My gut take on Kerry's fiscal plan
It's rather hard to pin Kerry down on his plans, since both he and Edwards spend far more time telling us what they don't like, and what they'll fix, than they spend telling us how they'll do it. And even when they do, it seems mostly empty rehtoric laced with the occasional code word. But, having listened, read and watched far too much this election season, my gut has come to conclusions that my head can't quite document.
Here then is my gut instinct of Kerry's fiscal plans:
- "Solve" Social Security by removing the income cap (now about $90K) that the FICA payroll tax is based upon. While this would seem to violate the "no tax increases on those earning less than $200K" pledge, this isn't income tax exactly, and besides, it's mostly on "the rich" anyway. This has long been advocated by the Democrat left, and matches what they did 10 years ago on the Medicare tax.
- Change capital gains treatment to a 50% exclusion for those whose combined regular and cap gain income is under $200K. The exclusion would rapidly diminish above that point. Considering that liberal states like California tax cap gains as regular income and that the federal tax goes up every time Democrats run Congress, this seems pretty likely.
- Repeal the phase-out of the inheritance tax, probably with a "generous" $1 million-or-so exclusion. This has been the Congressional Democrat position for a while.
There would of course be the usual hunt for corporate and fat-cat tax breaks (e.g. stock options), scaling back of deductions for everyone making over the magic $200K, and a blind eye towards the runaway Alternative Minimum Tax.
BTW, has anyone pinned down Kerry on that $200K number? Is it $100K for singles? If so, that's one group that will get a shock. If not, the marriage penalty just got far worse.
Next up, my gut's take on Kerry's defense and WoT plans.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at October 23, 2004 01:21 PM
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