“Look at the Bush tax cuts. Why did those cuts cost $8 trillion? Because his Democratic successor, President Obama, cut a deal with Republicans to make nearly all of Bush’s temporary cuts permanent,” Warren said Monday.
She also blasted a tax deal that sailed through the House earlier this year with wide bipartisan support, but that has stalled in the Senate amid Republican opposition.
That $78 billion proposal, engineered by top Senate tax-writer Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) along with House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), was already losing momentum in Congress ahead of the larger fight over Trump-era tax cuts. Warren’s Monday comments further erode its viability.
“[Republicans] tanked the deal because they believe they can get even more next year, and Democrats won’t have the spine to stop them,” Warren said.
Warren’s criticism of Democrats’ amenability to Republican tax cuts is part of a wider effort happening within both parties now on how to frame the debate on tax changes because major parts of the Trump tax cuts are set to expire at the end of next year.
Similar to Warren’s tug to the left, conservative groups are also pulling further rightward.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, put out a tax plan Monday that would cut the corporate tax rate to 12 percent, drop the top marginal tax rate to 25 percent from 37 percent, cut the capital gains and dividends tax rate to 15 percent, and cancel the estate tax.
It’s unclear whether Democrats will heed Warren’s criticism that tax policy over previous presidential administrations has taken two steps right for every one left.
The Hill’s Tobias Burns has more here.
