CNN political race coverage: on Tax Reform
Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Pledges against raising taxes, except in emergencies
Schwarzenegger said he’s “fiscally conservative.”“I don’t believe in spending. The first thing I would do when I go into Sacramento is put a spending cap on those politicians, because they just can’t help themselves, they’re addicts, they should go to
an addiction place because it’s ridiculous to spend money they don’t have,” he said.
The candidate said he would be willing to take a pledge stating that barring any state emergencies, he would not raise taxes on California residents.
Source: CNN.com coverage
Aug 28, 2003
Beto O`Rourke:
War tax on non-military households to support vet healthcare
Non-military households would pay a "war tax" to help cover the health care of veterans under a plan O`Rourke's campaign unveiled. Money collected would go into a new trust fund for veterans. Households making less than $30,000 per year would pay $25;
less than $40,000 would pay $57; less than $50,000 would pay $98; less than $75,000 would pay $164; less than $100,000 would pay $270; less than $200,000 would pay $485; and those making more than $200,000 would pay $1,000.
Source: CNN.com coverage of 2020 Democratic primary
Jun 24, 2019
Dick Gephardt:
Crazy to cut taxes without creating a budget first
Democrats were angered that the GOP leadership have pushed to get the tax cut bill through the House so rapidly, saying it makes little sense to draft a tax cut before creating a fiscal year 2002 budget resolution. “This is happening without a budget,
without hearings, without input from anybody,” Dick Gephardt said, complaining that the debate structure laid out by the majority Republicans did no justice to a bill with a size & scope such as this one. “This is the biggest tax bill we have ever taken
up in this Congress,“ he said. ”They’ve scheduled two hours debate on a $1 trillion tax cut. That’s crazy.“ A Democratic alternative that would have slashed taxes by some $600 billion over 10 years included a doubling of the standard deduction for
married couples -- a facet not included in the Republican bill. The Republicans have said they wish to get the tax rate changes passed first, and they plan to return later to issues such as marriage penalty relief and elimination of the estate tax.
Source: CNN.com coverage
Mar 8, 2001
Jesse Ventura:
Supported Bush tax cuts; it was over-taxation money
I am very enthusiastic about President Bush right now, I support his budget. I support his tax cuts. I think it's ridiculous that we've got people out there saying they're too drastic when the case is this is excess money, this is money that
the government wasn't supposed to have anyway -- surplus money, if you want to call it, over-taxation money. All he wants do is give us back 20 cents on the dollar.
If you look at the president's cuts, the lower income gets the bigger percentage. Why are we penalized for being successful? Why does government take this attitude that somehow if you're successful you should have to apologize for it?
Look who pays most of the taxes. 1% of higher- income people pay almost a third of the income tax anyway. My view is that the people that pay it ought to get the relief. If you're going to do it the other way, then call it a subsidy.
Source: CNN coverage: interview on Larry Kind Live show
Mar 14, 2001
Marco Rubio:
No one should pay higher taxes in recession, not even top 2%
The tax-cut issue, revolving around whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, demonstrated the different stances of each candidate. Pres. Obama calls for extending the tax cuts to everyone making up to $200,000 a year,
or $250,000 for families, which is 98% of the population. The rates on income above those figures would return to higher levels of the 1990s under the Obama plan.Rubio insisted all the tax cuts should be extended, saying no one in America should pay
higher taxes at a time of high unemployment and sluggish economic growth. "It's a bad time to raise taxes on anybody," Rubio said. "The only way to improve the economy is by growing the economy and fiscal constraint, and you have to do both."
Crist said that position showed Rubio's inability to break from rigid ideology. While Crist advocated a compromise, Meek backed the Obama position.
Source: CNN ElectionCenter coverage of 2010 Florida Senate debate
Oct 24, 2010
Sonia Sotomayor:
Some trust fees should be only partly tax deductible
On Taxes (Deductibility of trust fees): In 2006, Sotomayor upheld a lower tax court ruling that certain types of fees paid by a trust are only partly tax deductible.
The Supreme Court upheld Sotomayor's decision but unanimously rejected the reasoning she adopted, saying that her approach "flies in the face of the statutory language." (Knight vs. Commissioner, 2006)
Source: CNN coverage of upcoming Sotomayor hearings
Aug 1, 2009
Tom Steyer:
Tax reform bill keeps the rich happy but hurts middle class
"It turned out that the system that had benefited people like me, was in fact stacked against everyone else. It's why I left my investment firm and resolved to use my savings for the public good," Steyer says. "But here we are, 9 years later, and this
President and a Republican Congress are making a bad situation even worse.""They won't tell you that their so-called tax reform plan is really for the wealthy and big corporations while hurting the middle class. It blows up the deficit," he says.
Source: CNN coverage, "$10M ad buy" on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Oct 16, 2017
Wesley Clark:
Tax cut is a cut in essential services
We've looked at this deficit from the time that the tax cut was proposed. And there's just no way any of the economists in their models can show you climbing out of this deficit situation. That's things like taking care of our retirement security
and Social Security. It's helping the states and localities bring us the services that people need. So when you look at that tax cut that was passed, what that really means is a cut in services that Americans have considered essential.
Source: CNN coverage: Crossfire
Aug 1, 2003
Page last updated: Oct 26, 2024