WASHINGTON – United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) today joined The Evening Edit on Fox Business to discuss President Joe Biden’s plan to increase taxes.
“Click photo above or here to watch*
Partial Transcript Below:
Hagerty on Biden proposal to increase taxes: “I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it tonight because this would have a devastating effect on our economy. The exact opposite effect that we should be looking for right now, as we’re coming out of a pandemic. Look, if you want less of something, tax it more. That’s exactly what’s going to happen with capital gains. You want less capital investment? Raise the capital gains rate. We need to be turning our economy around right now and capital investment, begets more jobs, more economic activity. That’s what America needs today…”
Hagerty on how you actually build back better: “I’ve been a businessman all my life. I served as the economic development chief when we brought my home state of Tennessee out of the last recession. What you need is more capital investment. The way you get more capital investment is you make a more favorable environment for that capital. This is the most hostile tax rate that we’ve seen on capital in America, certainly in my lifetime.”
Hagerty on Democrats catering to the extreme fringe of their leftwing base: “This is just typical of the Biden bait and switch. You know, he ran as quote ‘a moderate’, but as soon as he gets into office, he proves that he’s being controlled by the liberal wing of his party. And that wing has been very non-receptive to commonsensical approaches to our economy. I hope that we’ll find a better path, but raising capital gains rates is going the exact wrong direction. I’d be in favor of lowering them further. […]I hope colleagues like Senator Manchin will realize that something like this would be so damaging to the economy that they shouldn’t use a tool to like reconciliation. It’s totally partisan. As you saw happen in the last process that they used, not a single Republican vote for the $1.9 trillion package that they pushed through. That’s in the face of all the COVID relief that was done in 2020, that was done on a completely bipartisan basis, over 90 votes on every package. So if they move in this direction, it will be again, a completely partisan maneuver. It’s something that Republicans are wise enough to see and call what it is. This is a job killing endeavor. The Biden Administration should not be undertaking this folly.”