President insists no one earning under $400,000 will see a tax increase

President Joe Biden confirmed that he would only target the country’s wealthiest to pay for $2 trillion in infrastructure investments during a speech Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he debuted the plan.  

‘No one making under $400,000 will see their federal taxes go up, period,’ Biden said, reiterating a campaign promise and creating his own ‘read my lips’ moment. 

Biden is pitching investments in roads, bridges, broadband technology, along with water projects, housing, and job training efforts, which will be paid for by hiking taxes on big corporations and firms with off-shore profits. 

During his address, Biden repeatedly said he wasn’t punishing the rich.    

‘This is not penalizing people. I have nothing against millionaires and billionaires. I believe in American capitalism. I want everyone to do well,’ he said at one point.  

‘This is not to target those who’ve made it. Not to seek retribution,’ he said at another. 

‘This is about opening opportunities for everybody else,’ the president stated. ‘And here’s the truth. We all will do better when we all do well.’   

Biden used the speech to go after former President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans for the 2017 tax bill that slashed the corporate tax rate and helped other Americans at the top. 

As evidence, the president noted how the wealthiest Americans made an additional $4 trillion during the coronavirus pandemic.  

‘It didn’t meet any of the predictions it would for growing the economy,’ Biden said of the 2017 tax law, calling it ‘wrong for our future.’  

‘I know paranthetically that I got criticized for giving tax breaks to middle class and poor folks this last time,’ Biden said, alluding to stimulus checks and other funds fund in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that he signed earlier this month. ‘You didn’t cry … when Trump’s tax bill passed, 83 per cent of the money went to the top 1 per cent,’ he said in a message to Republicans. 

On Wednesday Trump and GOP lawmakers were already attacking Biden in the hours before and after he officially rolled out the plan.   

‘Biden’s policy would break the back of the American Worker with among the highest business tax rates in the developed world,’ Trump said.

The plan will include a 7 per cent corporate tax hike from the current rate of 21 percent. 

‘Joe Biden’s radical plan to implement the largest tax hike in American history is a massive giveaway to China, and many other countries, that will send thousands of factories, millions of jobs and trillions of dollars to these competitives Nations,’ Trump charged.     

Biden argued that the U.S.’s infrastructure, which ranks 13th in the world, is hindering its ability to have a competitive edge against China. 

He said it would ‘put us in the position to win the global competition with China in the upcoming years. It’s big, yes. It’s bold, yes. And we can get it done.’ 

 He emphasized clean energy competition with China in particular. 

And he brought up a conversation after his inauguration with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He said Republicans in Congress know that ‘China is eating our lunch’ and that the nation must improve its infrastructure. 

Trump argued the opposite, saying the tax hikes and then dollars thrown back into the U.S. economy would damage it further, as it reels from the coronavirus pandemic. 

Trump predicted the tax hikes would compel companies to take American jobs overseas, something that the White House says a rewrite of the tax code would prevent. 

‘This legislation would be among the largest self-inflicted wounds in history,’ Trump said. ‘If this monstrosity is allowed to pass, the result will be more Americans out of work, more families shattered, more factories abandoned, more industries wrecked, and more Main Streets boarded up and closed down – just like it was before I took over the presidency 4 years ago.’ 

Trump continued by calling the tax hike a ‘globalist betrayal by Joe Biden and his friends: the lobbyists will win, the special interests will win, China will win and Washington politicians and government bureaucrats will win – but hardworking American families will lose.’ 

‘Joe Biden’s cruel and heartless attack on the American dream must never be allowed to become Federal Law,’ Trump said. ‘Just like our southern border went from bad to worst, and is now in shambles, our economy will be destroyed!’       

Biden also cast the proposal as an arena in the competition between democracies and autocracies. ‘Can democracies still deliver for their people. Can they get a majority?’ he said. 

The president also said he had spoken to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – who Biden accidentally called the ‘majority’ leader – a title that was stripped from the Kentucky Republican when Democrats took over the Senate in January. 

