210
7 days ago
Cory Booker’s New Tax Idea Alarms Some Progressives
Summary
Complex global events demand clear, independent reporting. We're working to explain the facts, challenge misinformation, and show how the news affects real lives. Help us continue our imperative work. Become a member today.
Already a member? Log in to hide these messages.
Democratic senators are pitching massive tax cuts as a way to counter Donald Trump’s populist appeal.
Senior Reporter, HuffPost
Senior Politics Reporter, HuffPost
WASHINGTON — Two new plans from potential Democratic presidential candidates to exempt lower-income people from paying taxes are being met with intense derision from the party’s policy experts, arguing the ideas from Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) are poorly structured and will work against progressive goals in the long term.
Booker’s proposal, unveiled Monday, would exempt from taxation the $37,500 a single person earns yearly, or $75,000 for a married couple filing jointly. Van Hollen rolled out a plan last week to eliminate income taxes for individuals making less than $46,000 or married couples making less than $92,000.
Both ideas come at the start of intra-party jockeying over what Democrats’ agenda should be if they manage to take power in 2028, with the party trying to balance the desires of an increasingly cynical electorate, its long-standing commitments to protecting and expanding the social safety net, recovering from the damage President Donald Trump has done to the country’s long-term fiscal health and the hope its policies will actually work long term.
“The Democratic Party is confused about what it wants,” Bobby Kogan, director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, told HuffPost.
Will Raderman, a senior policy adviser at the Searchlight Institute, a liberal think tank dedicated to outside-the-box policy thinking, questioned whether the anti-tax messaging at the center of Booker and Van Hollen’s proposals is the best way for Democrats to show solidarity with working people.
“We’ve got a lot of problems that we’d like to solve in the country, and it doesn’t feel appropriate to treat taxes as one of those major problems,” Raderman said. “We actually want to maintain a robust tax base and then use any revenue to actually address the problems head-on that we see.”
The Booker proposal, in particular, also seemed likely to benefit wealthier voters as much as it would the poor. “This is not a progressive tax plan,” Corey Husak, a tax policy expert with the Center for American Progress, told HuffPost in an interview.
Since people with lower incomes already pay lower income taxes, higher earners would get a bigger benefit from Booker’s proposal to dramatically boost the “standard deduction” most tax filers use to reduce the amount of their income subject to tax.
Husak said a married couple earning $32,000 a year — an amount equal to the current value of the standard deduction — would get nothing, while a couple earning $800,000 would get a tax cut of nearly $15,000.
Booker pushed back on the progressive criticism and stressed that his tax cut would be paired with tax hikes on higher earners.
“The Democratic Party has got to get its act together and stop thinking that if a whole idea comes forward, it means all the other important things don’t get done,” Booker said in an interview on Monday. He called his plan “the biggest unrigging of our tax system that there is. The wealthiest have all these ways to avoid taxes, called tax avoidance. This is an unrigging of that and gives all Americans a fair playing field.”
“It is equitable in the sense that we are making sure that working people get to keep more of their money,” he added of the proposal.
It’s unlikely that Booker and Van Hollen will be the last Democrats to propose cutting taxes on lower- and middle-income earners. The party saw Trump win the 2024 election after promising to cut taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security, and its last plan to put more money in working people’s pockets — a $300 per-child monthly benefit for parents — was met with shrugs politically and died because of opposition from then-Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Stefanie Feldman, who served in President Joe Biden’s administration, said tax cuts are a good idea. And even if the Booker and Van Hollen proposals are flawed, at least they’re sticking their necks out. “Needed a first mover to start the debate,” Feldman said on social media.
In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Van Hollen described his plan as a direct response to Trump.
“This bill, in addition to being the right policy, sends a very strong message that we stand for working people who are sweating every day to make ends meet. That’s a group of Americans that Donald Trump somehow appealed to,” Van Hollen said, noting his barber told him how much Trump’s “no tax on tips” policy had saved him.
Raderman suggested Democrats could propose undoing Trump’s unpopular cuts to Medicaid, the federal program that pays for health care for the poor, while promising to modernize technology systems for Medicaid and other programs that Republicans have accused of making too many fraudulent payments.
Booker and Van Hollen have said their proposals, which have not been finalized, would also include new taxes on higher earners and new benefits for parents. But they’ve chiefly advertised the proposals as tax cuts.
The fact that people pay dedicated taxes for Social Security and Medicare, Kogan said, makes those programs politically untouchable. Promoting the idea that only the super-rich should pay taxes will make it harder for Democrats to promote an agenda that materially benefits the American people.
“The point of taxes is to help fund a society, to fund things that make the country better and less unfair,” Kogan said.
