82 unions and liberal groups call on Biden to create wealth tax

Scores of unions and liberal advocacy groups pressed President Biden to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans to help pay for his sprawling infrastructure plan, which he is set to roll out later Wednesday.

Eighty-two national organizations, including the AFL-CIO, MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, sent a letter Wednesday to Biden and Vice President Harris urging them to pay for the multitrillion-dollar proposal by reversing several aspects of the 2017 tax rollbacks implemented under the Trump administration. 

Among the changes the groups say should be made are a return of the top marginal tax rate on the highest incomes to 39.6 percent from 37 percent and raising the corporate tax rate on domestic profits to 28 percent from the current 21 percent. The groups said Biden should also end “the current almost 50% tax discount on investment income from long-term capital gains and dividends” on Americans making more than $1 million per year. 

All of those proposals were included in Biden’s tax plan during the 2020 campaign.

“Your tax and investment plans were the boldest of any major party presidential nominee in modern American history. They received widespread media coverage and, perhaps more significant, your boldly progressive tax plan was heavily attacked by your political opponents, who spent untold millions of dollars and claimed falsely that the middle-class would pay more,” the groups wrote.

“Yet, you won the most votes ever of any U.S presidential candidate, with a central promise of your campaign to make the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes," they added. "You have a clear mandate to pursue your agenda.”