“It was a giveaway to corporate interests and the richest people in the country,” Brown, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, told CNN Business on Thursday. “Of course we should scale some of that back.”
“Taking away some of the tax breaks corporate interests got will only help the economy, it won’t hurt it,” Brown said. “It will increase the ‘whine quotient’ from corporate leaders, but they always whine and always want tax cuts. Their $3 million, $4 million and $10 million compensation is never enough.”
Business groups vow to fight tax hikes
The remarks underscore the sea change in leadership at the powerful Senate Banking Committee, which until January was led by pro-business Republican Mike Crapo.
Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, argued that the affluent reaped most of the benefits of the 2017 tax overhaul.
“Look at the contrast between what we did this week. We cut taxes on the lowest income people,” he said. “It’s clear that corporations got an even bigger tax break from their billionaire president than they even asked for.”
Business groups are vowing to fight any efforts to unwind the Trump tax cuts.
The Business Roundtable, a powerful alliance of CEOs, warned this week that raising the corporate tax rate would make US businesses uncompetitive on the world stage just as the economic recovery gathers momentum.
“The Roundtable will be actively opposing efforts to raise corporate taxes,” Josh Bolten, the group’s CEO, said Wednesday during a press briefing.
Bolten argued that the Trump tax cuts set the stage for a strong stock market, historically low unemployment and strong business investment.
But for many Americans, the Trump tax law failed to deliver, with many companies sharing the windfall with shareholders via large stock buybacks instead of increasing wages or hiring more workers.
Brown expresses support for $800 billion trading tax
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