Turns out, unless you're a very high earner, Democrats have a better record on tax cuts than Republicans do:
Everyone knows that Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich, but what hasn’t gotten nearly as much notice is how much they’ve cut them for most everyone else — substantially more than Republicans did in the first year of their 2017 tax overhaul.
New estimates by Congress’s official forecasters show Democrats’ tax cuts — included in their March stimulus package — will drive down tax rates on low- and middle-income people so much this year that those earning less than $75,000, on average, will owe nothing in federal income taxes.
Those making between $75,000 and $100,000 will pay a scant 1.8 percent average tax rate this year, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation predicts.
That will shift the relative burden to the wealthy, at least temporarily, with those earning more than $500,000 expected to pay more than two-thirds of all income taxes this year.
As for Biden's proposals, I'm good with upping taxes on the highest bracket and on cap gains. I just wish that politicians weren't so eager to spend it all on new programs.
From the New York Times this morning on Biden's tax plan:
The Tax Foundation has said that Biden wants to raise the capital gains tax to “highs not seen since the 1920s.” Suzanne Clark of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called the same plan “outrageous.” Jay Timmons of the National Association of Manufacturers called the proposed increase in the corporate tax rate “archaic.” And Brendan Bechtel, the chief executive of the construction company that bears his family name, said that “it doesn’t feel fair.”
All of this rhetoric has obscured a basic fact about Biden’s tax plan: It would not actually raise tax rates on the rich to high levels, historically speaking.
If all of Biden’s proposed tax increases passed — on the corporate tax, as well as on investment taxes and income taxes for top earners — the total federal tax rate on the wealthy would remain significantly lower than it was in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. It would also remain somewhat lower than during the mid-1990s, based on an analysis that Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley, did for The Morning.
In sum, Biden's tax plan is extremely moderate and unlikely to hurt economic growth given the relative tax rates it affects, which are quite low right now compared to historical standards.
Would definitely prefer to get rid of Bureaucracy and Government bloat, but neither party seems interested in it. One party's idea of bloat is the other's idea of a sacred cow. That goes for Republicans, too, or did you not notice during Trump's administration when they increased spending on defense, infrastructure, and the like? Regardless of whether you think those are good spending priorities or not, they represent increased spending. If the government spends more, taxes need to pay for it. That's why we need to raise taxes.
