Raising Taxes on Day One

That’s what Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he intends to do; his latest iteration of that intent was last Thursday in a CNN interview.

I’d make the changes on the corporate taxes on day one[.]

Leaving aside the…foolishness…of implementing such an attack on our economy’s health, there has been pushback on the Day One timing—no President, not even a Progressive-Democratic one, can raise taxes by fiat; such a move can only come from the Congress (and subsequently signed by a President or his veto overridden).

That brings up the scenario by which such a raise could, in fact, be implemented on the first day of a President’s term.

Recall that the new Congress always is seated roughly two-and-a-half weeks before the President is inaugurated. (That’s useful, since in the event a Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate doesn’t achieve an outright majority in the Electoral College, it’s the relevant house of Congress that selects the President or Vice President.) If the new Congress has Progressive-Democrat majorities in both the House and the Senate, it easily can pass the relevant tax increases and have the bill ready for the new President to sign into law in the hour after his swearing-in on 20 January 2021—Day One.

That adds to the premium on voting Republican all up and down the ticket in a bit under two months.

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