Special to WorldTribune.com
By Stephen Moore
I am often asked if President Joe Biden is intentionally trying to dismantle the American economy with his imbecilic energy, climate change, crime, border, inflation and debt policies. But I've always believed these policies are driven by a badly mistaken ideology — not malice.
Then I watched Biden's State of the Union speech. When Biden thundered that he was going to make corporations "pay their fair share," the Democrats in Congress leapt to their feet in applause.
When I read through the details of Biden's new multitrillion-dollar tax plan, it's hard to come up with any plausible explanation other than that he's trying to make American industry less competitive. Biden's tax scheme would hobble United States businesses with nearly the highest corporate tax rate in the world — higher than our primary competitors.
They're the big winners here if (God forbid) these policies were adopted. Even China and Russia — one communist nation and one autocratic nation — would have LOWER tax rates on their businesses than we would on ours.
This will lead to an outmigration of capital from the U.S. to our rivals as sure as river water flows downstream.
One of my first meetings with former President Donald Trump was in early 2020 when I showed him a chart that indicated the U.S. had the highest tax rate of all our competitors. When Trump saw the chart, he instantly remarked, "This is like a Head Start program for all the countries we compete with." His goal was to empower American businesses with the lowest rate in the world. We didn't get the rate down to 15%, but we did lower it to 21%.
This helped attract more than $1 trillion back into the United States from all corners of the globe — from Switzerland to Bermuda to Euroland. It helped raise incomes for working-class Americans despite being disparaged as a "tax cut for the rich." As Trump once put it, because of the lower tax rates and other pro-growth reforms, for the first time in decades factories moved from Mexico to Maryland rather than the other way around.
Meanwhile in Ireland the 12.5% corporate tax rate has helped make that nation the fastest-growing land in all of Europe. They even have a budget surplus. That's right. The lower tax rates have ushered in revenue.
But Biden and the Democrats would rather bash big business for not paying "their fair share" than fix the problem sensibly. Ironically, the one industry in America that pays virtually no business tax is the green energy colossus. Why don't we start with making THEM pay their fair share, which clearly isn't zero?
The White House estimates their plan will raise $500 billion over a decade from corporations. Of course, corporations are owned by 130 million Americans with 401(k) plans and other retirement packages.
Not just the top 1% are going to get zapped here.
Economist Kevin Hassett, who was Trump's chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, has shown corporate tax rates are statistically inversely related to worker wages. Lower tax rates mean higher worker pay.
So blue-collar America will pay a large share of the Biden tax hike's burden.
But the Biden economics team is in denial on the science. They reject the real-world evidence that high tax rates deter job growth and investment, they ignore the Ireland experience, and they pretend the rich will bear all the burden of a tax that will hurt all American workers and consumers while benefiting our global competitors.
These inane tax-hike policies will put America last — literally and figuratively.
Stephen Moore is a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and an economist with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the American Economy." He served as a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign.
Free Press International
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