White House on if Higher Taxes Kill Jobs: Businesses Have Lots of Resources, We’ve ‘Given Them a Lot of Subsidies’

On Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” White House Council of Economic Advisers member Heather Boushey responded to a question on whether the higher corporate taxes pushed by President Joe Biden will harm hiring by saying that “We need to make sure that the federal government has the resources that it needs to be able to do the things that it needs to do.” And that “businesses have a lot of resources, we’ve also given them a lot of subsidies and supports to go out there and invest.”

Co-host Joe Mathieu asked, [relevant exchange begins around 7:15] “[H]e talked about the need for higher taxes on the wealthy and on corporations, specific to the idea of a higher corporate tax rate, which I know is something that he has been pushing for some time and we have some movement there, I just wonder, what impact that might have on hiring, if any at all? Is that something that you’re able to model?”

Boushey answered, “Well, here’s the thing: We need to make sure that the federal government has the resources that it needs to be able to do the things that it needs to do. And one of the priorities that the President is focused on is making sure that the Internal Revenue Service has the resources they need to literally enforce the laws on the books, let alone the new ideas that the President is bringing to the table. We are already seeing the success of that, as the IRS has been able to get back money from taxpayers who owed it, and these are taxpayers at the very top end of the income ladder. So, I think that what we have seen in the economic research, what we’ve seen in our lived experience over the past couple of years is that businesses have a lot of resources, we’ve also given them a lot of subsidies and supports to go out there and invest. So, we’re seeing this investment boom at the same time that we’ve been focusing on making sure that we’re enforcing the laws and raising taxes on, as the President likes to say, wealth and not work. So, I remain convinced that, if government has the resources that they need to do their job and businesses focus on investing in those industries that are so important to American competitiveness and American jobs and workers, we will continue to see that kind of economic growth.”

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