Republicans vow to fight 'Six Trillion Dollar Man' Joe Biden's massive spending plans

Republicans last night branded Joe Biden the "Six Trillion Dollar Man" as they vowed to bitterly oppose his plans for the biggest expansion of the US government's role in over half a century.

In his first speech to Congress the president outlined massive spending programmes, adding up to $6 trillion, which would be paid for by a host of tax raids on the wealthy.

That would include doubling capital gains tax on people making over $1 million to 43.4 per cent, hiking corporation tax from 21 per cent to 28 per cent, and raising the top rate of income tax from 37 per cent to 39.6 per cent.

Mr Biden said he wanted to make a "once in a generation investment in America" and undertake the "largest jobs plan since World War II," calling it a "blue collar blueprint to rebuild America."

He pointedly rejected the "small government" philosophy espoused by Ronald Reagan and said he would focus on recouping more money from millionaires, billionaires and corporations.

Mr Biden said: "My fellow Americans, trickle-down economics has never worked. It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom and middle out.

"There are good guys and women on Wall Street. But Wall Street didn't build this country. The middle class built this country. And unions built the middle class."

The president will face a battle to get his proposals through Congress amid unified Republican opposition, and even some Democrat concern over their scale.

Joe Manchin, a Democrat senator from West Virginia, said: "It’s a lot of money, a lot of money. That makes you very uncomfortable."

Delivering the Republican response to the speech Tim Scott, the only black Republican senator, accused Mr Biden of setting out "socialist dreams" and "pulling us further and further apart."

Donald Trump said US companies would move abroad. He said: "They're going to leave here so quickly."

Mr Trump also called Mr Biden "ungracious" for taking credit for coronavirus vaccines, saying he was himself the "father of the vaccine".

Karl Rove, the influential Republican strategist, dubbed Mr Biden the "Six Trillion Dollar Man" - a reference to "The Six Million Dollar Man," an iconic 1970s US TV show.

He said the "unsustainable" spending would make Democrats "vulnerable" in midterm congressional elections in November 2022.

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, said America "cannot tax and spend our way out of our problems".

Chris Christie, the former Republican presidential candidate, compared Mr Biden to a "15-year-old with a credit card."

Mr Biden argued that his $2.3 trillion plan to rebuild infrastructure would create millions of jobs.

He said: "I can report to the nation America is on the move again. After 100 days of rescue and renewal America's ready for a take-off. There is no quit in America.

"We have stared into an abyss of insurrection and autocracy, of pandemic and pain, and 'We the People' did not flinch."

The US president then cast his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which would provide childcare, paid parental leave and community college education, as a long-term measure to out-compete China.

He said: "We need to prove that democracy still works. The autocrats of the world are betting it can't. They believe we are too full of anger and division and rage, that the sun is setting on American democracy. They are wrong."

With the Senate split 50-50, and Vice President Kamala Harris holding a casting vote, Mr Biden can afford no defections by moderate Democrats.

On his 100th day in office on Thursday Mr Biden set out to sell his plans to the country.

He went to hold a rally in Georgia, where he also planned to meet with Jimmy Carter, the 96-year-old former Democrat president, and will move on to Pennsylvania and Virginia.