Democrats Release Tax Hike Plan

Ryan Ellis

 UNITED STATES - MARCH 07: From left, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., conduct a news conference with other Senate democrats to unveil a plan to improve the nation's infrastructure on March 07, 2018. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

This week, Congressional Democrats released a detailed tax hike plan that they promised to implement if given majority control of the House and Senate after the 2018 midterm elections. So much for the crocodile tears about the deficit--Democrats want to raise taxes not to reduce the debt, but rather to spend that tax hike money on boondoggle projects.

As you might expect, hold onto your wallets. Here are the details:

Increase the top marginal income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. This nearly 3 percentage point increase in the top personal rate is not only a hike in the top bracket levy, but it's also a direct tax increase on small and mid-sized businesses. The 30 million companies which are organized as sole proprietorships, partnerships, Subchapter-S corporations, and LLCs pay their business taxes on their owners' 1040 personal tax returns. Hiking the top tax rate is a small business tax increase.


Increasing personal income taxes would be particularly unfortunate since workers are now seeing the results of lower rates in their paychecks. Thanks to the new IRS withholding tables, in February of this year over 90 percent of workers saw higher take home pay in the form of fatter direct deposits (for a humorous spectacle of the New York Times desperately trying to get people to down-talk their bigger paychecks, click here). They will continue to see those bigger paydays for as long as the tax rates in law remain in effect. This higher tax home pay is a down payment on a lower tax liability. Typical families of four should see their federal income tax decline from $2000 to $4000, depending on their income level and number of children.

Increase the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 25 percent. Up until this year, the United States labored under the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world. As a result, jobs and capital were fleeing America for more normal tax rates that could be found in tax havens like France and China (saracasm font very much activated). Finally, after many years of bipartisan consensus that the U.S. corporate rate had become an impediment to attracting new jobs and investment, Congress cut the rate all the way from 35 to 21 percent. Even doing that only puts us in the middle of the pack of developed nations, but that's a heck of a lot better than dead last.