Democratic presidential hopeful Delaney would hike corporate taxes to fund infrastructure
John Delaney, 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful, has a simple solution to rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
His plan calls for raising the corporate tax rate to as high as 27 percent from 21 percent to fund infrastructure and create more jobs to boost the U.S. economy.
“So what I would do to pay for infrastructure is I would get the corporate tax rate back to 25, 26, 27 percent, which will make us competitive around the world and that would fund a trillion-dollar infrastructure program and I think we would be much better off as a country,” he said on “Bulls & Bears” Tuesday.
The infrastructure plan has budget hawks concerned that further spending will add to the federal deficit.
Delaney said the U.S. deficit should run at 2 percent of the economy with additional revenues and controlling health care spending.
“It shouldn’t be zero, but it shouldn’t be greater than the rate of economic growth,” he said.
The Trump administration slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent as part of the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the White House said has served as a major boost to the economy.
Delaney said cutting the corporate rate to its current level put the U.S. below its competitors.
“Even when we had a 35 percent rate, which was absolutely the highest in the world, our effective rate was in the twenties, which made us competitive with other countries,” he said.
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He added that taxes aren’t good for economic growth, but Delaney acknowledges he doesn’t want to raise the corporate tax rate to levels that would influence American companies to move overseas.