FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sept. 13, 2021

CONTACT

Carter Dougherty
carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org
(202) 251-6700

Committee Tax Plan Falls Short of Need to Advance Racial and Economic Justice

Today, the House Ways and Means committee released its draft plan for the Build Back Better economic package. It includes many crucial spending items, and some positive tax provisions. But, overall, it fails to meet the moment. Among other things, the package leaves out revenue-raising proposals from the Biden administration that would advance racial and economic justice. We need more dramatic change to the status quo, which benefits Wall Street and the super-rich and harms the rest of us. 

While we welcome the expansion of child tax credits, the bill does not do enough to pay for these and other essential infrastructure measures, leaving them vulnerable to being cut in the hard negotiations we know lie ahead. The only way to achieve more robust support for those most affected by the pandemic is to make those who profited most during it — the wealthy and corporations — pay their fair share.

“This proposal does little to end unfair advantages for the very wealthy and big corporations, and includes only more modest reforms that simply fail to meet the needs of Americans white, Black, and Brown working families who have suffered most acutely during this pandemic,” said Mandla Deskins, advocacy manager for Take on Wall Street.

Missing from this proposal are meaningful steps to address the movement of wealth and income to the already wealthy, including real curbs on institutionalized tax cheating like the carried interest loophole, lower rates for capital gains, and stepped up basis, and any real solutions to stem the flow of money to greedy Wall Street executives. Particularly mystifying considering the overwhelming public support of the wealthy paying a fairer share of the tax burden.  

“Corporations and the super-rich are getting away with not paying their fair share, and holding us back in the fight to reduce inequality, advance racial justice and help working people recover from the pandemic,” Deskins said. “This proposal leaves that dynamic unchanged. What we need now is bold action and proposals that reflect a commitment to working families, not the wishes of wealthy donors.” 

We look forward to working with members of Congress in both the House and Senate to make sure a full range of progressive revenue raisers — including taxing stock buybacks and excessive CEO pay, closing the carried interest loophole, and decisively ending the tax preference for capital gains overall — are included to pay for the vital public investments in President Biden’s Build Back Better plans.

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