DLC A Counter-Reformation on Taxes

[Democrats unite]

This is where the candidates stand, and this is also why IMO the DLC likes some candidates better than others.


"It's no big secret that Republicans think they own the tax issue. Newly liberated by George W. Bush from any sense of fiscal responsibility or fairness, the GOP has advanced a grotesque version of tax reform using the budget surpluses piled up during the Clinton years, plus trillions of dollars in borrowing from the Social Security trust fund and the earnings of present and future generations of Americans. Its hallmarks are an assault on the progressivity of the tax code, a shift in the tax burden from unearned wealth to wages, and a shift in the cost of domestic government from the federal to state and local governments, all lubricated by the illusion of small tax cuts for middle- and lower-income Americans.

Reports abound in Washington that Bush will propose still more election-year tax cuts in the State of the Union Address. And if he's re-elected, the Big Bertha of GOP tax policy, an assault on corporate taxation, along with a consummation of Bush's plans to abolish taxes on investment income, can be expected to follow very quickly.

Tax cuts have become a defining issue in the race for the Democratic nomination. Every candidate rightly supports repeal of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. Unfortunately, some have gone further and called for taking tax relief from the middle class. We agree with Senators John Kerry, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman and Gen. Wesley Clark that the answer to a Republican administration that has kept middle-class incomes from going up should not be a Democratic administration that makes middle-class taxes go up. The mission of the Democratic Party is to expand opportunity for the middle class and all who aspire to join its rank, not add to their burdens."

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=252286