Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar said she is supporting Joe Biden for president in the 2020 election because she believes he is “going to be responsive to the policy positions we are advocating for.”
Omar said she represents one of the most progressive districts in Minneapolis and the voters she serves in Congress want a president who is willing to advance their policy agenda.
“What most of the progressives that I represent feel like is that this is our time to make sure we get rid of Trump, and we elect someone who’s going to be responsive to the policy positions we are advocating for,” Omar told MSNBC in an interview Sunday.
“Biden’s economic package is one that gets us a step closer to addressing the economic and social neglects that have went unaddressed for so long,” said Omar, a member of the progressive “Squad” along with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Biden, in an interview on CNN earlier this month, said one of the first things he would do if elected is raise the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.
“I’d make the changes on the corporate taxes on day one,” he told host Jake Tapper, even if unemployment remains high because of the coronavirus pandemic.
President Trump cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“And the reason I’d make the changes to corporate taxes, it can raise $1.3 trillion if they just started paying 28 percent instead of 21 percent,” Biden said. “What are they doing? They’re not hiring more people.”
Following passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017, the unemployment rate had gone from 4.1% to 3.5% in February 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.