White Press Secretary Jen Psaki insists that President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending bill will not cost Americans earning less than $400,000 a year a “dollar.”
During a press briefing on Monday, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked, “Are you now admitting that the plan does not cost zero, or is it less than zero?”
She responded, “Well, let’s not dumb this down for the American public here. What we’re talking about is how much the top line investments are, which are all paid for, so therefore it costs zero. No matter what the cost or size of the topline investments are, we have ways to pay for it.”
“So the point is that’s important to the American public, all of your viewers too, is that this is not going to cost the American public a dollar. We’re going to pay for this by asking corporations, the highest income — so people under $400,000 I should say — corporations, highest income to cover the cost of these necessary investments,” she added.
Doocy asked, “So just not to dumb it down then, does the plan cost nothing or is the plan free?”
“The plan costs nothing for the American people who make less than $400,000,” Psaki said.
Watch the video below:
PSAKI: Biden's budget package "is not going to cost the American public a dollar." pic.twitter.com/LslMn48Xoq
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 4, 2021
Biden insisted that his plan “costs zero dollars” and will not add to the national debt, a claim The Washington Post’s fact-checker has labeled “misleading.”
On Tuesday, Psaki admitted that for wealthier Americans and corporations, the spending plan “will cost them more.”
However, a study from the Joint Committee on Taxation — a non-partisan congressional tax scorekeeper — found that the cost of corporate tax increase would be passed on to lower and middle-class consumers, “Within 10 years of a corporate tax increase from 21 percent to 25 percent, 66.3 percent of the corporate tax burden would be borne by lower- and middle-income taxpayers with income well below $500,000.”
“This statistic becomes only more striking in absolute number of taxpayers. Of the more than 172 million taxpayers who would bear the burden of the increased corporate tax rate, 98.4 percent, or about 169 million, have incomes under $500,000,” the study added.
Additionally, it found that in 2023 “taxpayers of every income level will see [a] meaningful tax increase.”