Portman SmackDown
Retiring Senator Portman was on the PBS Newshour, spouting the standard Repub nonsense regarding Biden's infrastructure plan: a lot of it is not infrastructure, raising taxes will hurt the economy, and infrastructure should be paid for with user fees.
Judy Woodruff gave it to him with both barrels:
I do want to ask you about the how do you pay for it piece, because you're mentioning user fees. These often fall on average-income Americans, middle-income Americans, whereas what President Biden has proposed is taxing the wealthy.
And, in fact, if you look at the history of tax income tax in this country, today, corporate taxes, for one, are only about a fourth as large as a share of the GDP as they were back in the 1950s and '60s. Revenue collected from taxes on the income of the top earners in this country has declined over the last 25 years. Plus, in the 1990s, the last time tax rates were what President Biden wants them to be, the economy was booming.
So, my question is, why not take a look at these tax hikes?