The Economist: on Tax Reform
Al Gore:
Target surplus at national debt, rainy days, & education
Gore would like to continue the “disciplined” and “prudent” economic policies of the Clinton administration. In particular, he would:- Pay off federal debt in public hands by 2012.
- Set aside $300 billion of the surplus as a
reserve in case rosy projections do not materialize.
- Introduce tax credits for retirement accounts targetd at low- and middle-income Americans.
- Reduce the “marriage tax penalty” by increasing the standard deduction for married couples.
- Offer tax credits for health insurance, make the child-care credit refundable, provide tax relief for stay-at-home parents, introduce tax credits for long-term care.
- make up to $10,000 in college tuition costs tax deductible;
create tax-advantaged accounts to save for education and training; create a new refundable After-School Tax Credit.
Source: The Economist, “Issues 2000 Special Briefing”
Sep 30, 2000
Bernie Sanders:
Raise income tax & fix estate tax: hardly Marxist ideas
Sanders' views correspond to only a small portion of the socialist program advocated by Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto and are a far cry from Marx's vision of a stateless communist society he posits would follow.
Sanders would raise income taxes and lower the exemption on estate taxes from $5.4M to $3.5M, but he calls for something far less radical than the "abolition of all rights of inheritance".
Source: The Economist "Socialist?" on 2020 Democratic primary
Feb 1, 2019
George W. Bush:
More child & charity deductions in $1.3T tax cut
Bush would like to cut taxes by $1.3 trillion over the next ten years. In particular, he would: - Introduce a new 10% lowest income-tax bracket for a couple's first $12,000 in taxable income.
- Double the
child tax credit from $500 to $1,000.
- Replace the current structure of five tax brackets with four (10%, 15%, 25%, and 33%).
- Reduce the marriage penalty (by which married couples pay more than cohabiting singles) by allowing
them to deduct 10% of up to $30,000 of the income of the lower-earning spouse.
- Allow taxpayers who do not itemize their returns to deduct up to $7,200 of charitable contributions.
- Eliminate the estate tax.
- Permanently
extend the corporate research tax credit.
- Allow tax-advantaged savings accounts for education.
Source: The Economist, "Issues 2000 Special Briefing"
Sep 30, 2000
Steve Mnuchin:
No net tax cut for the highest earners
Mnuchin's first main challenge will be to get Trump's fiscal policy straight. During the campaign Trump proposed tax cuts that would, according to the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think-tank, give the top 1% of earners a
tax cut worth, on average, 12%-20% of their incomes. But Mnuchin told CNBC that there would be no net tax cut for the highest earners.
Source: The Economist newsmagazine coverage of 2016 Trump transition
Dec 3, 2016
Donald Trump:
OpEd: across-the-board tariffs are a sales tax in disguise
One of the best things that can be said for Ms Harris's economic agenda is that it will probably be less damaging than Mr Trump's. She is clearly against the tariff increases her opponent has promised. Many of her proposals amount to adjustments to
existing policies, rather than representing a wholesale recrafting of America's economic system. Mr Trump, by contrast, may be able to use the power of the presidency to slap across-the-board tariffs on all imports to America, the central plank of his
economic programme--and one that Ms Harris has criticised, correctly, as being a sales tax in disguise."Trump really seems to think that we'd be better off as an autarkic economy," says [a Harvard analyst]. "Harris helped to implement a lot
of buy-American rules, so it seems she's bought into the anti-globalisation stuff to some extent."
"Not as bad as the other candidate" would be a poor campaign slogan. It is, however, an accurate summary of Ms Harris's economic plans. ¦
Source: The Economist on 2024 Presidential hopefuls
Aug 21, 2024
Page last updated: Sep 29, 2024