President Biden dealt a low blow to Republicans Friday, defending his proposal to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% by saying that “wacko liberal” Ronald Reagan taxed businesses at an even higher rate.
Biden included the proposed increase, which stands no chance of passing Congress, in his annual budget released Thursday.
“When we talk about 28% tax rate — Ronald Reagan was doing a 28% tax rate, you know that wacko liberal guy, you know,” Biden said in a stage whisper during White House remarks touting the release of strong job growth figures from February.
Biden conveniently did not mention that Reagan, a Republican who advocated small-government policies, had to work with a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives throughout his two terms in the White House.
The top corporate tax rate when Reagan left office in 1989 was 34%, according to the Tax Foundation — after being lowered from 46% after he entered the presidency in 1981.
Former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax-cuts law lowered corporate taxes from 35% to the current 21% in an effort to make the rate more consistent with other countries and to reduce the cost of doing business.
Biden’s annual budget proposal calls for other tax hikes, which are equally unlikely to pass due to House Republican opposition.
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