WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th May, 2021) President Joe Biden is determined to fund US development through higher taxes imposed on large corporations and the wealthy rather than via budget deficits that would further imperil the economy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
"The president himself has been clear that he does want a tax revenue stream that pays for the programs that he's proposing, so they don't add to the deficit which is already obviously quite large," Yellen said during a live-streamed interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Biden has said he intends to bring the top marginal income tax rate in the United States to 39.5 percent, from the current 37 percent, on households making $400,000 or more a year.� For people earning more than $1 million a year, Biden has proposed a capital gains tax of 39.6 percent, compared to the current rate of 20 percent.
The US president has said these increases are meant to raise $1.8 trillion over the next decade to fund childcare, universal pre-kindergarten education and paid leave for workers, the president said. Biden has also said he plans to raise corporate taxes from the current 21 percent to 28 percent to fund a $2.3 trillion infrastructure program.
Yellen said the tax burden on large corporations and the wealthy in the United States "is not currently high, so we do have some physical room" for maneuver. She added that the Treasury Department "can run deficits, but they need to be typically contained over time to have a sustainable fiscal path."
The US budget deficit stood at $1.71 trillion in the first six months of fiscal 2021, after growing by a record $660 billion in March, the Treasury Department said in its monthly balance sheet reported last month.
