Republicans Draw 'Red Line' Over Major Issue in $2 Trillion Biden Bill
President Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar dreams won’t come true if there is a tax increase attached, Republican leaders vowed Wednesday after a White House meeting with Biden and top congressional Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy each said after the meeting that they will not back the tax hike Biden wants to cover his $2.3 million package of infrastructure spending and other projects.
Biden wants a hike in corporate income taxes to be the main revenue source to offset the spending. A separate $1.8 trillion package of child care and education spending would be offset by an increase on personal income taxes for the richest Americans.
“We’re not interested in re-opening the 2017 tax bill. We both made that clear with the president. That’s our red line,” McConnell said, according to Politico. “This discussion … will not include revisiting the 2017 tax bill.”
The 2017 tax bill, passed during the administration of former President Donald Trump, reduced taxes.
“We’re not interested in re-opening the 2017 tax bill. We both made that clear with the president. That’s our red line,” McConnell says next to McCarthy. “This discussion … will not include revisiting the 2017 tax bill”
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) May 12, 2021
“You won’t find any Republican that wants to go out and raise taxes,” McCarthy said. “Raising taxes is the biggest mistake you can make.”
McCarthy said he also raised with Biden his concern that inflation must be brought under control.
We keep saying it.
Prices are going up. Democrats won’t admit whether they feel this is already inflation.
But the additional tax hikes, expanded taxpayer-funded UI payments, and trillions of more spending will make this situation worse, not better. https://t.co/K2EruoGlr7
— Ways and Means GOP (@WaysandMeansGOP) May 12, 2021
McConnell said Senate Republicans will not simply march to Biden’s drum, saying he did not favor “top-down dictation as to what this package looks like, but rather a consultative process in which everybody in my conference is involved,” according to Axios.
McConnell also urged Biden to “remember that he promised to govern for all Americans not the far left.” and said the slim Democratic majorities “are not exactly a sweeping mandate for a socialist agenda.”
Really feeling like some sweet bipartisan vibes…
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) May 12, 2021
Republicans have noted that, although labeled as an infrastructure package, there is a lot in the $2.3 trillion proposal that has nothing to do with areas traditionally defined as infrastructure.
“We first have to start with a definition of what is infrastructure,” McCarthy said, according to The New York Times. “That’s not home health. That’s roads, bridges, highways, airports, broadband.”
McCarthy reportedly sent a campaign text to supporters after the meeting that said, “I just met with Corrupt Joe Biden and he’s STILL planning to push his radical Socialist agenda onto the American people.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the goal of the meeting was to “convey that the world is not waiting for us to work together” and to negotiate in a “good faith effort,” Politico reported.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was “more optimistic” after the meeting, which she said “took us a few steps forward.”
As for McConnell’s anti-tax-hike stance, she said, “He considers it sacrosanct. We have a different set of values.”
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