Republicans Reject Tax Increases After Meeting With Biden on Infrastructure
District of Columbia | May 24, 2021
Top Republicans told President Joe Biden during an Oval Office meeting on May 12 that they won’t support tax increases in a major infrastructure package.
Biden, a Democrat, has proposed reversing key portions of the 2017 tax bill which had been approved by the GOP and signed by then-President Donald Trump.
“We’re not interested in reopening the 2017 tax bill. We both made that clear to the president. That’s our red line,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters in Washington after the meeting.
The economy was strong in early 2020, before being derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, because of the tax cuts in the bill, McConnell asserted.
“Raising taxes would be the biggest mistake you could make,” added House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), citing the rise in gas, food, housing, and lumber prices and surging inflation. “That, to us, is a nonstarter.”..
(Excerpts from the Epoch Times)