Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown is strongly in favor of rolling back the Trump tax cuts for corporations — despite warnings from the business community that it could disrupt the economic recovery.
“It was a giveaway to corporate interests and the richest people in the country,” Brown, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, told CNN Business on Thursday. “Of course we should scale some of that back.”
The comments hint at the brewing fight between business leaders and Democrats over a fair corporate tax rate and how to pay for ambitious programs such as infrastructure spending.
Brown, speaking hours after President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law, voiced support for raising revenue by lifting the corporate tax rate, which Congress cut in 2017 from 35% to 21%.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% and administration officials have indicated they will look at increasing that rate as a way to help pay for a massive infrastructure package.
“Taking away some of the tax breaks corporate interests got will only help the economy, it won’t hurt it,” Brown said. “It will increase the ‘whine quotient’ from corporate leaders, but they always whine and always want tax cuts. Their $3 million, $4 million and $10 million compensation is never enough.”
