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On Thursday, President Joe Biden defended his soak-the-rich tax agenda. He maintained that America’s highest earners will keep their vacation homes and private jets in spite of the new levies. He sought to drum up support during a speech from Lakes Charles, Louisiana, for his $4 trillion spending proposals. It was designed to redistribute trillions in wealth and dramatically expand the government-funded social safety net. Biden insisted that he needs to create a tax system where everyone pays their fair share by imposing higher levies on corporations and the top sliver of US households. President said, “This is not punishing anybody. All those folks are still going to have two homes or three homes and their jets. It won’t matter. Not gonna change their standing one little bit”.

President Biden is promoting the two measures, known as the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan. These measures were designed to make up the basis of his sprawling “Build Back Better” agenda. The first package is estimated at roughly $2.3 trillion, including billions in new funding for the nation’s roads and bridges, as well as transit systems, green energy, and eldercare. The 2^nd package is around $1.8 trillion and it would allocate billions for child care, prekindergarten, paid family leaves, and tax credits for low- and middle-income families. These plans would be paid for by a slew of new tax hikes, including raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% and restoring the top individual income tax rate to 39.6%.

On Thursday, Biden indicated that he would consider a corporate tax rate anywhere between 25% and 28%. He said, “We’ve got to build from the bottom up and the middle out. That’s how we build America.  Infrastructure has historically been a bipartisan undertaking and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be that way again”. It is noteworthy that President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other White House officials have fanned out across the country over the past week in an attempt to build widespread support for the proposals. The travel is part of the administration’s “Getting America Back on Track Tour” as they seek to move past Biden’s first 100 days in office. Many moderate members of the president’s party are likely to push back against his tax-hike proposals.