Biden Infrastructure/Jobs Bill Proving As Popular With The Public As Covid-19 Relief Bill

New polling from POLITICO/Morning Consult shows Republicans, Independents, and Democrats are lining up behind President Biden’s bipartisan plan to create good jobs and rebuild our country’s infrastructure.

Highlights from the poll:

• 71 percent of Republicans support the American Jobs Plan’s proposal to modernize highways, roads, and streets
• 64 percent of Republicans support the American Jobs Plan’s proposal to improve caregiving for the elderly and disabled
• 62 percent of Republicans support the American Jobs Plan’s proposal to build and improve public schools

• 65 percent of voters – including 42 percent of Republicans – also support raising corporate tax rates to pay for the American Jobs Plan

Axios reported, How Biden is selling his infrastructure plan to Democrats:

White House senior adviser Anita Dunn is making the case that Democrats can’t lose by rallying around President Biden’s infrastructure plan because its individual components poll even higher than the $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus passed last month.

Driving the news: “Key components of President Biden’s American Jobs Plan are overwhelmingly popular — among a bipartisan and broad coalition,” Dunn wrote in a memo to “interested parties” obtained by Axios around Biden’s rollout of the first of two infrastructure spending packages.

Why it matters: With a price tag of between $2.2 trillion and $2.7 trillion depending on how it’s calculated, it already has come under fire from Republican lawmakers and faces resistance from some moderate Democrats.

• • • But Dunn’s memo suggests that, rather than worry, Democrats can lean into the popularity of the individual components of the plan to pressure House and Senate Republicans to come around — and bash them to voters if they don’t.

By the numbers: Dunn cites public polling showing between 74% and 87% support among Americans for seven elements: new job training for coal miners, highway and bridge work, increasing affordable childcare, expanding broadband access, expanding family and medical leave, upgrading public transportation, and investing in clean energy.

• • • The individual elements garner higher bipartisan support than when Americans are simply asked if they support a new infrastructure bill.

Opposition to the plan comes from American corporations who have enjoyed a tax holiday for years, 55 Massive Corporations Like Nike Paid $0 Federal Tax in 2020 While CEO Pay Soared, and their lickspittle lackeys in the Republican Party, the “Party of No” who are the reason why Americans cannot have nice things.

As the polling indicates, Republicans in Congress do not represent the interests of their constituents. That is because they do not care about voters, they only serve their corporate masters (despite their recent attempt to silence corporate free speech over the GQP’s Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression bills).

The Biden administration unveiled its plan to overhaul the corporate tax code on Wednesday, offering an array of proposals that would require large companies to pay higher taxes to help fund the White House’s economic agenda.

The New York Times reports, The Biden administration seeks to raise $2.5 trillion through corporate tax increases.:

The plan, if enacted, would raise $2.5 trillion in revenue over 15 years. It would do so by ushering in major changes for American companies, which have long embraced quirks in the tax code that allowed them to lower or eliminate their tax liability, often by shifting profits overseas. The plan also includes efforts to help combat climate change, proposing to replace fossil fuel subsidies with tax incentives that promote clean energy production.

Some corporations have expressed a willingness to pay more in taxes, but the overall scope of the proposal is likely to draw backlash from the business community, which has benefited for years from loopholes in the tax code and a relaxed approach to enforcement.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday that the plan would end a global “race to the bottom” of corporate taxation.

“Our tax revenues are already at their lowest level in generations,” Ms. Yellen said. “If they continue to drop lower, we will have less money to invest in roads, bridges, broadband and R&D.”

The usual suspects: The Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, the voices of America’s top corporations, have claimed that raising taxes would hurt U.S. companies operating globally, AP reports.

In November the Chamber of Commerce wanted infrastructure as top priority after COVID-19 relief. In February, “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) along with more than 300 national and local organizations sent a letter to members of the United States Congress, urging them to enact a fiscally and environmentally responsible infrastructure package by the Fourth of July that stimulates the economy and improves the quality of life for every American.” Chamber, BPC Call for Infrastructure Bill by Fourth of July.

Now that there is an actual infrastructure plan instead of Trump’s “let’s pretend it’s infrastructure week” nonsense? In Shocking Twist, Corporations Would Still Prefer Not To Pay Taxes (sarcasm):

Take Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan. The sweeping proposal, which Democrats may try to pass through reconciliation once its final details are worked out, appears to command broad support from the American people, who overwhelmingly approve of raising taxes on corporations to fund repairs to the country’s roads and bridges and other ambitious projects. But the corporate world, predictably, isn’t exactly pleased with the idea of a corporate tax hike, and is mobilizing against Biden’s efforts. “The benefits of infrastructure would be offset by punitive tax increases,” Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the package, told Politico. “And if they move ahead with only Democratic votes, the concept of doing anything on a bipartisan basis would be over and it would just reinforce the kind of gridlock that has prevented progress on every other issue.”

Under the Biden legislation, the corporate tax rate would increase from 21% to 28%—and while corporations and business groups have expressed support for infrastructure improvements in the past, a number of high-powered executives, companies, and organizations like the Chamber of Commerce oppose raising taxes on corporations to do it.

