Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Commerce Department said she would raise taxes on the middle class to fund Biden’s climate agenda.
But Biden’s campaign trail promise was that he would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 per year.
During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo said the Biden administration would have to remain open to additional taxation in order to fund policies on climate change and infrastructure improvement.
Asked by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., where she would be in favor of implementing new taxes and not just raising existing ones, Raimondo admitted that new taxes might be necessary.
“I would defer to Congress to make that decision. Let me say this. I, as governor, am deeply in touch with how much increasing bills affect the average American family,” she responded.
“Having said that, we do need to meet the climate change challenge and we need funds for improved infrastructure — better roads, safer roads, safer bridges — which also creates jobs,” she said. “So I would look to balance those interests and work as a piece of the president’s team.”
Commerce Secretary nominee Gina Raimondo stays open to raising taxes on the middle class, says that we “need funds” for Biden’s climate agendahttps://t.co/yiNAOSUdz5 pic.twitter.com/ONG7KPzVUk
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 26, 2021
This directly contradicts what Biden said in May 2020.
“I understand you want to raise taxes,” CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Biden at the time. “The question is, how quickly you do that, in the midst of a — in the midst of this pandemic and in the midst of trying to get the economy to recover?”
Biden replied: “Nobody making under 400,000 bucks would have their taxes raised. Period. Bingo. Let’s get people back to work. Let’s get them to work.”
Raimondo’s nomination has been met with opposition from both sides of the aisle, including from progressives who have accused her of being a “corporate insider.” Other critics have pointed out that Raimondo badly managed Rhode Island’s finances.
“Raimondo who prided herself on her economic record will leave the state in much the ways she found it — in economic tatters,” GoLocalProve explained.
In addition, Rhode Island has the worst infrastructure in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and it finished near the bottom of the federal government’s Economy category at No. 48, according to CNBC.
Raimondo’s own party colleagues have demanded that she appoint managers to clean up the mess she created in the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
“I think we need to get some managers into these positions that have significant managerial skills to work on straightening out these departments,” Rhode Island House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello said recently.
Raimondo also refused to commit to keeping Huawei, a Chinese Communist Party-owned tech company, on the Commerce Department’s Entity list, leading at least one Republican to call on the Senate to hold off on confirming her until she clarifies her position.
“It is incredibly alarming the Biden Administration has refused to commit to keeping Huawei on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List … We need a Commerce Department with strong national security credentials and a Secretary with a clear understanding of the CCP threat,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement.
