Speaker 1: It's great to welcome back to the program today, Congressman Roe Connor, who
represents California's 17th District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Congressman, always great to speak with you.
Speaker 5: Always a pleasure, David.
Speaker 1: So there's so many things to talk about.
Let's start with the United States Innovation and Competition Act of twenty twenty one,
formally known as the Endless Frontier Act.
What what's the goal here?
What would this legislation do?
Speaker 5: First of all, a big dramatic increase in science and technology funding of the kind
we haven't seen since the Apollo years, we're at about point seven percent of GDP in science
research.
Comparatively, China is almost double one point three percent of their GDP.
This would add two hundred and fifty billion, over 100 hundred billion of that in science
and technology development.
And it would put this across the country.
So focusing on black communities, brown communities, rural communities, making sure innovation
is accessible to places left behind.
Speaker 1: When we look at something like that, Bill, and we look at the infrastructure
proposal and we look at all of these different big pieces of legislation that that could
be tackled and we run into the inevitable questions about, OK, in the Senate, does it
need 60 votes?
And if not, can it be done with 50?
But if it can be done with the 50, do Democrats have 50 or do they have forty nine or forty
eight?
Is this just going to be the question around every piece of legislation for the foreseeable
future?
Speaker 5: It is.
And look, unfortunately, we're living in a Senate which is 50.
We thought we would do better.
We didn't we need to do build on that majority and really living in a house that only has
a five vote majority.
So it is the challenge of governing with slim majorities and it's the challenge of governing
with a dysfunctional Senate which has a filibuster rule that allows the minority and a legitimizes
obstruction.
Speaker 1: I don't think you and I have talked about this.
I mean, in terms of the filibuster, there are some who say just eliminate it, period,
eliminate it altogether, and then those who say, but that's also a double edged sword.
There's these intermediate ideas of, well, instead of saying you need you need 60 to
end debate, make it that you need 40 actual people to continue pushing it forward and
kind of like flip the onus around or require it to be a talking filibuster.
What's your view about this issue?
Speaker 5: My view is that we just need to end the filibuster ended altogether and use
over and over again to suppress and obstruct civil rights legislation, racial equality
legislation.
In fact, that's been its primary use.
And it was an invention of Calhoon and wanted to give slave states the power to block progressive
legislation.
But I'm for anything that will advance the ball.
So we're going to say, OK, we want to have voting rights be an exception to the filibuster.
I'm for that.
If we're going to put the onus on senators to actually speak and show up and it's going
to make it much harder to filibuster, I'm for that.
But ultimately, we need to do away with this is not part of our Constitution.
It's not part of our founders vision.
Speaker 1: Do you worry about the argument that is it's a double edged sword and it could
really come back and hurt Democrats when the political circumstances in the division are
just slightly different?
Speaker 5: For two reasons I don't.
First, the Republicans push their agenda through anyway.
That's how they got the tax cut.
So a lot of the Republican agenda, let's cut taxes, but slash government isn't subject
to the filibuster.
It's a lot of our policies that are subject to the filibuster.
Second, in a country, I think our problem is that our politics is too slow.
Our change is too hard.
I worry less between a zig zagging from one place to another than I worry about institutional
roadblocks and gridlock and our inability to do things.
Speaker 1: When you think about any of the bills that you're currently supporting and
that includes USACA and all of these other things that we're talking about, infrastructure,
etc., we had this ProPublica story a couple of weeks ago where they identified that relative
to the growth of net worth, which, as I've explained to my audience, that's not how we
tax in the United States.
We tax unrealized gains, but it exposed that there are if you're making money from assets
rather than labor, you can until you realize those gains have significant tax free growth
of of one's net worth.
Do you think that in the context of any bill that's designed to help workers, that we also
need to be revisiting how we tax assets versus labor?
Speaker 5: Yes, we need a wealth tax in this country.
I mean, think about this.
In my district has 10 trillion dollars of market value in the Bay Area companies.
It's grown 35 percent in the Bay Area.
Ten trillion dollars.
We ought to be taxing some of that.
And a lot of those billionaires, frankly, would pay the tax.
They won't oppose it.
Instead, this bipartisan bill for infrastructure is going to fund it by raising the gas tax
on to the index of inflation.
So we're going to tax the working class who basically have to drive 40 minutes because
they can't afford an apartment in San Francisco or in New York.
So they are commuting as is.
And we're going to put the burden on them to pay for infrastructure instead of on the
tech billionaires.
And the multibillionaires produced all this wealth.
It makes no sense.
Speaker 1: So I don't know about you.
I see an actual tax on wealth as so unlikely to pass in the next four years that I wonder
how much it's even worth talking about it.
But some of the Biden proposals on either capital gains or, you know, there's other
ideas that maybe are more politically feasible.
How important do you think it is as someone who's been advocating for the wealth tax and
other things that, quite frankly, I think are unlikely to pass anytime soon?
How much is the balance in your mind between trying to get something done that can actually
be done versus talking about what you see as the gold standard?
Speaker 5: I think we get do both them and I mean, Tom Suozzi was a moderate on Ways
and Means and Brendan Boyle, I've actually come out now for a while, tax at one time.
Well, tax, not like more than two percent every year.
Yeah, that let's call it the Patriot tax with the pandemic, all this wealth that was generated.
Let's tax at one time.
So that is because of people like you and Elizabeth Warren and others who have put the
idea into the public discourse.
And what often happens is it takes years and then finally something happens.
So we need to continue to do that.
But we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And if we can get some solid reforms now, such as a step up in basis means if you buy
a million dollars of Facebook stock, you hold it till the end of your life.
If you want to have kids and you give it to your kids, they should have to pay tax on
the capital gains.
