Senate Democrats this week are finishing up talks with the Senate parliamentarian to see if they can raise taxes and use the money to extend the solvency of Medicare in an effort to reclaim aspects of the Build Back Better plan that failed last year, Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told Newsmax.
Speaking on “America Right Now” on Saturday, Mullin said, “What the Democrats are really trying to do here is that they’re trying to pay for what they already spent last year.
“Last year, between the Build Back ‘Broke’ plan and the COVID, supposedly bailout plan, they spent $7.5 trillion,” Mullin added.
While it is unclear where the congressman got his figure, President Joe Biden did tout that part of the initial spending for his presidential agenda would cost roughly $7 trillion. But so far, according to Investopedia, the American Rescue Plan Act, which passed in March 2021, costs only $1.9 trillion. The CARES Act, USA Facts reported, and to which the congressman referred, was $2.2 trillion.
ABC reported that the tax hikes affect people earning $400,000 or more and couples who earn $500,000 or more. Those who qualify in those circumstances, the news outlet reported, would pay a 3.8% tax on their earnings, which would raise an estimated $203 billion over the next decade. This would not be the largest tax hike in U.S. history.
According to a report from the Tax Foundation, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in June testified to both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee regarding Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Proposals. Assuming the Build Back Better Act becomes law, the United States would hold the highest tax rates on individual and corporate income in the developed world, raising revenues of $4 trillion for the federal government over the next decade.
The Foundation’s Erica York and Garrett Watson wrote: “Combined with the tax increases in the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), which the budget assumes becomes law, President Biden would raise revenues by $4 trillion on a gross basis over the next decade.”
As of Saturday, there are no known reports that the Biden administration will push through the BBBA, and it remains unlikely the administration will pass the act after the 2022 midterms. The act has passed the House, but remains stalled in the Senate due to objections from Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
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