Corporate taxes, consumer costs top economic agenda for Biden State of the Union

• President Joe Biden laid out plans to reshape the corporate tax system and lower costs for Americans during his State of the Union address.
• "Too many corporations raise prices to pad their profits, charging more and more for less and less," he said.

President Joe Biden laid out plans to further reshape the tax system and promised to lower costs for Americans during his State of the Union address Thursday.

"I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is literally the envy of the world," Biden said.

Biden also sought to reclaim the mantle of economic populism that fueled his 2020 campaign, ahead of his likely rematch against Republican former President Donald Trump.

"The way to make the tax code fair is to make big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their share," said Biden. "A fair tax code is how we invest in the things that make this country great. Health care, education, defense and so much more."

The president reiterated his call for a so-called billionaire tax, a 25% minimum tax on unrealized income for households with a net worth over $100 million. First proposed by congressional Democrats in 2021 as a way to raise revenue for domestic spending plans, efforts to tax unrealized income of the very wealthy at higher rates have gone nowhere in Congress.

Nonetheless, the pitch still serves to fire up Democrats and to underscore what the White House sees as fundamental inequalities in the tax code.

Biden also pledged to end tax breaks for executive pay above $1 million, as well as tax code provisions that benefit large pharmaceutical and oil companies and the owners of private jets.

The president promised to expand several of his administration's most progressive economic accomplishments,