Howard Dean's Plan to Dramatically Raise Taxes on You

Liberals: Are you fully aware of your own personal financial consequences related to electing Howard Dean? This article spells it out nicely for you. Howard Dean wants to reach his tiny little hands into your pockets and grab the hard-earned cash that you had planned on using to feed your family.

Wall Street Journal
Friday, January 2, 2004
Stephen Moore

Take a Hike

The Democratic Party appears to be on an irreversible course to nominate Howard Dean as its candidate for the presidency. Yet while voters in Iowa and New Hampshire may have heard a thing or two about Mr. Dean's economic policies, most Americans have not. Indeed, most voters are unaware that the former governor of Vermont has a plan to raise income taxes on every single American who pays them.

Recently, an organization I run, the Club for Growth, began airing TV ads in Iowa and New Hampshire telling voters about the specifics of Mr. Dean's tax proposals. The Dean plan, our ad notes, would raise taxes by $2,472 a year on a typical middle-income family of four. Mr. Dean would also raise the death tax rate, the capital gains tax rate, the dividend tax rate and the payroll tax, and he would bring back the hated marriage tax penalty that President Bush abolished this year. There is hardly a tax levied at the federal level that Howard Dean would not raise.

And although the Dean campaign has howled in protest over this ad -- and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebut it with TV ads of its own (which mostly change the subject) -- what it cannot deny is that these are precisely the economically destructive changes to the tax code we would see under a Howard Dean presidency. In fact, unlike some recent presidential candidates, Mr. Dean doesn't bother to conceal his plans to raise taxes, he revels in telling America about it.

WHAT THE DEAN TAX MEANS FOR YOU
Current Law Dean Tax
Capital Gains Tax 15% 20%
Dividend Tax 15% 39.6%
Income Tax Rate (highest) 35% 39.6%
Income Tax Rate (Middle) 25% 28%
Income Tax Rate (lowest) 10% 15%
Per Child Credit $1,000 $500
Marriage Penalty Tax Eliminated Reinstated
Death Tax in 2010 0$ 55%

Source: The Club for Growth


In the ad, we maintain that Mr. Dean's economic agenda is reminiscent of such unforgettable recent Democratic presidential failures as George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. We're willing to admit that this may be a bit unfair. In fact, Messrs. McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis might have reason to complain, because none of them proposed economic policies that would tilt the Democratic Party as far to the left as Mr. Dean has.

Mr. Dukakis, who was ridiculed by Republicans mercilessly as a tax and spender from "Taxachusetts," pledged to voters that he would raise taxes "only as a last resort." Mr. Dean promises new taxes as a first resort. And he would raise them on virtually everyone who has a job and an income tax liability -- not just on the "evil rich" Wall Street tycoon, but even on the man who shines his shoes. In fact, I recently analyzed IRS tax data released by the Treasury Department to estimate the impact of the Dean Tax on family finances. I found that Mr. Dean's plan would force roughly two million low-income working Americans -- that's roughly three times the population of the state of Delaware -- who don't pay any income taxes now, to start paying them. This is the candidate who says he's going to be the voice of the little guy in Washington.

When it comes to taxes, Mr. Dean thinks really big. In raw numbers, the Dean Tax proposal would raise taxes on 109 million Americans by roughly $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. This comes out to a Dean tax of about $15,440 for every family of four in the U.S. over the next decade. The Dean tax rule of thumb is that if you are in the middle class, he would roughly double your federal income tax payments.

Let's look at real-life examples of what the Dean tax might mean for you. Under current law, a married couple with one child and a $40,000-a-year income pays income taxes of $1,503. Under the Dean tax, that family would pay $2,935 -- or just about double. For a family with two kids and an income of $80,000 a year, the extra Dean tax costs $1,780 a year. What Mr. Dean has never had to answer to in the Democratic primary, perhaps because the other candidates are too embarrassed to ask, is how a presidential contender whose campaign is dedicated to relieving the economic squeeze on working class families, believes that socking these folks with a $1,400- to $1,800-a-year tax hike will make their financial situation less stressful.

Mr. Dean responds to these charges by countering that his plan will help restore prosperity and produce higher incomes and more jobs. But how exactly? His tax plan would be the equivalent of hitting small businessmen, who create about 70% of the jobs, over the head with a two-by-four. The highest tax rate under the Dean plan rises from 35% to 39.6%. Add on top of this perhaps the most insidious feature of the Dean tax. For the first time ever, he would eliminate the cap on payroll taxes. Henceforth, all income of more than $87,000 a year would pay a 15% payroll tax. This means the Dean tax plan raises the small-business tax rate from 38% to 55%. If you are a self-employed worker with an income of $125,000 a year, which in high-cost-of-living states like California and New York is hardly rich, Howard Dean wants to raise your taxes more than $8,000. That will create jobs?

When President Bush cut taxes this past year, one of the most immediately visible happy results was that the dividend and capital gains tax cuts helped boost the stock market by between 10% and 15%. The after-tax rate of return on corporate profits increases with a lower capital gains and dividends tax, so stock values predictably rise. Just since the Bush tax cut, the increased valuation of the stock market has increased the net wealth of American households by more than $1 trillion, according the American Shareholders Association. Repealing those tax cuts would impel the market to surrender those higher share prices. Since half of American households now have their savings stored in stocks, this market give-back also will put a severe dent in family finances. So the Dean tax is a double whammy on households: It reduces their after-tax income and reduces their wealth.

Of course, by reinstating the marriage penalty and bringing back to life the death tax permanently, Mr. Dean's tax proposal would add greatly to the complexity of the tax code. By raising income tax rates by roughly five percentage points on everyone and by calling for a more than doubling of the dividend tax, he sends us back toward the era of punitive double and triple taxation of saving and investment income. In many ways then, the Dean tax is "the anti-flat tax." It gives us higher tax rates and more IRS complexity, and requires several million more families to file IRS 1040 returns every year.

If the Democrats do indeed nominate Mr. Dean and make the Dean tax the underlying economic message of their party, that would be good news for Republicans, but awful news for sound economic policy making in Washington. It will signal once and for all that the Democrats have gone off the deep end on economics and no longer believe a word of John F. Kennedy's message of 40 years ago that higher tax rates "will never produce enough revenues to balance the budget, nor enough jobs" to put Americans back to work.

 

What's the matter Sam, are you unable to refute the *fact* that Howard Dean wants to raise your taxes? Must you resort to changing the subject? I challenge you to confront these facts, as presented in the article. Can you do it?

 

Revenue will not be cut as the economy rebounds. Greater economic activity means higher sales receipts, greater dividends paid, capital gains, and higher salaries. All of these are taxed. Wall Street agrees that the tax cuts have spurred record economic growth. It therefore follows that tax receipts will grow, much as economic growth grew them in the late 90's.

This is the critical flaw in your stereotypical lunatic fringe liberal argument.

 

SizzleChest, I have highlighted the lunatic parts of GreenVegan's post:

After two rounds of ridiculous tax cuts

These expenses are not going away.

Any candidate who says we don't need to raise taxes (or cut the most bloated military budget in history) is lying through his teeth to get votes.

 

Accepting the tax rates or economic situation of other industrialized counties is something I find unreasonable. The US has the largest and most efficient economy due in part because of the lower tax burden and greater incentive to achieve.