welcome back biden's big budget plan the
president says he's willing to
compromise on bipartisan legislation
for infrastructure but there's still a
big push for tax increases to pay for it
all
which would strongly affect those with
high incomes
john where's the compromise here biden
keeps talking about unity
and you know you're talking about high
incomes
the correction happened over the last
couple of weeks where it was clear
it wasn't raising uh taxes on
individuals making four hundred thousand
it was families making four hundred
thousand that means individuals
two hundred thousand dollars each in a
family will see their taxes go
higher he says he wants unity and
compromise but
i don't see a lot of it do you well
you know i'll say a couple things about
taxes first of all
there's not gonna if if biden wants to
compromise
on an infrastructure plan there's no way
he's gonna get a single republican on
board if it includes tax increases so
there will be no compromise on a plan
if there's a tax increase now i think
republicans some republicans could get
behind
a spending plan on infrastructure that's
pretty popular you know back in a lot of
congressional districts
but that's just the line republicans
aren't going to cross on
on taxes the one thing i do want to say
about taxes on
individual income taxes corporate taxes
are a separate issue
individual income taxes at the high end
have moved very
little over the last 30 or so years you
know
they've been moving basically between 35
percent and 39.6
since the early 1990s if democrats
push forward a tax increase on high
income households
i don't think it's going to have a big
effect on the economy but it is going to
anger a lot of high
income households and of course it'll be
a talking point for republicans
well i don't know that it's just high
income that's the point i'm making it's
200
000 per individual that are going to see
higher taxes
and when you put together state and city
taxes certainly a place like where you
are
new york dagen you're talking about the
highest earners
paying almost 60 percent of their salary
to the government because the highest
rate goes back to 39.6
on the federal level and then you've got
what 14 percent
total in new york city and new york
state
new york city is going to have the
highest taxes of anywhere in the entire
united states and this goes to a point
of what the democrats have tried to do
nancy pelosi tried to repeal
the assault the cap on salt deduction
state and local tax deduction
it was capped under president trump's
tax reform
so last year in a coveted relief after
the cares act
there was a coveted relief plan that the
democrats
put put forward in congress in the house
and it had a repeal of the salt
deduction so what they're trying to do
is get rid of the cap
the salt deduction cap in order to allow
democratic governors to then raise taxes
it basically gives them cover for
raising taxes
at the state level so that's one thing
that's afoot but i don't think that
there's any
going to be any compromise with the 1.9
trillion dollar covert relief that the
bite administration and the democrats
pushed through earlier this year
february the 1st before the bill went
through
10 gop senators enough to break a
filibuster
visited biden at the white house with a
600
billion dollar counteroffer so instead
of 1.9 it was 600 billion
one day later democrats in congress
could begin to push through the 1.9
billion dollar the republican offer was
dismissed out of hand that's the wall
street journal editorial page
last week so it was like please come and
we'll talk about it
but your talk is irrelevant that was at
least the message earlier this year
and and they're holding on to the idea
of reconciliation to get this through
if they don't get the support they need
from republicans they will
jam it through reconciliation later this
year but the question is will the
democrats be on board for the issue that
you just raised
can i just add one thing that i've been
dying to bring up
400 billion in the in the
infrastructure plan is for home health
care
for older americans well the medicare
hospital trust fund is depleted
in five years runs out of money
the taxes coming in will be enough to
cover 90
uh 90 cents on the dollar of of
need so there's a 10 automatic
cut if you will in those benefits why
wouldn't you focus on
fixing that before you worry about
expanding the coverage for
elderly americans just throwing that in
there
i'll tell you why because here in
washington behind me
it's all about borrowing money you know
they they know that they can keep
borrowing money to
to pay for medicare to pay for
infrastructure to pay for tax cuts that
is
that you know we've got a ten-year
interest rate under two percent
and that's why there's going to be
another spending plan on infrastructure
with or without uh republicans well and
without a payment
the tax thing is kind of possible it's
not infrastructure but it's not
infrastructure they need to stop
mislabeling these plans
i care about care for the elderly as
well i'd love to see money in that but
don't call it infrastructure
and then say this is human
infrastructure we're not idiots
okay that's not infrastructure that's
just spending on
the elderly fine put it in a package but
john you're right they just want to
spend money and these massive packages
under the headline infrastructure that's
where the republicans are saying let's
talk about 600 billion let's talk about
800 billion
just infrastructure but this one point
this two and a quarter trillion dollar
bill is not infrastructure yeah i
i just i just don't think either side is
is pristine in this because republicans
were perfectly happy to spend a lot of
money too
yeah nobody in power yeah nobody had
religion
on about on balance and
spending what we had this has gone on
for more than 20 years it was
republicans and democrats both
exactly the last 20 years spending this
spending discipline did disappeared in
washington
in the early 2000s