Bennet Argues that Democrats Have a Responsibility to Raise the Alarm on Republicans’ Plans to Cut Taxes for Wealthiest Americans, Balloon Debt
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Washington, D.C. — Colorado U.S. Senator and Ranking Member of the Taxation and IRS Oversight Subcommittee on the Senate Finance Committee Michael Bennet joined Bernie Becker at POLITICO PLAYBOOK: The First 100 Days to discuss the upcoming tax reform debate in Congress and the need to create fair tax policy that benefits working families.
On irresponsibly increasing the national debt and deficit, Bennet said:
“It’s comical on its face. The idea that these tax cuts will pay for themselves, I think it’s very widely understood that that’s not true.
“[Republicans] are trying to ring an alarm on the deficit, saying we have this massive problem, and on the other hand, they’re trying to say that the Trump version one of the tax cuts didn’t blow a $2 trillion hole in the deficit, and the American people are too smart for that, and they’re going to figure it out.”
On cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, Bennet said:
“50% of the benefit of the Trump tax bill goes to the top 5% of Americans. 50%. 25% goes to the top 1% of Americans. Anybody you know who has even had a casual familiarity with the state of the American economy for the last 40-50 years knows that the problem in our economy is not that the wealthiest people aren’t getting the benefit. They are getting the benefit, but working people and middle-class people in our country no longer feel that if they work hard, they’re going to get ahead or that their families are going to get ahead.”
On Senate Democrats’ role in the budget reconciliation process, Bennet said:
“We can have an influence in the sense that we can raise our voices about the broader tax bill and what the House – what the Republicans – are trying to do in Washington, unilaterally, as one party to our country and to the American people… it’s something we have to take our responsibility there very seriously I think.
“If there were a catastrophe and all of a sudden they couldn’t get it passed, maybe we could have a moment where people said, you know what, the debt and deficit in this country really is unsustainable, and despite all the rhetoric about tax cuts paying for themselves and everything else, that there could be a coalition of Democrats and Republicans that would come together to create a set of choices that would be good over the long term for the American people in terms of the way our fiscal condition is operating.”
On finding compromise for a Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion, Bennet said:
“My hope for it is that we have a refundable CTC, whether Democrats are involved in the final shape of it or not, that the Republicans come to see the benefit that we saw, we all saw, during COVID, of lifting 50% of American kids out of poverty, reducing hunger by 25%… The question for us always is, how refundable is it going to be? Can you get to the poorest kids in America?
“I think ultimately, an enduring CTC, and one that really does cut childhood poverty in a meaningful way and gives the middle class a real tax benefit – for that also to endure, we’re going to need a bipartisan version of it ultimately. And we could lay the seeds of that in this legislative year.”
On cutting clean energy tax credits, Bennet said:
“In Colorado – a lot of the places we’ve been celebrating those tax credits are the reddest parts of our state, because a lot of them benefit rural America… These credits are extremely popular and the investments that are made in the Inflation Reduction Act… are popular with the American people too.
“[Rural communities] are going to be asking themselves, I think, and we’re going to be asking as well, why in the world would we get rid of those tax credits so that we can pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America?”