Steve Bannon Backs Joe Biden's Billionaire Tax Plan
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon supports taxing America's billionaires, a plan recently proposed by President Joe Biden as part of a budget request to Congress. On Thursday, he blamed billionaires for supporting "woke" culture and argued that it's time for them to pay the price.
"Billionaires Hate MAGA ...Billionaires Want to destroy MAGA...Billionaires Hate The Deplorables...Billionaires Support WOKE ....Billionaires Support the NeoLiberal/NeoCon Order. Billionaires Support Democrats Billionaires Support Biden. Why Should Billionaires not pay for what they have created," Bannon, who served during the Trump administration, wrote on Gettr.
Biden plans to propose a 25 percent minimum income tax on billionaires as part of a budget request to Congress, as first reported by Bloomberg, citing a White House official familiar with the proposal.
Bannon remains a strong critic of the Biden administration, but he told Newsweek on Thursday that he "directionally" supports imposing a 25 percent minimum tax on billionaires. He said that he supports tax increases for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.
Biden's proposal would impose tax increases on rich investors and corporations. The plan, which is set to be released on Thursday, would almost double the capital gains tax rate for investment to 39.6 percent from 20 percent. The plan would set the corporate tax rate at 28 percent and increase income levies on corporations and billionaires, according to the White House official.
Bannon told Newsweek on Thursday that spending cuts are needed, emphasizing "massive spending cuts NOW."
"But we also need to tax billionaires—the ones most associated with the D.C. cartel," he added.
Bannon has been outspoken about taxing the richest Americans, calling for tax increases in 2021. He argued that the country was "being scammed" by multibillionaires.
His remarks at the time came after ProPublica published a lengthy report that showed that the richest Americans paid little or no income taxes in various years over the prior decade, according to tax records.
The new budget proposal would help end a loophole that allows some rich investors to avoid paying taxes on their investments.
"They don't pay any taxes anyway," Bannon said during his War Room podcast at the time. "You've got to start increasing the marginal tax increases for the wealthy.
"Over five years with a half a trillion dollars of assets, they've paid collectively under $15 billion in taxes," Bannon said, arguing that this is "the reason the game is rigged."
Biden's plan is expected to increase taxes on Americans earning more than $400,000 a year as part of a move that could help support Medicare over the next two decades. It has been widely reported that 1.8 percent of taxpayers—nearly 2.5 million people—earn $400,000 or more, though Newsweek has been unable to independently verify the figure.
