Key Vote: ATR Urges No Vote on Janet Yellen for Treasury Secretary

The Senate is expected to soon vote on the nomination of Janet Yellen to be Treasury Secretary. ATR urges Senators to vote “NO” on the nomination and will include this vote in our annual Congressional scorecard.

Yellen supports several tax increases including repeal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which reduced taxes for middle class families and small businesses. Yellen also supports a $2 trillion energy tax that would increase the cost of electricity and consumer goods and services for Americans across the country.

Yellen opposes the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, as noted in an April 2018 op-ed where she argued that there was no need for a tax cut because, “the economy was already at or close to full employment and did not need a boost.”

• Yellen claimed at her Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing that Biden has “been very clear that he does not support a complete repeal of the 2017 tax law.” However, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have said at least 22 times that they want to repeal the entire Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
• Full repeal of the TCJA will raise taxes on American families. Repeal would impose a $2,000 annual tax hike on a median-income family of four and a $1,300 tax hike on a median income single parent with one child.
• Repeal of the TCJA will also reinstate the Obamacare individual mandate tax, hitting five million households with a tax of between $695 and $2,085. 75 percent of these households make less than $50,000 per year.
• Yellen supports Biden’s plan to raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, impose a global minimum tax, and create a new 15 percent tax on book income. These tax hikes will make America a less competitive place to do businesses and will cause jobs to go overseas.

 

Yellen also supports an Energy Tax of at least $40 per ton of Carbon. Yellen is a founding member of the Climate Leadership Council (CLC), an “international policy institute” lobbying Congress to pass this carbon tax, which would increase every year at 5% above inflation.” Yellen is also the author of a recent study commissioned by CLC,  Exceeding Paris, that recommends a $43/ton carbon tax.

There is bipartisan recognition that an energy tax would harm low-income households and increase the cost of electricity and household goods. In 2016, Hillary Clinton decided to oppose a carbon tax after she learned the following from an internal Clinton report prepared by policy staff:

• The Hillary memo states that a carbon tax would devastate low-income households: “As with the increase in energy costs, the increase in the cost of nonenergy goods and services would disproportionately impact low-income households.”
• The Hillary memo states that a carbon tax would cause gas prices to increase 40 cents a gallon and residential electricity prices to increase 12% – 21%: “In our analysis, for example, a $42/ton GHG fee increases gasoline prices by roughly 40 cents per gallon on average between 2020 and 2030 and residential electricity prices by 2.6 cents per kWh, 12% and 21% above levels projected in the EIA’s 2014 Annual Energy Outlook respectively. 
• The Hillary memo states a carbon tax would cause household energy bills to go up significantly: “Average household energy costs would increase by roughly $480 per year, or 10% relative to the levels projected in EIA’s 2014 Outlook.”
• The Hillary memo states that a carbon tax would increase the cost of household goods and services: “The cost of other household goods and services would increase as well as companies pass forward the higher energy costs paid to produce those goods and services on to consumers.”