With Congress at a stalemate on the coronavirus aid package and the Senate adjourned, House Majority Whip James Clyburn said tax cuts are not the answer.
President Trump recently signed several executive measures to provide immediate financial aid to people facing unemployment, possible eviction, student loan debt, and deferred payroll tax payments.
Trump’s action came as Congress failed to negotiate an agreement on the amount to spend on the package and how much money should be dispersed to state and local governments.
Democrats initially asked for $3.7 trillion but said they would lower it if Republicans agreed to reverse large portions of the 2017 tax cut law, which Clyburn says never should have happened.
“You know, I wish we had done more to block that unheard-of tax cut that was supposed to trickle down and make the economy better,” the Democrat said Friday on Fox News’s Your World with Neil Cavuto. “Did it do that? No.”
Reversing the tax cut would bring the Democrats’ proposal down to $3.4 trillion.
So far, Republicans have offered $1 trillion, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear she won’t return to the negotiating table until Republican lawmakers compromise to at least $2 trillion.
About $1 trillion proposed by Democrats is set to go to state and local governments. Another $25 billion would go to the struggling United States Postal Service. Republicans appose both allocations.
“We know that state and local governments need assistance,” Clyburn said. “People have jobs in state and local governments. Banks in little towns, here in my congressional district, they are dependent upon the accounts that come from state and local governments. This whole notion of not funding state and local governments is crazy talk, and I wish that they would get serious about what the real issues are.”
The Senate will return in September after Labor Day.