‘I guess he’s no longer the majority leader,’ Biden said, quickly fixing his mistake. 

The takeaway of the conversatio Biden suggested was, ‘Everybody’s for doing something on infrastructure.’

‘Why haven’t we done it? No one wants to pay for it,’ Biden said. 

McConnell sent out a statement directly after Biden’s speech saying that Republicans would get on board a ‘targeted’ infrastructure plan – code for less expensive. 

The Kentucky Republican said the bloated price tag was because the bill was really a ‘liberal wishlist.’ 

‘It contains sweeping far-left priorities like attacking blue-collar Americans’ Right to Work protections, a huge favor to Big Labor bosses,’ McConnell said. ‘Every time that far-left dogma clashes with the interests of American families, today’s Democrats pick the dogma.’

In his speech Biden argued that the size was correct because investment is so badly needed.   

‘We can afford to make them,’ he said. ‘Put another way, we can’t afford not to.’ 

And he boasted about the size of the package.   

‘It’s not a plan that tinkers around the edges. It’s a once in a generation investment in America. Unlike anything we’ve seen or done since we built the Interstate Highway System or the space race decades ago,’ he said. 

‘It’s big, yes. It’s bold, yes. And we can get it done,’ he added.   

Biden’s trip to Pittsburgh Wednesday started with him gingerly walking up the stairs of Air Force One in the rain – holding onto both a briefcase and an umbrella – and avoiding another tumble like the one two weeks ago en route to Georgia. 

Biden picked Pittsburgh to roll out his plan because it carries both economic and policial resonance.  

He not only won Pittsburgh and its surrounding county to help secure Pennsylvania, and in turn the presidency, but he launched his campaign there in 2019. 

Upon his arrival, Biden briefly met with a group of Pennsylvania Democrats including Gov. Tom Wolf, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Reps. Conor Lamb and Mike Doyle.

He also participated in a photo line with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is mounting a bid to take the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, as well as a number of state lawmakers and local officials. 

Pittsburgh’s Mayor Bill Peduto was on hand at his speech.  

Pittsburgh is a series of steep hills and three intersecting rivers. 

Its steel mills once covered the sky in enough soot that men needed to take spare white shirts to work because their button downs would turn to gray by lunch.

But it’s considered a ‘Rust Belt’ success story as the once ‘steel city’ attracted emerging industries, like healthcare and tech – but is still hindered by deteriorating infrastructure. 

Only last year the city, amid the coronavirus pandemic, met Environmental Protection Agency standards for air quality.

Biden’s remarks were delivered  at the Carpenters Pittsburgh Training Center, where he traveled in 2018 to stump Lamb, who successfully turned a red Congressional district blue during the Trump era.    

Despite the massive price tag and expected tax increase, progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday Biden’s $2.2 trillion for infrastructure should be ‘way bigger.’

‘This is not nearly enough,’ Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

She added: ‘The important context here is that it’s $2.25T spread out over 10 years. For context, the COVID package was $1.9T for this year *alone,* with some provisions lasting 2 years. Needs to be way bigger.’

Previewing the rollout during Tuesday’s press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki referenced proposed changes to the tax code.   

‘[Biden] believes that there’s more that can be done to make the corporate tax code fair – to reward work, not wealth,’ Psaki said.  

Incidentally, Biden was senator for Delaware for 36 years – a tax haven state ranked the ‘world’s most opaque’ by the London-based ‘Tax Justice Network’ in 2010.

Delaware has no sales tax, it does not tax business transactions, and it does not have use, inventory or unitary tax. 

There is also no inheritance tax in the state and no capital shares or stock transfer taxes. 

This tax hike, if passed, would be the largest comprehensive tax increase since 1993. 

‘If Republicans have alternative ways to pay for it, we’re certainly open to hearing that. They don’t think they should pay for it? We’re open to hearing that, too,’ Psaki told MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ on Wednesday. ‘What we’re focussed on is we have to invest in our infrastructure.’