Senator Joe Manchin is, apparently,
against taxing the rich,
which means that he plans on being
a massive pain when it
comes to passing
Joe Biden's infrastructure bill.
Now, as we had shared with you
earlier, part of the way of passing
that bill includes,
tax increases for the wealthy and,
specifically, a tax increase on
corporations from 21% to 28%.
Now, the corporate tax rate,
of course, would not be as high
as it was prior to the Trump
administration, when it was 35%.
But, nonetheless, Manchin has
a problem with this tax hike for
the wealthy, for
these corporations.
And he shares, why,
in an interview, with a local radio
station in West Virginia.
Let's listen.
>> As this bill exists today,
as it exists today,
do you support or oppose that bill?
>> As the bill exists today,
it needs to be changed, Hoppy.
Bottom line is that's what
legislation is all about.
This bill will not be
in the same form.
You've seen it introduced,
you'll see people talking about it.
And I'm not talking about raising
taxes, other than I think corporate
should have never been below 25,
and that's the worldwide average.
And that's basically what every
corporation would have told you,
that's what they thought was fair.
>> So, there you hear Manchin
saying that the corporate tax rate
shouldn't be lower than 25, but
it shouldn't be as high as 28%.
Now, keep in mind that
the corporate tax rate is very
different from the effective tax
rate, which includes deductions.
I'll tell you how some of the most
profitable corporations get away
with paying nothing in federal
taxes, as a result of the effective
tax rate.
But, nonetheless, Senator Manchin
continues with this talking point
regarding taxes being too high for
these corporations.
>> This bill proceeds,
as it exists now, and
raises the corporate from 21 to 28.
You would not support that bill.
>> Well, the bill basically is not
going to end up that way.
>> Well, but that's
where it is now.
I mean, they
could do it by reconciliation, Joe.
>> They can, not unless we vote
to get on it.
And if I don't vote to get on it,
it's not going anywhere.
So, who's going to have
some leverage here and
it's more than just me, Hoppy.
There's six or
seven other Democrats who feel
very strongly about this.
We have to be competitive.
>> So, Ryan on one hand,
Joe Manchin is, obviously,
on the wrong side of this issue,
raising the corporate tax rate to
what it was,
before the Trump administration,
I don't think is even that
controversial, but in this case,
Biden isn't even calling for that.
He's calling for a corporate tax
hike from 21% to 28%.
So, I disagree with Manchin on
that, obviously.
But he is right
about the reconciliation process.
That would be an effort to pass
this legislation through a simple
majority, as opposed to doing it
with 60 senators, in favor.
What is Manchin really doing here?
Because a corporate tax hike is not
unpopular with American voters.
It's unpopular with corporate
interests.
But what is he doing, exactly?
>> Well, he's playing the same game
that he plays on
all of these bills.
And it's one that can, actually,
work out for progressives,
if they play it right.
What he wants to do, is he wants to
show up in public and show that he
took his pound of flesh out of this
piece of legislation,
before he allowed something to go
through, that Bernie Sanders can
say is a victory.
And the $1.9 trillion COVID relief
package is a great example.
At the very end,
he trimmed a couple of weeks off of
unemployment insurance.
And everybody was focused on
the great power of Manchin, because
he had held the bill up for several
hours, and he did make it worse.
But he didn't make it worse,
on any substantial level, it didn't
go from 1.9 trillion down to 900
billion or down to 1.5 trillion.
No, he did not.
He didn't take any real meat out of
it, he just kind of sliced it
a little bit.
And so, Democrats
have to understand that going in.
And so, they should be patting
all of their legislation with that.
That they're okay with him taking
out, so, maybe they put in 28
wondering, okay, well,
Manchin will knock it down to 25.
>> Well, the way that this proposal
was put out by the Biden
administration makes it clear,
to me, at least, that he went
from posturing as a president who's
going to kind of move away from
the deficit hawk branding that he
had created for himself, and focus
more on doing what's necessary to
help ordinary Americans who
are experiencing the ramifications
of this new Gilded Age.
But the way that he proposed this
makes it clear that, no, he does
actually care about the deficit,
which is why,
baked into his proposal,
is this way of paying for it.
He wants to pay for
it by increasing taxes for
individuals making more
than $400,000 a year, and also by
increasing the corporate tax rate.
Now, what I'm worried about,
though, is that, if Biden is too
concerned about the deficit,
and on top of that,
plays ball with the Joe Manchins of
the world who are so concerned
about the corporate tax rate,
well then, there might be more
openness to some of the regressive
taxation that's being proposed by
both corporate Democrats,
and, of course, by Republicans.
They want to increase gas prices,
for instance,
with a gas tax that would affect
every single one of us.
But, with the corporate tax hike
and the tax hike for the wealthy,
obviously, the burden would be
shifted, primarily, to people
who have been able to rape and
pillage this country.
So, I'm actually really concerned
that there will be an openness
toward that regressive taxation.
What do you think about that?
>> Yeah,
that is definitely something to
watch out for.
And you have to watch that it
doesn't trim their sales, that they
start to say, well, we would love
to expand this child credit.
And we're glad that we were able to
cut child poverty in half, for
a year, but we just can't do it
anymore, the deficit is too big.
You, definitely,
have to watch that.
The thing to do, I think,
would be to push it toward, okay,
you want to reduce the deficit,
why is the highest tax rate on
individuals so low?
Why don't we create more tax
brackets?
How about for a million,
how about for 2 million, 3 million,
and progressively raise income
taxes for all these rich people?
You want to lower it down to
25% on the corporate level, well,
let's hit those corporate
executives when they're cashing
their dividend checks.
