Biden pledges to roll back Trump's tax cuts: 'A lot of you may not like that'
The former vice president vowed to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden pledged during a call with potential campaign donors on Monday that his administration would reverse the bulk of President Trump's tax cuts, even though "a lot of you may not like that."
"I'm going to get rid of the bulk of Trump's $2 trillion tax cuts, and a lot of you may not like that, but I'm going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis," Biden said, according to a pool report of the virtual fundraiser.
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The former vice president vowed to raise the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, which he said is projected to raise $1.3 trillion over the next decade. The Trump administration permanently slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent with the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
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He also floated the possibility of capping deductions -- Trump substantially increased the size of the standard tax deduction in 2017 -- and sanctioning companies for tax avoidance. Biden's comments came after he was questioned by Vincent Mai, the founder and chairman of Cranemere, about how he would balance short-term needs in addressing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression with long-term investments the nation needs to make -- and how he would pay for it.
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The recovery from the pandemic and subsequent shutdown could be used as an opportunity to build a "stronger, more inclusive middle class," he said, in part by investing "record sums of money" in clean energy innovation and infrastructure.
But Biden lambasted Trump's "irresponsible, sugar-high tax cuts," accusing the president of making it "much harder to foot the bill" of the nation's recovery.
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The deficit for fiscal 2020 is expected to hit $3.8 trillion, a record, according to a projection from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Even before the pandemic, the gap between what the government spends and what it collects was expected to break $1 trillion for the first time since 2012, the Congressional Budget Office said in January.
"We have to think as big as the challenge we face," Biden said. "But this is America, there is nothing we cannot do if we do it together. But I think the country is ready.”
In May, Biden and the DNC raised close to $81 million, marking their biggest single-month of fundraising in the 2020 cycle. They concluded the month with $130 million in the bank. Trump and the Republican National Committee brought in a combined $74 million last month and ended the month with $265 million in cash on hand.