OPINION:
As the 2020 presidential election draws closer, Americans are zeroing in on their favorite Democratic contender. The closer they look at the likely effect on their finances, the more obvious it is they face a Hobson’s choice: Take it or leave it. No matter who they choose, they’ll be voting for higher taxes.
Sen. Bernie Sanders recorded a virtual tie with former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg in last week’s dysfunctional Iowa caucuses, and he holds a lead in polls going into Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. He also leads the pack in drawing up plans for tax increases he would drop on Americans were he to reach the White House. Smart shoppers — and voters — examine the price tag on potential purchases before heading to the checkout line. Mr. Sanders marks his policy offerings with a label that reads, “nobody knows.” That’s how he responded to a CBS News calculation that his plans for Medicare for All, free college tuition and cancellation of past college debt would add up to $60 trillion.
The so-called Democratic socialist, who is more socialist than Democrat, has also proposed a wealth tax. It would impose an extra 1 percent levy on Americans with net assets above $32 million, rising incrementally to 8 percent on wealth above $10 billion. While bringing in an estimated $2.6 trillion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, it would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by 0.43 percent. That’s an unwelcome pothole in every American Main Street.
Whacking the wealthy may appeal to voters who view the political landscape as a struggle between the haves and have-nots. With Mr. Sanders, though, even the have-nots will have not more, but less: He proposes an additional tax on incomes above a meager $29,000.
Mr. Buttigieg, billed as a slightly less tax-happy version of Bernie, nevertheless would greet Americans from the Oval Office with one burning question: What’s in your wallet? Mayor Pete vows to roll back President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, says The New York Times, which would lead to an increase to the corporate and capital-gains tax rates. A tax-cut repeal would mean a family of four earning the median income of $73,000 would face a tax increase of $2,000, according to Americans for Tax Reform, and U.S. businesses would resume paying the highest corporate rate in the developed world.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose star has tarnished in New Hampshire after a third-place finish in Iowa, shares Mr. Sanders’ enthusiasm for punishing the wealthy. Her proposal would bill household net wealth above $50 million at a 2 percent rate and impose a 3 percent rate on households worth more than $1 billion. The extra tax inflow would add up to $2.2 trillion over a decade while trimming GDP by 0.37 percent.
Like Bernie, Mrs. Warren is all in on Medicare for All. Reckoning that covering health care for Americans would cost about $20.5 trillion over 10 years, she would tax Medicare contributions paid by employers to the tune of $8.8 trillion and impose a raft of additional business, individual and financial transaction taxes to raise the remainder. A wild card is her wish to extend health care to the unknown tens of millions of illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. Democrats had better order another shipment of price tags marked “nobody knows.”
Joe Biden, bracing for a sorry showing in New Hampshire to match Iowa’s apparent fourth-place finish, comes across as a relative tax slacker. The former vice president would end the Trump tax-rate cut for high earners, raising it from 37 percent to 39.6 percent, tax capital gains as the higher rate of ordinary income for taxpayers making more than $1 million, boost the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, and levy a host off additional miscellaneous assessments.
To his credit, Mr. Biden set aside his rambling campaign-stump style long enough to make perhaps the single most frank statement of the Democratic race, referring to his competitors’ Medicare for All scheme: “It is totally unrealistic and can’t be done.” Other candidates of note sport their own assortment of ideas for collecting cash.
Whoever Americans select as the Democratic nominee promises to demand more of their hard-earned money. Take it or leave it isn’t much of a choice.
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