Tax the rich and end Republican welfare for the wealthy

Over the past 50 years, before the GOP went all in on fascism and isolationism, the most dramatic difference between Democrats and Republicans lurked in the driest of places: tax policies. As National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard told the Economic Club of New York last year, although tax cuts for the wealthy added trillions to the national debt, the cuts didn’t deliver measurable gains in jobs, they didn’t cause an increase in wages earned by the average worker and they didn’t — despite a promise of more “capital to build factories, to buy equipment, and hire more people” — lead to any increase in investment whatsoever. As former Republican Rep. David Jolly of Florida observed, a quarter of the nation’s total debt was incurred under Trump alone: “Roughly 25 percent of our total national debt incurred over the last 230 years actually occurred during the four years of the Trump administration.” Following Trump’s colossal $2.3 trillion tax giveaway to corporations and the nation’s wealthy, Trump reminded his rich donor friends, “ You all just got a lot richer.” Did they ever. Under Biden’s plan, wealthy individuals and corporations would pay more in taxes — partially rescinding Trump’s gifts to the rich — which would pay for tax credits to the working poor and middle class. Biden also tackles rising rents by subsidizing new construction and renovation and seeks to “curb unfair and illegal pricing across the economy” to “combat egregious rent increases and other practices driving up rents.” David Dworkin, president and chief executive officer of the National Housing Conference, told the Washington Post that Biden’s plan, as revealed in his State of the Union address, was “the most consequential set of housing recommendations in a State of a Union in over 50 years.” Democrats need to recognize Biden’s seeds of success When they review Biden’s proposed budget, Republicans will howl about redistributive wealth and pennies to welfare recipients, without acknowledging their $2 trillion tax giveaway to their uber-wealthy donors.