US Economy: Biden Introduces New Tax Plan To Pay For Ambitious Agenda

President Joe Biden spoke Thursday about his plan to raise taxes on the wealthy earners and big corporations to "level the playing field" for middle-class Americans as part of his Build Back Better agenda, while also adding that "we still have a long way to go to get the economy where it needs to be."

Biden repeated calls for fairly taxing big corporations and the wealthy “long overdue.”

“Let me ask you this, where is it written in that all the tax breaks in the American tax code go to corporations and the very top? I think it’s enough, I’m tired of it,” he said from the White House.

"How’s it possible that the wealthiest billionaires in the country can entirely escape paying income taxes on what they make? For a long time, this economy has worked great for those at the very top. Ordinary, hardworking Americans, the people who built this country, have been basically cut out of the deal," Biden said.

This summer, the Senate has been working on the $3.5 trillion human infrastructure bill that will provide funding for many things to benefit all Americans such as paid leave, free community college, universal pre-K, childcare, healthcare, combating climate change, and expanding Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing.

In order to pay for the ambitious package, Biden plans to raise taxes on anyone making over $400,000 a year from 37% to 39.6%, raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 26.5%, and the capital gains tax would increase from 20% to 25%. The proposed changes would raise $2 trillion in the span of a decade, according to the joint committee on taxation.

Biden has said the nation needs to reduce the cost of raising a child rather than reducing the cost of being wealthy.

There have been some disagreements among Democrats over the price tag of the bill, particularly with Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., as they have both indicated they would only support a bill between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. On Wednesday, Biden met separately with Manchin and Sinema at the White House to argue for his ambitious agenda.

House progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have threatened to kill the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal that passed in August if the reconciliation bill does not pass the Senate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set a date for the bipartisan bill to be voted on by Sept. 27. If both bills manage to pass it will mark the greatest expansion of the social safety net since the 1960s.