President Joe Biden revealed Tuesday that he will bring up a tax increase when he releases the proposed budget on March 9, but insisted he will stick to his campaign promise not to raise taxes on Americans who make less than $400,000 a year.
Biden made the remarks during his Tuesday trip to Virginia Beach, Va., in a speech that was devoted primarily to defending the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid against Republican cuts.
“I want to make that clear, I’m going to raise some taxes,” Biden said in the speech. Many of you are billionaires. You will stop paying 3 percent.
However, he said, “Nobody over 400—making less than $400,000 is going to pay an extra penny in taxes.”
Biden has agreed to cut the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years until Republicans in Congress vote to raise the debt limit.
President Joe Biden revealed Tuesday that he will bring up a tax increase when he releases the proposed budget on March 9, but insisted he will stick to his campaign promise not to raise taxes on Americans who make less than $400,000 a year.
The Congressional Budget Office predicted last month that the United States would default on its debt sometime between July and September if the $31.4 trillion debt limit was not raised before then.
Biden has challenged House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to release a budget proposal to the GOP so they can jointly negotiate spending cuts.
“Instead of issuing threats about a default, which could be catastrophic even if it doesn’t happen — because markets around the world start to hedge against it and it affects economies — let’s take that off the table,” Biden said Tuesday. “And let’s – let’s have a conversation about how we can grow the economy, reduce costs and reduce the deficit, each of us.”
At the same time, he’s hammered Republicans for weeks on some proposals put forward by some lawmakers, including Senator Rick Scott’s midterm offer to “expire” legislation every five years.
Democrats limited that to include Social Security and Medicare—something Scott denied, but was later clarified on a website promoting his plan.
Older Americans tend to skew with Republicans, but Democrats hoped the messaging would alienate some of those voters.
Biden’s budget will be released later in the year than usual and it is not clear if he will address Social Security funding in it.
President Joe Biden has said that “billionaires” will be hurt by tax increases in his next budget proposal. The Right Leaning Tax Foundation said in January that the top 1% of earners pay, on average, a 26% tax rate.
The Washington Post reported last week that he sat down with progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders in January, who pushed him on a way to fund the program for an additional 75 years, but would not break his pledge not to raise taxes on those who make less than $400,000. annually.
Sanders’ plan called for taxes on all income, including investments, over $250,000 to pay for Social Security.
Some Democrats have suggested that Biden should not get into the details of Social Security funding because the program won’t run out until 2032 and have become a solid line of attack.
“There is a faction within the White House that feels the need to advance a plan, although I personally think that’s misplaced,” a senior Democratic pollster told The Post. Stick to our core message: Hands off the elderly. This works.
Source: | This article originally belonged to Dailymail.co.uk