Subject: New York Times: Tax Plans of G.O.P. Favor the Rich Despite Populist Talk
From: DNC Press <[email-masked]>
To: DNC Press <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 20:30:56 +0000

Key point:
That pattern reflects a party still wedded to the theories of supply-side economics 35 years after President Ronald Reagan championed them under far different circumstances, when the top income tax rate was 70 percent.

Tax Plans of G.O.P. Favor the Rich Despite Populist Talk<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/us/politics/tax-plans-of-gop-favor-the-rich-despite-populist-talk.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0>
NEW YORK TIMES // JOHN HARWOOD

Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman appointed by President George W. Bush, recently expressed regret about the government's response to the 2008 financial crisis. He wished some Wall Street executives had gone to jail.
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, isn't so sure. "I'm not necessarily a person who's looking for that sort of thing," he said in an interview at the New York Stock Exchange.
The reticence of Mr. Rubio, who casts himself as a champion for Americans "living paycheck to paycheck," underlined a striking reality of the 2016 campaign. For all their talk of anger and angst among working-class voters, Republican candidates have shied away from economic populism.
Mr. Rubio, in New York for fund-raising at the time of the interview, offers an example. He proposes a significant new tax credit for households with children. But he would also cut the top federal income tax rate to 35 percent, from nearly 40 percent, and eliminate levies on capital gains, dividends and multimillion-dollar estates.
All told, the conservative Tax Foundation estimates that Mr. Rubio's plan would cut taxes an average of 17.8 percent for all taxpayers - but 27.9 percent for the top 1 percent of earners.
Mr. Rubio's rivals would also deliver disproportionate gains to the most affluent. Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida would adjust tax brackets so that the number of families that owe no income tax would rise to 81 million, from 66 million. But he would cut the top income tax rate of 39.6 percent more than twice as much as his brother did as president, to 28 percent, while reducing the top capital gains rate to 20 percent and eliminating the estate tax.
The Tax Foundation estimates that Mr. Bush's plan would raise the after-tax incomes of top earners 16.4 percent, more than any other group. The foundation says the proposal from the real estate magnate Donald J. Trump, who leads Republican polls, would raise incomes of the top 1 percent of earners 27 percent - also the most of any group.
That pattern reflects a party still wedded to the theories of supply-side economics 35 years after President Ronald Reagan championed them under far different circumstances, when the top income tax rate was 70 percent. And the reaction to Mr. Bernanke's suggestion reflects deferential instincts toward financial executives, despite voters' anger after Washington bailed out Wall Street.
Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, represents an exception. In his recent book, "God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy," Mr. Huckabee emphasized the vast cultural and economic distance between Middle America and the cosmopolitan coastal giants of Los Angeles and New York.
Still stung by opposition on Wall Street to his previous presidential bid, in 2008, he seconds Mr. Bernanke in suggesting that some finance executives should have gone to jail.
"Absolutely, they should have," he said. "These were all Ivy Leaguers and they knew darn well what they were doing - shuffling paper around and getting paid ridiculous sums of money.
"If the same kind of shell game had been practiced on the street," he concluded, "do you think the cops in the bunco division wouldn't have gone down and busted 'em?"
The absence of prosecutions, Mr. Huckabee said, reflects the flow of campaign contributions more than the intricacies of the law.
"Washington is like a strip club," he said. "You've got people tossing dollars, and people doing the dance."
Blunt talk aside, Mr. Huckabee also favors a tax plan that analysts say also disproportionately benefits the affluent. The so-called fair tax, a national 23 percent sales levy, would tax consumption instead of income - shielding savings that the wealthy can afford to set aside but that the working class cannot.
Rand Paul, a Kentucky senator whose proposed 14.5 percent flat tax the Tax Foundation says would most benefit incomes above $1 million, reacted to Mr. Bernanke's regret by turning the tables. "He should also admit that he was part of the problem and that his policies led to a great deal of this, too," said Mr. Paul, a persistent critic of Fed policy.
In his newly published memoir, Mr. Bernanke dismissed such criticism while lamenting the "know-nothingism of the far right." He no longer considers himself a Republican.