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Joe BidenBiden knows fate of spending plan will show extent of his power – and define his legacy The president is about to embark on a legislative push with almost no room for errorLauren Gambino in Washington@ More
OpinionUS taxationHouse Democrats are scared to tax billionaires – that’s a costly mistakeRobert ReichPolitical cowardice means those funding Joe Biden’s ambitious social policy plan want to leave the mega-rich unscathed Sun 19 Sep 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 19 Sep 2021 05.30 EDTThis week, House Democrats released their proposed tax increases to fund Joe Biden’s $3.5tn social policy plan.‘Medium is the message’: AOC defends ‘tax the rich’ dress worn to Met GalaRead moreThe biggest surprise: they didn’t go after the huge accumulations of wealth at the top – representing the largest share of the economy in more than a century.You might have thought Democrats would be eager to tax America’s 660 billionaires whose fortunes have increased by $1.8bn since the start of the pandemic, an amount that could fund half of Biden’s plan and still leave the billionaires as rich as they were before the pandemic began.Elon Musk’s $138bn in pandemic gains, for example, could cover the cost of tuition for 5.5 million community college students and feed 29 million low-income public-school kids, while still leaving Musk $4bn richer than he was before Covid.But senior House Democrats decided to raise revenue the traditional way, taxing annual income rather than giant wealth. They aim to raise the highest income tax rate and apply a 3% surtax to incomes over $5m.The dirty little secret is the ultrarich don’t live off their paychecks.Jeff Bezos’s salary from Amazon was $81,840 last year, yet he rakes in some $149,353 every minute from the soaring value of his Amazon stocks, which is how he affords five mansions, including one in Washington DC which has 25 bathrooms.House Democrats won’t even close the gaping “stepped-up basis at death” loophole, which allows the heirs of the ultrarich to value their stocks, bonds, mansions and other assets at current market prices – avoiding capital gains taxes on the entire increase in value from when they were purchased.This loophole allows family dynasties to transfer ever larger amounts of wealth to future generations without it ever being taxed. Talk about an American aristocracy.Biden wanted to close this loophole but House Democrats balked.You might also have assumed Democrats would target America’s biggest corporations, awash in cash but paying a pittance in taxes. Thirty-nine of the S&P 500 or Fortune 500 paid no federal income tax at all from 2018 to 2020 while reporting a combined $122bn in profits to their shareholders.But remarkably, House Democrats have decided to set corporate tax rates below the level they were at when Barack Obama was in the White House. Democrats even kept scaled-back versions of infamous corporate loopholes such as private equity’s “carried interest”. And they retained special tax breaks for oil and gas companies.What’s going on? It’s not that Democrats lack the power. They’re in one of those rare trifectas when they hold the presidency and majorities, albeit small, in the House and Senate.It’s not the economics. Americans have been subject to decades of Republican “trickle-down” nonsense and know full well nothing trickles down. Billionaires hardly need to have their fortunes grow $100,000 a minute to be innovative. And as I’ve stressed, there’s more money at the top, relative to anywhere else, than at any time in the last century.Besides, Democrats need the revenue to finance their ambitious plan to invest in childcare, education, paid family leave, healthcare and the climate.So what’s holding them back?Put simply, Democrats are reluctant to tax the record-breaking wealth of the rich and big corporations because of … the wealth of the rich and big corporations.Many Democrats rely on that wealth to bankroll their campaigns. They also dread becoming targets of well-financed ad campaigns accusing them of voting for “job-killing” taxes.Republicans sold their souls to the moneyed interests long ago, but the timidity of House Democrats shows just how loudly big money speaks these days even in the party of Franklin D Roosevelt.US’s wealthiest 1% are failing to pay $160bn a year in taxes, report findsRead moreThat’s because there’s far less of it on the other side. Through the first half of 2021, business groups and corporations spent nearly $1.5bn on lobbying, compared to roughly $22m spent by labor unions and $81m by public interest groups, according to OpenSecrets.org.Progressive House Democrats will still have a say. Senate Democrats haven’t weighed in. But there’s reason for concern.The looming debate over taxes is really a debate over the allocation of wealth and power. As that allocation becomes ever more grotesquely imbalanced, this debate will loom ever larger over American politics.Behind it will be this simple but important question: Which party represents average working people and which shills for the rich? Democrats, take note.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