By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Already a member? Log in to hide these messages.
Democratic senators are pitching massive tax cuts as a way to counter Donald Trump’s populist appeal.
Senior Reporter, HuffPost
Senior Politics Reporter, HuffPost
WASHINGTON — Two new plans from potential Democratic presidential candidates to exempt lower-income people from paying taxes are being met with intense derision from the party’s policy experts, arguing the ideas from Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) are poorly structured and will work against progressive goals in the long term.
Booker’s proposal, unveiled Monday, would exempt from taxation the $37,500 a single person earns yearly, or $75,000 for a married couple filing jointly. Van Hollen rolled out a plan last week to eliminate income taxes for individuals making less than $46,000 or married couples making less than $92,000.
Both ideas come at the start of intra-party jockeying over what Democrats’ agenda should be if they manage to take power in 2028, with the party trying to balance the desires of an increasingly cynical electorate, its long-standing commitments to protecting and expanding the social safety net, recovering from the damage President Donald Trump has done to the country’s long-term fiscal health and the hope its policies will actually work long term.
“The Democratic Party is confused about what it wants,” Bobby Kogan, director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, told HuffPost.
Will Raderman, a senior policy adviser at the Searchlight Institute, a liberal think tank dedicated to outside-the-box policy thinking, questioned whether the anti-tax messaging at the center of Booker and Van Hollen’s proposals is the best way for Democrats to show solidarity with working people.
“We’ve got a lot of problems that we’d like to solve in the country, and it doesn’t feel appropriate to treat taxes as one of those major problems,” Raderman said. “We actually want to maintain a robust tax base and then use any revenue to actually address the problems head-on that we see.”
The Booker proposal, in particular, also seemed likely to benefit wealthier voters as much as it would the poor. “This is not a progressive tax plan,” Corey Husak, a tax policy expert with the Center for American Progress, told HuffPost in an interview.
Since people with lower incomes already pay lower income taxes, higher earners would get a bigger benefit from Booker’s proposal to dramatically boost the “standard deduction” most tax filers use to reduce the amount of their income subject to tax.
Husak said a married couple earning $32,000 a year — an amount equal to the current value of the standard deduction — would get nothing, while a couple earning $800,000 would get a tax cut of nearly $15,000.
Booker pushed back on the progressive criticism and stressed that his tax cut would be paired with tax hikes on higher earners.
“The Democratic Party has got to get its act together and stop thinking that if a whole idea comes forward, it means all the other important things don’t get done,” Booker said in an interview on Monday. He called his plan “the biggest unrigging of our tax system that there is. The wealthiest have all these ways to avoid taxes, called tax avoidance. This is an unrigging of that and gives all Americans a fair playing field.”
“It is equitable in the sense that we are making sure that working people get to keep more of their money,” he added of the proposal.
It’s unlikely that Booker and Van Hollen will be the last Democrats to propose cutting taxes on lower- and middle-income earners. The party saw Trump win the 2024 election after promising to cut taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security, and its last plan to put more money in working people’s pockets — a $300 per-child monthly benefit for parents — was met with shrugs politically and died because of opposition from then-Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Stefanie Feldman, who served in President Joe Biden’s administration, said tax cuts are a good idea. And even if the Booker and Van Hollen proposals are flawed, at least they’re sticking their necks out. “Needed a first mover to start the debate,” Feldman said on social media.
In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Van Hollen described his plan as a direct response to Trump.
“This bill, in addition to being the right policy, sends a very strong message that we stand for working people who are sweating every day to make ends meet. That’s a group of Americans that Donald Trump somehow appealed to,” Van Hollen said, noting his barber told him how much Trump’s “no tax on tips” policy had saved him.
Raderman suggested Democrats could propose undoing Trump’s unpopular cuts to Medicaid, the federal program that pays for health care for the poor, while promising to modernize technology systems for Medicaid and other programs that Republicans have accused of making too many fraudulent payments.
Booker and Van Hollen have said their proposals, which have not been finalized, would also include new taxes on higher earners and new benefits for parents. But they’ve chiefly advertised the proposals as tax cuts.
The fact that people pay dedicated taxes for Social Security and Medicare, Kogan said, makes those programs politically untouchable. Promoting the idea that only the super-rich should pay taxes will make it harder for Democrats to promote an agenda that materially benefits the American people.
“The point of taxes is to help fund a society, to fund things that make the country better and less unfair,” Kogan said.
By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
AI Description
The article discusses a new tax proposal by Cory Booker, which has raised concerns among some progressives. It highlights the broader strategy of Democratic senators proposing significant tax cuts to counteract Donald Trump's populist policies.