Hillary Clinton’s no-tax pledge is Republican policy sprinkled with Third Way politics [View all]

[stupidicus]

otherwise known as rightwing-lite

Clinton’s no-tax pledge is Republican “starve the beast” policy infused with Third Way politics. It doubles down on the premise that taxes are bad, and insists that they should only ever be raised on other people — no matter what higher taxes on the broader tax base could pay for. By promising to only raise taxes on incomes in the top one or two percent, Clinton is writing off most potential new revenue, and is therefore writing off the possibility of any semblance of a progressive economic agenda. However, by only foreclosing on the possibility of tax increases for 98 percent of Americans, as opposed to the full 100, she feels safe calling herself a progressive because Fox News will call her a class warrior. Sanders, rightly, thinks this claim is ridiculous.

It’s ridiculous because Clinton’s pledge boxes her into policy corners that leave her with no choice but to use creative and regressive tweaks on otherwise good ideas in order to keep her price tags down. Take, for example, her proposed tax credit for caregivers. Clinton’s policy would provide a tax credit of up to $6,000 for families that are taking care of an elderly family member. However, the only way to keep the budgetary costs of such a program down — $1 billion per year, by all available estimates — is by making the credit non-refundable (you can only claim it against existing tax liability, as opposed to a refundable credit, which allows you to have negative liability). Making the credit non-refundable may make it less expensive, but it also makes it useless. As Demos analyst Matt Bruenig explained:http://americablog.com/2015/12/hillary-clinton-no-tax-pledge-republican-policy-third-way-politics.html