The Hill: A Straightforward Way to Pay for Biden’s Recovery Plan (Opinion)
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BY STEVE WAMHOFF AND MATTHEW GARDNER, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS
Now that President Biden and Congress have enacted a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief measure, the president will soon provide details for the second item on his agenda, a major recovery plan. The package could include some of the tax increases on which he campaigned to pay for new spending.
Among other tax changes, the president has called for increasing personal income taxes on individuals earning more than $400,000 annually by returning the top personal income tax rate to 39.6 percent and implementing a variety of limits on existing tax breaks. Congress and the administration could achieve the same goals in a more straightforward way: require the rich to pay what we call a high-income tax (HIT) with no special breaks except a credit for charitable giving.