What you're not hearing about the coming battle for post-pandemic tax hikes

Biden will give a speech this week calling for tax hikes on rich individuals and corporations to fund an infrastructure program. It will face stiff opposition in a divided Congress, but it is already being argued that the winners in the K-shaped recovery following the pandemic bottom should pay more in the name of fairness. But rich individuals and corporations, on average, lost in the pandemic. The unemployed -- mostly lower earners -- were paid more not to work, while the employed made no income gains. Stimulus checks were means-tested. Overall corporations saw earnings declines. Investors who dared to stay the course had an only somewhat better than average year. Amazon earnings grew sharply, but they earned it by rising to the occasion and hiring half a million new workers.