TopicsUS taxationOpinionUS domestic policyUS politicsBiden administrationDemocratsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativescommentReuse this content More
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘Medium is the message’: AOC defends ‘tax the rich’ dress worn to Met Gala‘The time is now for childcare, healthcare and climate action for all,’ the congresswoman wrote on Instagram02:25Alexandra VillarrealTue 14 Sep 2021 14.06 EDTFirst published on Tue 14 Sep 2021 09.25 EDTWhen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a white gown with the message “tax the rich” emblazoned in red to the Met Gala, one of New York’s swankiest events, she was sure to ruffle some feathers.The Met Gala 2021: eight key moments from fashion’s big nightRead moreCritics duly disparaged the move as both hypocritical and tone deaf. The New York congresswoman, a leading House progressive, was happy to set the record straight.“The medium is the message,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram.“NYC elected officials are regularly invited to and attend the Met due to our responsibilities in overseeing our city’s cultural institutions that serve the public. I was one of several in attendance. Dress is borrowed.”Ocasio-Cortez was also determined to use the spotlight to reiterate her commitment to principles that have made her both an icon and a lightning rod on the national political scene, widely known by her initials, AOC.“The time is now for childcare, healthcare and climate action for all,” she wrote. “Tax the Rich.”The dress turned heads at arguably the hottest red carpet event of the year. Ocasio-Cortez lauded Aurora James, the Black, immigrant creative director and founder of luxury brand Brother Vellies, for helping her “kick open the doors” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.“Fashion is changing, America is changing,” James said, according to Vogue. “I think Alexandria and I are a great embodiment of the language fashion needs to consider adding to the general lexicon as we work towards a more sustainable, inclusive and empowered future.”Fans dubbed the look “simply iconic” and called Ocasio-Cortez “an anti-capitalist queen”. Some appreciated that when surrounded by the elite, Ocasio-Cortez chose to flash a message meant to make fellow guests sweat.“AOC wearing this dress at an event full of rich people … this woman has more balls than any man in Congress,” one supporter tweeted.Detractors across the political spectrum highlighted what they saw as hypocrisy.“If [AOC] hates the rich so much, why is she attending an event that only the wealthiest people in America can afford to attend?” asked writer David Hookstead.Vanessa Friedman, fashion director for the New York Times, called the disconnect between Ocasio-Cortez’s appearance at the gala and her message “a complicated proposition”.A leading progressive voice, Black Lives Matter Greater NY, accused the congresswoman of being “performative” and “not very socialist”, especially after protesters were arrested outside the Met.“If you wanted to party with celebs … we get it,” a statement said. “But this right here cannot be excused.”Others came to Ocasio-Cortez’s defense, noting how her dress made a “core message” go viral.In response to her critics, Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram that she was accustomed to being “heavily and relentlessly policed from all corners politically”.“Ultimately the haters hated and the people who are thoughtful were thoughtful,” she wrote. “But we all had a conversation about Taxing the Rich in front of the very people who lobby against it, and punctured the fourth wall of excess and spectacle.”TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezMet Gala 2021US taxationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
US taxationUS’s wealthiest 1% are failing to pay $160bn a year in taxes, report findsThis amounts to 28% of the ‘tax gap’, treasury report says, which Biden proposes closing by empowering IRS to pursue aggressively Martin Pengelly@ More
OpinionDonald TrumpRepublicans will defend their Caesar but new revelations show Trump’s true threatLloyd GreenThe DoJ has dealt two blows and the 6 January committee is winding up for more. They know democracy is in danger
Sidney Blumenthal: What did Jim Jordan know and when?
