In unveiling a $2 trillion infrastructure plan last week, President Biden has kicked off a pointed political debate about how he plans to pay for his ambitious economic proposal—namely, by raising corporate taxes.
To little surprise, congressional Republicans and business interest groups have voiced firm opposition to an increase on the 21% federal corporate tax rate, hindering hopes of bipartisan cooperation. Even some Democrats have expressed reservations, an unwanted complication when the President’s party holds the slimmest of majorities in the Senate.
But for Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)—whose progressive economic positions have won him three terms in a state that, as he notes, “Trump won twice”—raising taxes on big businesses is not nearly the publicly divisive issue that some politicians and lobbyists would claim.
“Our plan is premised on the belief that the public knows corporations aren’t paying their fair share of taxes,” Brown told Fortune. There is polling evidence to support that view, and he believes recent news highlighting how dozens of profitable Fortune 500 companies avoided federal income taxes last year only furthers the case for a corporate tax hike.
“If you live in Toledo or Youngstown and you’re a working family, you pay your taxes,” the senior senator from Ohio noted. “But if you’re a corporation, you can get away with [not] because of the way Congress has been enthralled with corporate lobbyists.”
In a week that saw Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pitch a global minimum corporate tax, Brown joined fellow senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) in releasing a proposal that would overhaul the tax code for U.S. companies’ foreign earnings—a framework broadly in alignment with the White House’s own plan.
Brown pointed out how corporate income taxes as a share of U.S. GDP have “plummeted over the last 50 years,” and said the public would support “closing tax loopholes” to pay for a bill that promises to rebuild highways, expand broadband access, and create “jobs that can’t be outsourced.”
As far as actually getting a tax hike passed, Brown said he thinks ordinary Americans have little time for the machinations of the U.S. Senate, such as whether Democrats rely on budget reconciliation measures to pass the infrastructure bill without Republican support. Nor does he believe most “care about whether [Republican Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell identifies this as a partisan or bipartisan effort.”
“The public doesn’t care about regular order or reconciliation. The public doesn’t care about the process,” he said. “I want to be bipartisan—it’s how I get elected—but I want to get something done.”
The senator also expressed frustration at Republicans who have previously voiced support for an infrastructure bill “but don’t want to pay for it” when it comes to higher taxes, as well as those who have complained about some of the non-transportation line items in the President’s spending proposal. “How can you say broadband and housing aren’t major components [of infrastructure] in the 21st century?” Brown asked.
Beyond the ongoing debate over taxes and infrastructure spending, Brown has kept busy as chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (commonly known as the Senate Banking Committee), a role he ascended to after Democrats won control of the Senate in January. The position has granted Brown a pulpit from which he can extend oversight as the Senate’s top banking industry watchdog—something he did this week in pressing Credit Suisse and other major banks over their involvement in the abrupt collapse of investment firm Archegos Capital Management.
Brown confirmed a Politico report this week that both he and House Financial Services Committee chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) have invited the CEOs of America’s largest banks to testify in a round of hearings on Capitol Hill. While he declined to go into specifics, Brown said he planned on pressing the bank CEOs on their commitments to addressing climate change, corporate diversity, and economic inequality.
And after speaking with White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain last week, Brown said he expects the Biden administration to soon move ahead with its remaining nominees for top economic roles. That would include a new head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the influential agency charged with regulating national banks.
While former Obama administration official Michael Barr was heavily tipped for the OCC job previously, the sentiment has since shifted in favor of law professor Mehrsa Baradaran, whose work on issues like systemic inequality and the racial wealth gap have made her a favorite of progressives.
Brown acknowledged that he’s advocated for Baradaran in the role, noting that he’s read both of her books and is “very hopeful” that there’s a place for her in the Biden administration. He added that he’s pleased to see the White House has been “picking people who are not in the pockets of Wall Street” for key economic jobs, as well as looking beyond the typical crop of white male candidates.
“Financial regulators have been the last bastion of people who look like me,” he said. “There have been very few regulators of color, or women. I think that’s going to change.”
