Barack Obama: Taxing the rich, including me, to fund Biden’s spending plan | Barack Obama

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Barack Obama says wealthy Americans – himself included – can afford tax increases to help fund Joe Biden’s ambitious spending plan.

“I think they can handle it,” Obama said on ABC Good Morning America. “We can afford it. I put myself in that category now.”

Obama’s personal fortune is estimated to be around $70 million. Since leaving the White House in 2017, he has released his bestselling memoir as part of a $65 million book deal, and has also signed with his wife Michelle Obama a Netflix deal believed to be worth more than $100 million. He spoke to ABC to mark the start of construction on his presidential library in Chicago.

Republicans and business groups oppose the corporate and individual tax increases in Biden’s spending package, which is worth $3.5 trillion and aims to boost health care, child care, combat climate change and other Democratic priorities.

“You’re talking about us stepping up and spending money on childcare tax credits,” Obama said. “He always made these to help families, who have needed help for a long time.

“You’re looking at making our infrastructure work more efficiently… You’re talking about rebuilding a lot of buildings, roads, bridges, and ports so that they’re immune to climate change. And also, we start investing in the kinds of energy efficiency that will be needed to combat climate change.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated that the cost of the spending plan will come down, with talks between moderates and progressives also aimed at passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill. Most observers say a failure to pass the Rebuilding Better Act would be disastrous for Biden and his party ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

The spending plan must pass through reconciliation, which allows budget legislation to pass a naked majority, eliminating a stall with 60 votes in the evenly divided Senate. Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and the Biden White House have little room for error.

Amid coverage of such a high-stakes political moment, CNN commentator Chris Celisa said Biden, a senator since 1973 and a two-time presidential candidate before winning the White House in 2020, is now “the most important week of his life.”

Biden was vice president for Obama, who remains widely popular.

In an intervention that may have been designed to appeal to Democratic loyalties, he told ABC that Biden was “asking the richest Americans, who have benefited incredibly over the past several decades — and even in the midst of the pandemic, seen their wealth and assets skyrocket — to pay taxes a few extra percentage points from In order to make sure we have a fair economy for all.

“I think anyone pretending it’s hard for billionaires to pay a little more taxes until a single mom gets childcare support or until we can make sure our communities aren’t engulfed by wildfires and floods and that we’re doing something about climate change for the next generation — as You know, this is an unsustainable argument.”

However, it is an argument that Republicans and corporate groups are willing to fight. In Congress, Republicans opposed attempts to simultaneously fund the government last Friday and raise the debt ceiling, thus avoiding a US default.

Democrats have pointed to their votes to raise the bar under Donald Trump, and to the Republicans’ contribution to the national debt through the 2017 tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthy. On Monday, House Democrats wrote to Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, urging him to “avoid an artificial crisis.”

Later, the Senate voted on a measure to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. Republicans banned it.

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