percent of new tax revenue in 2021 would come from the bottom 99 percent of taxpayers.’”
A Biden administration would renew the anti-business climate of the Obama administration and put any sort of quick economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in real doubt.