Biden to hit Trump over tax policies in hometown of Scranton, Pa

President Biden will travel to Scranton, Pa., on Tuesday to hit former President Trump over his tax policies as he kicks off his Pennsylvania campaign swing.

Biden will start the three-day swing in his hometown of Scranton to outline what he argues is Trump’s three-point tax plan if he wins another term in the White House.

He will argue that the first point is that Trump wants to lower billionaires’ tax bills by repealing the Affordable Care Act, which he will say would deliver a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. In November, Trump said he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to replace ObamaCare, and Biden used the anniversary of ObamaCare last month to hammer Trump’s record on health care. 

The president will argue the second point is Trump wants to give large corporations a massive tax handout by lowering the corporate tax rate and extending his 2017 tax cuts. Biden’s tax plan is to bump the corporate tax rate up to 28 percent from the level set by Trump’s tax cuts, which put it at 21 percent. 

Biden’s plan also includes ensuring that billion-dollar corporations pay at least 21 percent of their income in taxes and imposes a 21 percent rate on multinational corporations. Meanwhile, Trump’s tax cuts are on the line in the 2024 election, with Democrats opposing a blanket extension of the law but Republicans hoping to extend it if they win Congress and the White House.

The president will argue that the third point is that Trump wants to help wealthy tax cheats avoid paying what they owe by repealing the $80 billion in funding for the IRS included in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act.

A bipartisan funding deal agreed to in January included $10 billion in cuts to the IRS during Fiscal 2024 and $20 billion in overall reductions to the IRS funding boost from the act. Republicans have taken aim at the funding, vowing to keep up the drawdowns if they flip the Senate and take the White House in 2024.

Biden will tout that his tax plan includes his vow to prevent anyone making under $400,000 to pay more in federal taxes, require wealthy Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, and close loopholes that allow tax breaks.

In a memo released on Tuesday, campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said that Biden’s speech in Scranton will “anchor” the three-day swing, noting that growing up there “forged his world view.”

“The speech will drive home a simple question we believe will resonate strongly with the voters who will determine this election: Do you think the tax code should work for rich people or for the middle class? The President has made it clear what he thinks the answer is, and so has Donald Trump,” she said.

Biden will spend time in Lackawanna, Allegheny, and Philadelphia counties while in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania.  Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020 with 50 percent of the vote, flipping it after Trump won in 2016.

Rodriguez argued that issues that Pennsylvanians align with Biden on are creating jobs and standing with unions, protecting democracy, and protecting abortion access. She noted that Democrats won the Pennsylvania Senate and gubernatorial race in 2018, Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020, and Democrats won the Pennsylvania Senate and gubernatorial race in 2022.

She also noted the progress made last month on the campaign’s infrastructure.

She said that the Pennsylvania Democrats opened 14 offices in a single week, engaged 1,700 volunteers, and launched key coalitions across the state. Those coalitions— Out for Biden-Harris, Latinos con Biden-Harris, and Women for Biden-Harris— were launched nationally last month.

A Franklin & Marshall College poll earlier this week found Biden leading Trump by 10 points in the state.