President Joe Biden has spent an entire political career handing out tax credits to big business, including big donors. Now, he uses this corporate welfare to justify his half-trillion-dollar gift to those with student loan debt.
When asked if forgiving $10,000 in student debt was fair to those who paid off their debt or avoided student debt in the first place, Biden replied: “Is it fair to people who in fact do not own multibillion-dollar businesses, to see one of these guys give ’em all the tax credits? Is that fair? What do you think?”
By the form of this argument, you might assume Biden opposes tax credits for multibillion-dollar corporations. But he doesn’t. Biden has always supported federal tax credits for multibillion-dollar businesses — it’s one of his most consistent policy positions.
Just a few days ago, Biden celebrated the misleadingly named “Inflation Reduction Act,” which includes tax credits for multibillion-dollar companies such as General Motors and Tesla. It even includes energy tax credits for ethanol producers.
Earlier in August, Biden signed the CHIPS Act, doling out $55 billion in loans, grants, and tax credits to multibillion-dollar businesses in the microchip industry.
And after his State of the Union address earlier this year, Biden called for “tax credits for domestic clean energy manufacturing and deployment.”
As vice president, Biden championed the hundreds of billions in tax credits in the 2009 stimulus bill, and then in 2010 followed up, calling for many billions more in green energy tax credits.
Dow Corning is a multibillion-dollar business, and Biden personally joined the company’s lobbying campaign in 2009 for an expanded “advanced energy manufacturing tax credit” to benefit Dow Corning and others. Biden campaigned for reelection in 2012 by attacking Mitt Romney for his insufficient support for tax credits for multibillion-dollar corporations such as General Electric or Siemens, which make wind turbines.
When Biden and Senate leader Mitch McConnell cut a deal at the end of 2012, it extended the production tax credit for wind — again, a GE and Siemens subsidy.
“Biden brings cash to solar conference” was the headline in 2015 when Biden joined the solar lobby to promise more tax credits. It echoed the 2009 headline: “Solar manufacturers praise Biden’s support for $5B expansion of energy tax credit.”
Amtrak is a multibillion-dollar business, and Biden regularly proposed multibillion-dollar tax credits to finance Amtrak. In 2001, for instance, he co-sponsored a bill to create $12 billion in tax-credit bonds for Amtrak.
His whole career, Biden has championed tax credits for multibillion-dollar corporations. That means his argument this week amounts to: I gave my corporate friends billions, so now you can’t complain when I give my voters billions.
It’s not a sensible argument, but it’s a consistent one. Biden is a man who helps his friends.
