The Democrats' call to raise the corporate tax rate to 26.5%, or higher than the current 25% rate in China, will not help the United States compete but instead fulfills President Joe Biden's "promise that he wants to tax people more," Sen. James Lankford said on Newsmax Wednesday.
"China is our biggest global competitor," the Oklahoma Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "If our tax rate is higher than China's, guess what? International companies will just do business in China and not do it in the United States. It's not hard to be able to see that one coming."
Lankford also slammed the thought that the United States, by raising its tax rates, will spur other countries to follow.
The senator said he discussed several factors about the tax bill while speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday.
"One of the things that I laid out was this preposterous notion that the Biden administration and [Treasury Secretary] Janet Yellen have is that they're going to negotiate with every other country around the world, and every country around the world is going to raise their tax rate so that when the United States raises our tax rate, it won't cause businesses to go internationally," said Lankford.
"They said everybody else is going to do it, but here's what happened," he continued. "Literally, this sounded like something from middle school for me where all the guys would get together and come up with a crazy, dumb idea. Then we would all look at somebody and go that's a great idea, so you go first."
In this case, other countries will not follow America's lead because "they'll keep their tax rates low and they'll actually take business from the United States.," Lankford said.
The senator also spoke out against vaccine mandates, calling it "hypocrisy on steroids on multiple different levels" for the administration to stress that refugees coming into the country from Afghanistan will be required to be vaccinated while not requiring people who are coming across the southern border to get COVID-19 tests, let alone shots.
"This vaccine mandate is a terrible idea," he said. "Every American knows inherently, I can make decisions for myself because I'm an American. I'm not a Chinese citizen where the government can then mandate something on me ... they're ignoring people with religious exemptions and natural immunity, just normal Americans that say, I don't want to be able to do that."
He stressed that he and his family have had their vaccinations, but he does have a "big issue" with mandates, as "that's not the way it works in America."
The Senator also discussed the controversy at the border after concerns arose over videos showing Border Patrol officers, riding on horses, in confrontations with migrants near the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas. Critics singled out officers who had long reins on their horses and claimed they were using whips to drive back people trying to come into the United States.
"The Border Patrol is doing the best thing they possibly can to be able to push people back across the border, which is their job," Lankford said. "They're not using whips on individuals."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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