According to you, which of these proposals do you consider most important or most urgent to be taken by Congress. Why?

Question

Write a summary of the main proposals put forward by president Biden during his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday, 2/7, at 5:00pm.

1. According to you, which of these proposals do you consider most important or most urgent to be taken by Congress. Why? Is any other problem you would have liked the president to have mentioned in his address? Defend your answer.

Answer 1

President Biden faces a closely divided Congress over the next two years, so any plan he hopes to achieve will need to gain popularity among both democrats and republicans.  Far-left liberal policies are not going to get much traction.  

His proposal to raise taxes for billionaires may be one of those plans.  In general, the public thinks of billionaires and money-hungry people living lavish lifestyles without any sense of reality for working Americans or people struggling to make enough money to pay bills, eat, and have some enjoyment in life.  Representatives and senators likely have billionaires they need to keep happy for campaign financing (and other lobbying purposes), but Congress mostly sees millionaires among their ranks, not billionaires.  The popularity is at least probable instead of merely possible.

President Biden made a good point that over fifty of the largest corporations making tens of billions of dollars in profits pay zero dollars in taxes.  Amendments to the tax code could help ease the deficit, which continues to grow above thirty trillion dollars.  Lowering the deficit gives our country’s creditors reassurance that we are not ignoring the reality of our debt.  A calmer market provides a more stable market, which lenders like to see (all the way down to small banks giving small personal loans).

Naysayers will quickly scoff at the idea of republicans in the House of Representatives signing on to a tax increase on billionaires.  And the proposal probably won’t see enactment in the next two years.  Still, the bigger picture shows prospects for democrats regaining majority (and President Biden getting re-elected) if one major campaign focus across the board for democrats is that republicans refused to tax the richest of the rich.  The proposal becomes more practical in that landscape, and it is very worth pursuing consistently and constantly.  

The one caveat is that the amendments to our tax laws need to go further than simply increasing the tax on earned income.  The tax would need to be broadened in scope to cover loopholes for cash-flow accounts and funds funneled into assets.