Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just made a punk out of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Yellen called on the business community Tuesday to help foot the bill for President Joe Biden’s more than $4 trillion American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, which include every wish list item proposed by the Democratic Party going back nearly 50 years.
This is an interesting development, considering Buttigieg claimed last week the White House’s “infrastructure” plan “is paid for.”
Yellen pitched U.S. business leaders specifically on raising the corporate tax rate to help fund Biden’s multitrillion-dollar proposals. Speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Forum on Economic Recovery, the treasury secretary outlined the president’s plan to increase the corporate income tax rate to 28%, up from its current rate of 21%.
“With corporate taxes at a historical low of 1% of GDP, we believe the corporate sector can contribute to this effort by bearing its fair share,” she said.
Yellen added, “At the same time, we want to eliminate incentives that reward corporations for moving their operations overseas and shifting profits to low-tax countries. As part of this effort, we are working with our international partners on a global minimum corporate tax to stop the race to the bottom.”
The Biden administration, she explained, proposes simply “to return the corporate tax toward historical norms.”
The treasury secretary also said, “We are confident that the investments and tax proposals in the jobs plan, taken as a package, will enhance the net profitability of our corporations and improve their global competitiveness.”
Buttigieg must be annoyed, especially after what he said last week.
“We do have the money though, that’s the thing!” the transportation secretary said last week in defense of Biden’s “infrastructure” price tag. “Like, we abundantly do have the money — because, because — the bill is paid for, right? And the real question is, ‘can we afford not to do this?’”
Asked why the White House didn’t simply provide a plan that targets those things related specifically to the literal definition of infrastructure — roads, bridges, airports, etc. — rather than inflate the full cost with a smorgasbord of unrelated left-wing dream items, Buttigieg had no answer.
Infrastructure, he explained, includes “the broader forms of infrastructure we’re talking about. They’re all part of the foundation that make it possible for us to live well.”
“You can either organize your thinking around the org chart of the federal government, or you can organize it around what the lives of human beings in this country are actually like,” Buttigieg said.
Whatever that means.
Do we or don’t we have the money for the president’s “infrastructure” plan, secretary? Because between saying it’s “paid for” and Yellen urging U.S. businesses to help pay for it, the administration is sending mixed messages.
What, exactly, does Buttigieg mean by “the bill is paid for”? Because, after today, I suspect several business leaders beg to differ.