Right now, they don't have to literally you can die with capital gains never having been
taxed and pass it on to your heirs.
Biden closes that gap and it raises billions of dollars.
We ought to be increasing the tax on corporations, so let's get those done.
But ultimately, if you really want to fund things in this country, we need a Wall Street
financial tax.
We need a wealth tax.
And I don't think that will hurt innovation or economic growth, but it would fund the
basic infrastructure based on the people who have made fortunes, inconceivable fortunes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some pretty slick stuff.
And I don't know if by slick I even mean this sarcastically or not.
I mean, it's interesting to me that this can be done.
One can even to build on the idea of the stepped up basis, one can even borrow against their
portfolio and in a sense, de facto realize the gains, like you can actually get access
to that growth without even having to pay the capital gains and pass it on tax free.
I mean, that's quite a mechanism that exists in the United States tax code.
Speaker 5: It is a dividend.
And trust me that it's all being used by these billionaires or hiring lawyers.
And, you know, in one sense, you can't blame them.
I mean, you're they're taking advantage of rules that Congress has written.
So, yeah, it could be more patriotic, perhaps, to pay tax.
But how many people are going to say, yeah, I want to pay more tax than I owe?
Right.
So what we really need to do is change the rules, make sure that these billionaires who
produce all this wealth are being taxed fairly on it.
And I don't think a billionaire sitting there is going to think, OK, maybe I shouldn't,
or an aspiring billionaire.
I'm not going to start the next Google because the government may take two percent of my
net worth.
That's just not how entrepreneurs think.
Speaker 1: How do you see the sort of tiering of priorities when it comes to the financial
stuff?
And what I mean by that is sometimes I talk to people who are on the left who I think
feel pressure to say basically once you're making a couple hundred thousand dollars a
year or even five hundred thousand dollars a year, that and making 10 million and one
hundred million and a billion, it should really be seen in the same the same way you're just
making a ton of money.
And when I actually get into it with a lot of people, we sort of get to realize that,
you know, there's a big difference between making three hundred and fifty K with a couple
of kids in a big city versus people who are making five fifty and five hundred million
dollars a year.
How important do you think it is to approach those groups differently versus just wrap
everybody together Speaker 5: is very important.
Approach something differently because of the real taxes have to be on the ultra rich
and the big corporations, and that's where the real money is.
And, you know, tax the people who are making billions of dollars, some of it perhaps legitimately
look, they may have come up with a great idea.
They see the digital revolution.
Sure.
You understand it's transforming an industry.
They're at the forefront of leading that great celebrated.
But then they have to pay a tax so that society can transition.
But that's where the real taxes don't go after.
The person who's making a few hundred thousand already has a couple of kids in college in
the suburbs.
I mean, look, make sure it goes up to thirty nine percent.
But that's not you don't want to stop the the middle class or even the upper middle
class you want to do is say we've got we're going to prioritize the working class, we're
going to look out for the middle class and upper middle class, but we're really going
to get the revenue from the big corporations and the ultra rich.
Speaker 1: And I think maybe this is something that the truly ultra rich really benefit from,
which is that when they are sort of wrapped in together with folks that are wealthy but
less wealthy, they are maybe better able to take advantage of the tax law and end up paying
as an effective tax rate, even less like the ultra rich often end up paying slightly less
than the very rich to distinguish between two very rich groups.
That maybe is something that would deserve some significant attention.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
I think we have to treat the ultra rich as a separate class, given the wealth generation
in this country.
And I, I think taxing them more, in my view, is in their interests.
And this is why there's so many billionaires, by the way, in my district who are fine with
the wealth tax.
Yep.
And.
The reason it's in their interest is because if you want to prevent a resentment and hostility
to wealth generation and a lot of their wealth generation, in my view, has come through honest,
hard work, creativity and ingenuity.
It's not that they deserve all of the billions.
There are lots of people that went into it.
But it's not that they were just lucky they didn't work hard.
And but if you want people to celebrate that, then pay the tax and show that you're generating
that wealth is helping society.
When you don't pay that tax, that's where you have the resentment.
Speaker 1: Last thing I wanted to ask you about in terms of budget reconciliation, where
would you like to see it used in order to get one more big accomplishment in twenty
twenty one?
Speaker 5: Climate, clearly, it has to have climate in it.
I mean, the infrastructure plan that currently is on the table is basically a version of
what Trump said.
It has none of the climate goals.
So we need the climate goals in there.
We need a broader vision on tax policy so that you don't have the working class with
the tax policy.
That would be my my essential part.
I mean, obviously, I want to expand Medicare.
I want prescription drugs out of a hole, a child care, a whole vision.
But if it's the White House were to call me and said, what are the must haves, I take
good tax policy and climate.
Speaker 1: Do you agree that for Democrats to make a solid case for 20, 22, which really
is going to kick off I mean, it might be January, it really might even be November, December.
Some consultants are saying.
Do you think that Joe Biden needs one more major accomplishment in addition to vaccine
rollout and covid stimulus this calendar year?
Speaker 5: I do, and I think he'll get one.
But the question is, what kind will it be if it is just a bipartisan infrastructure
bill that may help and it may help a moderate swing districts.
But I don't think it's going to mobilize their base that we need both.e need something to
the independents, swing voters, but we also need to show our base that we really delivered
on progressive change.
So I would say he needs one big thing that appeals to the base as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a relatively small infrastructure bill that Mitt Romney loves.
I don't know if that's necessarily going to count as the progressive change people are
people are waiting for.
Completely agree with you.
We've been speaking with Congressman Rokan, representing California's 17th District.
Always great having you on, David.
Speaker 5: Always enjoy it.
Thank you.