Biden: Tax hikes aren't 'unreasonable' as rate is same as Reagan's trends now
A whispering President Joe Biden rejected that his tax hikes are 'unreasonable' because 'wacko liberal guy' Ronald Reagan had the same corporate rate, while claiming 'MAGA Republicans' are putting the U.S. economy at risk over debt ceiling threats.
Biden made remarks in the Roosevelt Room mid-morning Friday, commending the February jobs report, while also touting his budget proposal and asking House Republicans to see theirs.
'I'm prepared, I told the speaker, as soon as he's ready to lay out his budget I'm willing to sit down,' Biden said. 'And now I'm hearing things like well we're not going to have our budget until April or May maybe even June,' the president said, knocking the House Republican majority.
Biden also held up an article that said the conservative House Freedom Caucus wouldn't vote to lift the debt ceiling unless he cut non-military spending by 25 percent across the board.
'That means cops, firefighters, it means healthcare,' Biden noted.
The president called threats not to lift the debt ceiling 'reckless talk' and said making those statments puts the economic recovery at risk.
A whispering President Joe Biden rejected that his tax hikes are 'unreasonable' because 'wacko liberal guy' Ronald Reagan had the same corporate rate, while claiming 'MAGA Republicans' are putting the U.S. economy at risk over debt ceiling threats
'So I urge our extreme MAGA Republican friends in the Congress to put their threats aside join me in continuing the progress we've built,' Biden said.
On Thursday, Biden rolled out his budget proposal during a trip to Philadelphia.
The Democratic president said he wanted the corporate tax rate to be moved up from 21 to 28 percent.
Biden joked that Republican President Ronald Reagan was a 'wacko liberal guy' as he challenged GOP objections to moving up the corporate tax rate
The corporate tax rate during most of Reagan's tenure was 28 percent.
Additionally, when Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 the top tax rate went from 50 percent to 28 percent.
'You know, when we talked about a 28 percent tax rate, Ronald Reagan was 28 percent tax rate - you know, that wacko liberal guy,' Biden told reporters in the room, using his trademark whisper.
'The idea that that's an unreasonable amount,' he uttered.
Biden's budget uses tax increases on the rich to bring down the national debt, all the while funding Democratic priorities including child care, paid family leave, offshore wind farms and support for refugees.
He also wants to increase federal worker pay by 5.2 percent.
Republicans have fought back on increased taxes, even passing a bill - which died in the Senate - to pull away funds from the Internal Revenue Service that were part of the Inflation Reduction Act and meant for new hires, so the IRS could better go after tax cheats.
Biden used his whisper-voice again when bringing that up.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus, which includes Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (pictured), said they would vote to lift the debt ceiling if Biden cut non-military spending by 25 percent across the board
'You know all those IRS agents we had? They're going to check on the accounts of the super wealthy, which require a lot of time, a lot of agents to look at it. They want to get rid of them,' the president said of Republicans.
'I don't know, we just have a very different value set,'