Sun 1 Aug 2021 01.00 EDTOn Friday, Donald Trump received two more unwelcome reminders he is no longer president. Much as he and his minions chant “Lock her up” about Hillary Clinton and other enemies, it is he who remains in legal jeopardy and political limbo.IRS must turn over Trump tax returns to Congress, DoJ saysRead moreTrump’s allies on Capitol Hill will again be forced to defend the indefensible. That won’t be a bother: QAnon is their creed, Trump is their Caesar and Gladiator remains the movie for our time.But in other ways, the world has changed. The justice department is no longer an extension of Trump’s West Wing. The levers of government are no longer at his disposal.Next year, much as Trump helped deliver both Georgia Senate seats to the Democrats in January, on the eve of the insurrection, his antics may cost Republicans their chance to retake the Senate.Documents that would probably not have seen the light of day had Trump succeeded in overturning the election are now open to scrutiny, be they contemporaneous accounts of his conversations about that dishonest aim or his tax returns.Those who claim that the events of 6 January were something other than a failed coup attempt would do well to come up with a better line. Or a different alternate reality.Ashli Babbitt is no martyr. Trump will not be restored to the presidency, no matter what the MyPillow guy says. Trump’s machinations and protestations convey the desperation that comes with hovering over the abyss. He knows what he has said and done.First, on Friday morning, news broke that the justice department had provided Congress with copies of notes of a damning 27 December 2020 conversation between Trump, Jeffrey Rosen, then acting attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, Rosen’s deputy.As first reported by the New York Times, the powers at Main Justice told Trump there was no evidence of widescale electoral fraud in his clear defeat by Joe Biden.He replied: “Just say that the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me.”That goes beyond simply looking to bend the truth. As George Conway, a well-connected, prominent anti-Trump Republican, tweeted: “It’s difficult to overstate how much this reeks of criminal intent on the part of the former guy.”One White House veteran who served under the presidents Bush told the Guardian: “‘Leave the rest to me’ sure sounds like foreknowledge.”Just “connect the dots and the dates”, the former aide said.The insurrection came 10 days later. As the former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist Steve Bannon framed it on 5 January: “All hell is going to break loose.”Truer words were never spoken.Unfortunately for Trump, Friday’s news cycle didn’t end with the events of 27 December. A few hours later, the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), its policy-setting arm, once led by Bill Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, opined that Trump’s tax returns could no longer be kept from the House ways and means committee.Ever since Watergate, presidents and presidential candidates have released their tax returns as a matter of standard operating procedure. Trump’s refusal to do so was one more shattered norm – and a harbinger of what followed.The OLC concluded that the committee’s demand for those records comported with the pertinent statute. Beyond that, it observed that the request would further the panel’s “principal stated objective of assessing the IRS’s presidential audit program – a plainly legitimate area for congressional inquiry”.Here, the DoJ was doing nothing short of echoing the supreme court. A little over a year ago, the court rejected Trump’s contention that the Manhattan district attorney could not scrutinize his tax returns and, in a separate case, held that Congress could also examine his taxes.In the latter case, in a 7-2 decision, the court eviscerated the president’s argument that Congress had no right to review his tax returns and financial records. Writing for the majority, John Roberts, the chief justice, observed: “When Congress seeks information ‘needed for intelligent legislative action’, it ‘unquestionably’ remains ‘the duty of all citizens to cooperate’.”At that point, Trump had made two appointments to the high court. Both joined in the outcome. So much for feeling beholden.Prospective witnesses before the House select committee on the events of 6 January ought to start worrying. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, Congressman Jim Jordan: this means you. By your own admissions, you spoke with Trump that day.It was one thing for Merrick Garland’s justice department to continue the government defense of Trump in E Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit. It’s a whole other thing to expect Biden’s attorney general to play blocking back for Trump. It is highly unlikely here.The justice department does not appear ready to come to the aid of those who sought to overturn the election. Already, it has refused to defend Mo Brooks, the Alabama congressman who wore a Kevlar vest to a 6 January pre-riot rally.‘Just say the election was corrupt,’ Trump urged DoJ after loss to BidenRead moreOn top of that, the Democrats control Congress and Liz Cheney, dissident Republican of Wyoming and member of the 6 January committee, hates Jordan. It is personal.“That fucking guy Jim Jordan. That son of a bitch,” Cheney told the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, about Jordan, according to Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post.Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who like Cheney voted to impeach Trump over 6 January and has joined the select committee, may also be in the mood to deliver a lesson. Congressional Democrats may want to see Jordan and McCarthy sweat. The House GOP got the committee it asked for when it withdrew co-operation. It faces unwelcome consequences.As for Trump, he may well continue to harbour presidential aspirations and dreams of revenge. But as Ringo Starr sang, “It don’t come easy.” Indeed, after Friday’s twin blows, things likely became much more difficult.TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionTrump administrationUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS taxationUS domestic policycommentReuse this content More
