“Outrageous,” screeched the US Chamber of Commerce. “It doesn’t feel fair,” whimpered a top corporate executive.
The wailing by those who run corporate America is not for the plight of the workaday families who’ve seen their incomes stagnate and even plummet to zero during the past months of the coronavirus pandemic. Rather, this chorus of woe comes from powerful plutocratic interests that have been enjoying windfall profits. Why? Because, they cry, that meanie in the White House, Joe Biden, intends to jack up their corporate tax rate.
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But wait didn’t Trump and the GOP Congress slash the corporate share of our nation’s upkeep nearly in half just four years ago, shifting the burden to the middle class and poor? Yes. And didn’t they promise that those cuts would create millions of new jobs? Yes, again – yet corporations got richer and working stiffs got shafted.
Still, here they come again, howling that raising corporate taxes would crash the stock market. Well, the day Biden announced his plan, stock prices did fall… by less than 1 percent. The next day, they bounced right back, and they’re still booming.
Moreover, those are crocodile tears the rich are shedding, for they know that – as Biden himself makes clear – his proposed uptick in their tax share “is not going to affect their standard of living at all. Not a little tiny bit.” They’ll still have their two or three big houses, private jets, and yachts. But, with them paying just a bit more toward the Common Good, our country will be able to reinvest in society’s physical and human infrastructure, making America stronger and fairer for all.
That’s why there is broad and deep public majorities – even among Republicans – for Biden’s infrastructure plan and the taxes to pay for it. For more information go to AmericansForTaxFairness.org.
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