[T]he corporations’ opposition puts them in league with Republicans, who haven’t put forth much in the way of a counter-proposal but have nonetheless vowed to do what they can to stymie the Democrats, arguing that their plan defines infrastructure too broadly and would hurt the economy. “I’m going to fight them every step of the way,” McConnell said after Biden outlined his plan. “I think this is the wrong prescription for America.”

The New York Times continues:

The plan, announced by the Treasury Department, would raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent. The administration said the increase would bring America’s corporate tax rate more closely in line with other advanced economies and reduce inequality. It would also remain lower than it was before the 2017 Trump tax cuts, when the rate stood at 35 percent.

The White House also proposed significant changes to several international tax provisions included in the Trump tax cuts, which the Biden administration described in the report as policies that put “America last” by benefiting foreigners. Among the biggest change would be a doubling of the de facto global minimum tax to 21 percent and toughening it, to force companies to pay the tax on a wider span of income across countries.

That, in particular, has raised concerns in the business community, with Joshua Bolten, the chief executive of the Business Roundtable, saying in a statement this week that it “threatens to subject the U.S. to a major competitive disadvantage.”

[T]he plan would also repeal provisions put in place during the Trump administration that the Biden administration says have failed to curb profit shifting and corporate inversions, which involve an American company merging with a foreign firm and becoming its subsidiary, effectively moving its headquarters abroad for tax purposes. It would replace them with tougher anti-inversion rules and stronger penalties for so-called profit stripping.

The plan is not entirely focused on the international side of the corporate tax code. It tries to crack down on large, profitable companies that pay little or no income taxes yet signal large profits with their “book value.” To cut down on that disparity, companies would have to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent on book income, which businesses report to investors and which are often used to judge shareholder and executive payouts.

The Treasury Department released details on Wednesday of President Biden’s plan to hike corporate taxes over the next 15 years to raise about $2 trillion for his sweeping jobs and infrastructure proposal.

As the Washington Post’s Paul Waldman says, the choice is clear: “Either you think corporations should pay their fair share, or you don’t.” Biden’s new tax plan makes the dividing line clear (excerpt):

The increase in the corporate rate will be in many of the headlines, and since that rate was 35 percent before Republicans cut it down to 21 percent in their 2017 tax cut, it ought to be hard for corporations to argue that they can’t possibly remain competitive if they’re paying 28 percent.

In fact, the current 21 percent rate is the lowest it has been since the 1930s, and in the time between then and 2017, we had plenty of terrific economic booms.

There’s an argument to be made that the corporate tax rate is less important than all the loopholes and rebates and incentives that corporations have used their lobbying clout to insert into the tax code over the years. For instance, if you’re Nike, and you make almost $3 billion in U.S. income but don’t pay any federal income tax and even actually snag yourself a $109 million rebate, whether the corporate tax rate is 21 percent or 28 percent doesn’t really matter to you. You laugh at the tax rate.

Which is why it’s significant that the administration’s plan also contains a “minimum book tax,” which kicks in based on the profits companies report to shareholders. As it stands now, the Treasury Department notes in its report, “Corporations are simultaneously able to signal large profits to shareholders and reward executives with these returns, while claiming to the IRS that income is at such a low level that they should be freed from any federal tax obligation.”

Another key feature of the plan would “invest in the IRS to ensure that large corporations that cross the line would be held accountable, providing an under-resourced IRS the support it needs to overhaul tax administration.”

The importance of reviving the IRS can’t be overstated. In recent years, it has seen its budget slashed, with the number of agents declining and audits plummeting. The primary beneficiaries, of course, are the ultrawealthy and corporations, who can mobilize accountants and tax lawyers who outmatch overworked IRS agents and make sure their clients pay little or nothing.

As a consequence, hundreds of billions of dollars go uncollected, which is why investing in the IRS budget may be the single most cost-effective way to improve the federal government’s balance sheet.

Of course, Republicans — who spearheaded an attack on the agency back in the 1990s and have supported cutting its budget ever since — wouldn’t stand for that. But they’re not going to be voting for this plan anyway, nor the larger infrastructure bill of which it will be a part.

Which brings us to the politics. Tax debates are too complex for most Americans to bother with, so most of them will, at best, hear the broad strokes. At its simplest, this is what the debate comes down to: President Biden and Democrats want to raise taxes on corporations. Corporations and their Republican allies don’t like that.

Which is a pretty good place for those Democrats to be, especially since there may be no more widely shared idea about taxes than, “Corporations don’t pay their fair share.” A 2019 Gallup poll found that 69 percent of Americans felt that way. In Pew Research Center polling, 62 percent said the idea that corporations aren’t paying enough bothered them “a lot,” while only 27 percent were bothered a lot by how much they themselves have to pay.

That doesn’t guarantee any legislative outcome; corporations keep their taxes low not by winning a public debate, but by quietly exercising their lobbying power and enlisting the help of legislators, especially Republicans, who are sympathetic to their plight. [The Swamp.]

But it does mean that the more Democrats talk about this plan to raise corporate taxes, the better a position they’ll be in to actually get it passed. And they’ll force Republicans to be very public about their tireless advocacy for the interests of corporations. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

Congressional Republicans are opposed to fixing America’s infrastructure and creating millions of new jobs because their corporate masters do not want to pay any taxes for it (while at the same time decrying America needs new infrastructure – as long as someone else pays for it). This is the politics of greed which has defined the Republican Party for decades.