Maybe it’s wishful thinking to declare the pandemic over in the US, and presumptuous to conclude what lessons we’ve learned. So consider this a first draft.1. Workers are always essentialWe couldn’t have survived without millions of warehouse, delivery, grocery and hospital workers literally risking their lives. Yet most of these workers are paid squat. Amazon touts its $15 minimum wage but it totals only about $30,000 a year. Most essential workers don’t have health insurance or paid leave. Many of their employers (including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, to take but two examples) didn’t give them the personal protective equipment they needed.Lesson: Essential workers deserve far better.2. Healthcare is a basic rightYou know how you got your vaccine without paying a dime? That’s how all healthcare could be. Yet too many Americans who contracted Covid-19 got walloped with humongous hospital bills. By mid-2020, about 3.3 million people had lost employer-sponsored coverage and the number of uninsured had increased by 1.9 million. Research by the Urban Institute found that people with chronic disease, Black Americans and low-income children were most likely to have delayed or foregone care during the pandemic.Lesson: America must insure everyone.3. Conspiracy theories can be deadlyLast June, about one in four Americans believed the pandemic was “definitely” or “probably” created intentionally, according to the Pew Research Center. Other conspiracy theories have caused some people to avoid wearing masks or getting vaccinated, resulting in unnecessary illness or death.Lesson: An informed public is essential. Some of the responsibility falls on all of us. Some of it on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms that allowed misinformation to flourish.4. The stock market isn’t the economyThe stock market rose throughout the pandemic, lifting the wealth of the richest 1% who own half of all stock owned by Americans. Meanwhile, from March 2020 to February 2021 80 million in the US lost their jobs. Between June and November 2020, nearly 8 million fell into poverty. Black and Latino adults were more than twice as likely as white adults to report not having enough to eat: 16% each for Black and Latino adults, compared to 6% of white adults.Lesson: Stop using the stock market as a measure of economic wellbeing. Look instead at the percentage of Americans who are working, and their median pay.5. Wages are too low to get by onMost Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So once the pandemic hit, many didn’t have any savings to fall back on. Conservative lawmakers complain that the extra $300 a week unemployment benefit Congress enacted in March discourages people from working. What’s really discouraging them is lack of childcare and lousy wages.Lesson: Raise the minimum wage, strengthen labor unions and push companies to share profits with their workers.6. Remote work is now baked into the economyThe percentage of workers punching in from home hit a high of 70% in April 2020. A majority still work remotely. Some 40% want to continue working from home.Two lessons: Companies will have to adjust. And much commercial real estate will remain vacant. Why not convert it into affordable housing?7. Billionaires aren’t the answerThe combined wealth of America’s 657 billionaires grew by $1.3tn – or 44.6% – during the pandemic. Jeff Bezos, with $183.9bn, became the richest man in the world. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, added $11.8bn to his $94.3bn fortune. Sergey Brin, Google’s other co-founder, added $11.4bn. Yet billionaires’ taxes are lower than ever. Wealthy Americans today pay one-sixth the rate of taxes their counterparts paid in 1953.Lesson: To afford everything the nation needs, raise taxes at the top.8. Government can be the solutionRonald Reagan’s famous quip – “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” – can now officially be retired. Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” succeeded in readying vaccines faster than most experts thought possible. Biden got them into more arms more quickly than any vaccination program in history.Furthermore, the $900bn in aid Congress passed in late December prevented millions from losing unemployment benefits and helped sustain the recovery when it was faltering. The $1.9tn Democrats pushed through in March will help the US achieve something it failed to achieve after the 2008-09 recession: a robust recovery.Lesson: The federal government did not just help beat the pandemic. It also did more to keep the nation afloat than in any previous recession. It must be prepared to do so again. More
The US president, Joe Biden, has said it is time for corporations and the richest Americans to ‘start paying their fair share’ as he pitched his $4tn infrastructure and welfare plans at an event in Virginia.
Speaking at a community college in Norfolk, Biden made the case for increasing taxes on the wealthiest in the US to fund his $1.8tn American families plan and $2tn infrastructure plan. The packages would provide funds for childcare, invest in free universal pre-schooling and rebuild America’s transport and public housing.
‘I think it’s about time we started giving tax breaks and tax benefits to working class families and middle class families, instead of just the very wealthy,’ Biden said.
Biden calls on richest Americans to ‘start paying their fair share’ of taxes – live More
