'Time to stiffen our spines': Dems prep for 2025 tax fight with GOP

As congressional Republicans prepare for Donald Trump's possible White House return by plotting to expand tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy that were the cornerstone of his first term in office, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday said Democrats must be ferocious opponents of another "GOP tax scam," while also providing an alternative vision.

"It's time to stiffen our spines," said Warren in social media post. "President [Joe] Biden is right: If the 2025 tax bill doesn't call on the wealthy and giant corporations to shoulder a bigger share of what it costs to run this country. Democrats should reject it outright. No more Trump tax breaks for billionaires."

As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Republican lawmakers are ready and eager to ram through an expanded version of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Falsely touted by Trump as a boon to working-class families, the law was a massive windfall for corporations and the rich and added trillions of dollars to the national debt.

"Democrats have good, popular ideas about taxes. All we need is courage."

"The 2025 tax fight will create a huge opportunity to break with decades of tax-cutting political orthodoxy and reshape the tax code to reflect our nation's values by raising taxes on the wealthy," Warren (D-Mass.) said during a Monday speech at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a think tank focused on economic issues.

"But let's be crystal clear: If Democrats take the coward's way out and sign our names to a half-baked deal that lets the wealthy off the hook, it will be a huge failure—and one the American people cannot afford," added Warren, who earlier this year was a lead sponsor of the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, a bill to strengthen anti-tax evasion rules.

Last month, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that extending the 2017 tax cuts would add $4.6 trillion to the national debt.

An analysis published earlier this month by Brendan Duke and Will Ragland of the Center for American Progress Action Fund concluded that the GOP's proposed tax cut expansion would exceed the size of the federal K-12 budget for the current fiscal year.

Adding insult to injury, major corporations have funneled their tax cut windfalls into share buybacks, further enriching corporate executives and wealthy shareholders even as worker pay stagnates or even decreases and layoffs accelerate, as Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, noted during a Senate Budget Committee hearing last week.

Polls show Americans across the political spectrum favor raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals.

"The American people are telling us that they are ready for a tax code that promotes their values, and Democrats must be ready to deliver," Warren asserted during Monday's speech.

"Democrats have good, popular ideas about taxes. All we need is courage," she added. "Courage to shake off a century of running for the hills every time the subject of taxes comes up. Courage to stand up to billionaires and corporate donors. Courage to say to the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country: Pay up."