Economist surprised Trump-era tax break survived Biden budget plan

Joe Biden.
(Image credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

President Biden surprised some analysts when his $6 trillion 2022 budget proposal didn't touch a 20 percent tax deduction, implemented by Republicans in 2017, for owners of closely held businesses, The Wall Street Journal reports. Biden had campaigned on limiting the break, the Journal notes, but it wasn't mentioned in the proposal, which detailed the White House's first $2.4 trillion worth of net tax increases. The White House has yet to address the matter.

William Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he was a "frankly … a little surprised that the Biden administration didn't propose curtailing" the deduction, which he said "just seems to be kind of without redeeming qualities."

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.