Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Would Biden’s Tax Hike Really Spare the Middle Class? Nope

Raising the corporate levy would hurt ordinary workers, not just people earning $400,000-plus.

March 17, 2021 at 11:00 AM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Corporate taxpayers.
Photographer: Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg

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President Joe Biden is reportedly considering the first major tax increase in several decades. It won’t be clear whether higher taxes are worth paying until more is known about the spending programs they would finance.

But it’s not too soon to say that at least one aspect of Biden’s approach doesn’t add up: The promise to leave middle-class taxpayers alone.