As he wrapped up his participation in the Group of Seven (G7) forum in Japan, US President Joe Biden slammed “wealthy tax cheats and crypto traders” as undeserving beneficiaries of Republican lawmakers with whom his administration is negotiating a new budget, without which the US government could potentially default on its debt payments on June 1.
The G7 is a political forum for Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States to hold multilateral talks and negotiations. Biden stated in a conference closing press conference that his latest proposed budget cut spending by more than a trillion dollars, on top of nearly $3 trillion in deficit reductions proposed previously by his administration through spending cuts and new revenue.
“Before I left for this trip, I met with all four congressional leaders, and we agreed that the only way to move forwards was in a bipartisan agreement,” Biden said. “I’ve done my part… now it’s time for the other side to move away from their extreme positions, because much of what they’ve already proposed is simply, to put it mildly, unacceptable.”
Biden then launched into a litany of what he said Republicans supported versus what Democrats supported. “Let me be clear: I will not agree to… a deal that protects wealthy tax evaders and cryptocurrency traders while jeopardizing food assistance for nearly 1 million Americans,” he said.
Other unacceptable trade-offs mentioned by the President included $30 billion in tax breaks for the oil industry and $200 billion in “excess payments” for the pharmaceutical industry, rather than preserving Medicaid or the jobs of 100,000 school teachers or 30,000 police officers.
“It’s past time for Republicans to accept that no bipartisan agreement can be reached solely on their partisan terms,” Biden said. His remarks echoed a series of “this or that” Twitter posts earlier this month in which “MAGA House Republicans” claimed to support “tax loopholes that benefit wealthy crypto investors” and oppose food safety inspections.
In his $6.9 billion budget proposal, President Trump emphasized the need to “modernize rules, including those for digital assets” and “apply the wash sale rules to digital assets and address related party transactions,” essentially making crypto assets subject to the same regulations as more traditional investments.
Meanwhile, Biden’s administration has advocated for a 30% excise tax on the cost of electricity used for cryptocurrency mining, though some lawmakers have dismissed the idea as unworkable.
As Biden prepares to return to Washington, D.C., the Washington Post reported today that Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to restart negotiations on Sunday in the hopes of averting “an economic catastrophe as little as 11 days away.””Default is not an option,” Biden said, adding that talks will resume while he is flying back to the United States. “America has never defaulted on its debts, and it never will.”
