The fraught politics of tax season have been met by the White House with a perhaps surprising response: a welcoming embrace.
The Biden administration has moved this week to elevate the moment, making the case that President Joe Biden’s law that surged $80 billion to the Internal Revenue Service has delivered tangible results at the same time Biden’s tax proposals sit at the center of a White House itching for a fight with House Republicans over long-term spending and deficits.
IRS funding has been at the center of Republican efforts to undo one of Biden’s cornerstone legislative achievements. They’ve alleged, without evidence, it would result in more menacing knocks on the door by the tax man, something internal GOP polling repeatedly showed was a politically salient message. But as Tax Day arrived, the administration was far from defensive.
Instead, from the White House to the Treasury Department, the administration pressed to elevate the issue, pointing to improved customer service such as shortened call times, upgraded service, and a cleared backlog of last year’s returns at the IRS due to the funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.
On Wednesday, Biden will speak at a union training center – home turf for the president – and will contrast “his and MAGA House Republicans’ different visions for the economy,” a White House official said Tuesday.
“The president will say that trickle-down economics never worked for his family growing up,” the official said. “And two days after the Speaker’s remarks to Wall Street, President Biden will be joined by hard-working Americans at a union training facility in Accokeek, Maryland.”
Biden will accuse “extreme MAGA House Republicans” of wanting to cut “veterans’ health care, child care, and opioids treatment,” and of trying to “take away food assistance and health care…
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