Brian Snyder/Reuters
- JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon talked tax hikes and infrastructure in a recorded interview Wednesday.
- Dimon suggested lawmakers create detailed disclosures on how extra tax-hike dollars are spent.
- Sen. Brian Schatz responded to Dimon’s comments, pointing him toward the Appropriations Committee.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
If President Joe Biden plans to raise taxes among large corporations and the wealthy, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon wants to know where every single extra penny ends up.
The billionaire businessman urged lawmakers to court the devil in the details during a recorded interview for the Investment Company Institute’s general membership meeting posted Thursday. During the 30-minute conversation, Dimon voiced his “concerns” about Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan.
“I’m…concerned how the money’s going to be spent,” he said. “The government needs to be very clear on what they want to accomplish.”
He noted his support for a bipartisan bill and also suggested that lawmakers create and share an itemized list of the ways extra dollars from a tax hike would fund the government’s infrastructure plans.
“On highways, how many miles are you going to build? How much is it going to cost? When’s it going to get done? Who’s responsible?”
Dimon’s preference for specifics – like Biden’s proposed bill – goes beyond the traditional elements of infrastructure.
“On education, not just free community colleges,” he added. “How many kids are going to graduate? How many kids are going to have a job at $65,000 a year?”
Biden’s infrastructure bill has been slammed by Republicans, who have called it a “liberal wish-list,” and “Soviet-style infrastructure,” arguing the bill has little to do with traditional infrastructure, like roads and bridges.
“So I worry about not just the bill, but we’re just throwing money. It doesn’t work,” he said. “And we already waste tremendous sums of money.”
Dimon said if lawmakers are going to take the American people’s money, they owe it to the public to be up front with how they use it, comparing it to the information companies are required to disclose.
In response to Dimon’s comments, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii in a tweet Thursday evening said the federal government already keeps a detailed record of spending outcomes, and pointed Dimon to The Senate Committee on Appropriations.
-Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) May 6, 2021
Dimon did say he believed taxation and infrastructure are “completely unrelated.”
“We should have proper infrastructure, proper immigration, proper healthcare, proper stuff,” he said. “And then we should have proper corporate taxation, and obviously we got to pay for this stuff.”
The businessman also called the idea of some of Biden’s proposed tax hikes “a little crazy,” arguing that competitive corporate taxation is vital to capital formation and economic growth in the country.
“I think they’re making a mistake,” Dimon said about the proposal to get rid of the Trump-era corporate tax cut and raise rates on businesses. Dimon lobbied for the tax cuts.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez picked up on his past push for the cut to corporate tax rates.
“That’s funny, because Jamie Dimon didn’t give working people an itemized list of the school districts, public hospitals, infrastructure, or affordable housing projects he was helping defund when he pushed for the $2T GOP Tax Scam in 2017 w/ goodies for yacht and jet owners,” she tweeted in reply to Dimon’s wish for an itemized list.
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