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Biden reveals he will raise taxes in his March 9 budget as war on billionaires ramps up, but insists he won’t make Americans making less than $400,000 ‘pay a dime more’
- President Joe Biden revealed Tuesday that he will promote the tax increase when he publishes a budget proposal on March 9.
- He insisted that he will keep his campaign promise not to raise taxes on Americans who earn less than $400,000 a year.
- Biden made the comments during his trip Tuesday to Virginia Beach, Virginia.
President Joe Biden revealed Tuesday that he will promote the tax increase when he releases a proposed budget on March 9, but insists he will honor his campaign promise not to raise taxes on Americans who earn less than $400,000 a year.
Biden made the remarks during his trip to Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Tuesday in a speech that was largely devoted to defending the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid against Republican cuts.
“I want to make it clear that I’m going to raise some taxes,” Biden said in the speech. ‘Many of you are billionaires out there. You’re going to stop paying 3 percent.’
He said, however, that “nobody over the age of 400, making less than $400,000, will pay a penny more in taxes.”
Biden agreed to cut the deficit by $2 trillion over a 10-year period so that congressional Republicans vote to lift the debt limit.
President Joe Biden revealed Tuesday that he will promote the tax increase when he releases a proposed budget on March 9, but insists he will honor his campaign promise not to raise taxes on Americans who earn less than $400,000 a year.
The United States will default on its debt sometime between July and September if the $31.4 trillion debt limit is not raised by then, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected last month.
Biden has challenged House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to release a Republican budget proposal so they can jointly negotiate spending cuts.
“Instead of making threats about default, which could be catastrophic even if it doesn’t happen, because markets around the world start to hedge against it and it hits economies, let’s take that off the table,” Biden said Tuesday.
“And let’s have a conversation about how we’re going to grow the economy, reduce costs and reduce the deficit, each one of us.”
At the same time, he has blasted Republicans for weeks over some of the proposals certain lawmakers have made, including Sen. Rick Scott’s pre-midterms argument for legislation to be “cancelled” every five years.
Democrats defined that to include Social Security and Medicare, something Scott denied but later articulated on the website promoting his plan.
Older Americans tend to lean Republican, but Democrats had hoped the message would weed out some of those voters.
Biden’s budget will be released later in the year than usual, and it’s unclear if he’ll address funding for Social Security in it.
President Joe Biden said ‘billionaires’ will be hit with tax increases in his next budget proposal. The right-leaning Tax Foundation said in January that the top 1 percent of earners pay, on average, a tax rate of 26 percent.
The Washington Post reported last week he met with progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders in January, who suggested a way to fund the program for 75 more years, but that would break his promise not to raise taxes on those earning less than $400,000 a year.
Sanders’ plan required all income, including investments, over $250,000 to be taxed to pay Social Security.
Some Democrats suggested that Biden should not go into detail about funding Social Security because the program won’t run out until 2032 and has become a potent line of attack.
“There is a faction within the White House that feels the need to offer a plan, although I personally think it is misplaced,” a top Democratic pollster told The Post. ‘Stick to our core message: Hands off our seniors. That’s working.