Because, Amazon, for instance,
just came out today and
said they're fine with raising
the corporate tax rate.
Of course, they're fine with
raising the corporate tax rate.
They don't pay corporate taxes.
>> Mm-hm. >> The corporate tax rate
could be 100%, but if you list
your taxable income at 0,
it can be 1,000%, you don't care.
And, in fact, you appreciate a tax
hike because other companies that
do actually pay tax,
then have to pay Uncle Sam, and
it ends up hurting you.
Whereas Amazon's makes 0 profit,
yet, somehow,
the CEO of the company is
the richest man on the planet.
It's bizarre how that could
have possibly happened, but
it did happen.
And so, if you tax the individuals,
rather than the corporations at
a higher level,
then you actually start to do
something about inequality,
which goes to what you were talking
about earlier, this housing boom.
There's just so much money sloshing
around, that the money
can't find profitable investments.
So, it's like, you know what?
Screw it, let's just buy up all
these middle class people's homes
and push them out there and
hold on to these homes.
So, it starts distorting
the entire society.
So, I think your concern is
dead on.
>> And, just to add to what
you're saying, 55 publicly traded
corporations paid 0 in corporate
taxes last year.
Precisely for
the reason that you mentioned.
I mean, you have the corporate tax
loopholes.
They report their taxable income at
0, by claiming all
sorts of deductions.
And, of course,
there's that huge conflict when you
see the amount of money that these
executives make, particularly,
people like Jeff Bezos.
But David Sirota and Alex Perez,
over at The Daily Poster, also
revealed some of the motivating
factors for Joe Manchin.
Because, truth of the matter is, he
does have some pretty close ties to
the very people who want to avoid
raising the corporate tax rate.
So, for instance, they report that
derailing the tax rate would be
a lucrative gift to private equity
giants, whose executives bankrolled
the lawmaker's 2018 campaign and
funded a super PAC that boosted his
closely contested reelection bid.
So, there's Ares Management,
that firm's executives were
together among Manchin's top donors
during the 2018 reelection bid.
In all, they funneled more than
$21,000 to his reelection campaign
that year.
Some of you might look at that
number and think, well,
is that really that much when it
comes to campaign contributions?
You gotta keep in mind that it
doesn't take much in funding to
sway these lawmakers in one way or
the other.
And keep in mind that that was part
of more than $212,000 that
the private equity and
investment industry delivered to
Manchin during an election cycle in
which he was given a small business
investment award by a major private
equity group that has been lobbying
on tax issues.
And the list goes on and on.
This is at play behind the scenes.
And in the meantime, you
have Manchin going against the best
interests of his own constituents,
who certainly are not against tax
increases for the wealthy,
who certainly are not against tax
increases for corporations.
But Manchin is willing to
go against their wishes because,
at the end of the day, he's not
going to bite the hand that feeds.
And that's what we're seeing with
this, as well.
Also, I don't know, this
is a little bit of speculation, and
it's not that important.
But, I feel like he gets a kick out
of being the one who gets to pump
the brakes on progressive
legislation or
any legislation coming from
the Biden administration.
>> Yeah, he has to be that person.
That, in his mind, that's the brand
that he has set up,
whether it's for
a Senate reelection,
whether it's for a run for
governor down the road.
That his opposition to
Neera Tanden, was, at once, a favor
to his good friend, Susan Collins.
But, also, kind of a cheap way for
him to get his little pound of
flesh, while he was voting for that
$1.9 trillion COVID relief package,
that we just talked about.
He feels like he has to show some
way that that he's pushing back.
And what that article did well,
is it talks about how tax policy
shapes and structures our economy
and our political economy, in a way
that is never really talked about,
in these conversations.
When they reduced corporate tax
rates, as significantly as they
did, what happened is that,
a bunch of partnerships, a bunch of
private equity groups, these set up
by a handful of very rich people to
collect other rich people's money.
To then engage in these tax
arbitrage schemes or pension
syphoning schemes where they
leverage debt, they buy Sears, then
they put Sears through bankruptcy,
and steal all the pensions, and
then sell off all of the assets,
and then walk away with a with a
huge payday at a very low tax rate.
When you lower the corporate tax
rate, what it enabled
those companies to do,
those private equity firms to do,
is to transform themselves and
reorganize themselves as
corporations, because now they
could get the same tax rate, but
also have all the benefits of being
a corporation.
So now, these former private equity
partnerships want to keep
that right where it is.
And it's one more of the ways that
our tax policy distorts the economy
and funnels money up to the 0.1%.
>> Yeah, that's absolutely right.
I mean, it's just incredible how
much revenue the federal government
has lost as a result of these types
of schemes that were made possible
by Trump's tax cuts.
The one other thing I wanted to
mention is while we're pretty
focused on Senator Manchin, because
he loves to speak out against
the very things that Democrats
are suppose to be in favor of.
There are other Democrats,
as he alluded to, in those clips,
who are against increasing
the corporate taxes.
When asked about his views
regarding Biden's infrastructure
plan, for instance, Mark Warner,
Senator Mark Warner told
reporters on Capitol Hill,
that he had expressed some concerns
to the White House,
but declined to comment further.
So, maybe, he doesn't see it as
politically advantageous to be
as transparent about how he's
going to look out for the rich and
for corporations,
but Manchin isn't the only one.
And for people who are befuddled at
the Democratic Party losing
working class votes,
understand that this is the kind of
stuff that goes on, that people
are paying attention to.
And it does have a negative impact
on the Democratic Party,
if they want to present themselves
as the party that actually
looks out for the little guy.
Far too often,
we see some of these corporate
Democrats fighting against the best
interests of working Americans.