Politico | Tax the rich? Executives predict Biden’s big plans will flop
- Corporate executives and lobbyists say they are confident they can kill almost all of these tax hikes by pressuring moderate Democrats in the House and Senate
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Ben White on politico.com on May 16, 2021.
Corporate executives and lobbyists in Washington, New York and around the country say they are confident they can kill almost all of these tax hikes by pressuring moderate Democrats in the House and Senate. And they think progressive Democrats don’t really care about the costs of new programmes and will be happy to push through as much spending as they can and then run on tax hikes in 2022 rather than actually pass them this year.
Interviews with over a dozen executives, lobbyists and business group officials turned up a similar theme: While Democrats might be able to push through a slightly higher top corporate rate, when it comes to higher taxes on the rich, on capital gains, on financial transactions or private equity profits, forget it. It’s not happening.
“With business-minded and more centrist members on the Democratic side in both the House and Senate, they look at the scope and breadth of these tax increases for the infrastructure and families plans and they just find them jaw-dropping,” said Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the US Chamber of Commerce. “You are talking about tax hikes that could hit millions of small businesses across the country and taxes that could kill investment. From a raw political perspective, it would be a really funky decision for these moderates to say they would be willing to put this much of a wet blanket on an economy that is really poised to take off.”
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If the executives are right, Biden will have to either break his pledge to pay for his massive spending agenda and further swell the deficit or he’ll have to sharply scale back his plans. And slashing them in any significant way would anger the progressive wing of his party, which sees this as the president’s only chance to fundamentally tilt the economy back toward workers and make it more equitable.