Hillary: Time to Raise Middle-Class Taxes!

Deroy Murdoch:

Standing before an adoring crowd in Omaha on Monday, Hillary Rodham Clinton read from her teleprompter and shouted: “I’m telling you right now, we’re going to write fairer rules for the middle class, and we are going to raise taxes on the middle class.”

The Democratic presidential nominee did not correct that statement, nor had her campaign done so, at this writing. Clinton’s official website claims that she wants to offer “tax relief to working families,” although it says nothing about tax cuts for Americans who are single, childless, or both.

So, as of now, Clinton is on record as advocating tax hikes on America’s middle class.

There is never a good time to raise taxes on the middle class, but now is especially bad. America’s economy is growing at just 1 percent for the first half of 2016. President Obama’s recovery is the worst since 1949, according to theWall Street Journal. Today’s barely measurable expansion is the weakest in 67 years.

Real median household incomes have slipped under Obama, from $54,925 when he was inaugurated in January 2009 to $53,657 in 2014. The latest Census Bureau data confirm this 2.3 percent slide.

This situation is so dire that life expectancy has fallen among white women, from 81.2 years to 81.1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Starved for hope, some white females have surrendered to alcohol, drugs, and suicide.

Clinton has said she would not boost taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000. But when ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos asked her last December, “Is that a rock-solid promise?” Clinton balked. “Well,” she said, “it certainly is my goal.”

Indeed, Clinton has proposed or embraced several new middle-class taxes:

Clinton has favored a 25 percent national sales tax on guns since 1993.

Asked in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 11 if she would veto a payroll-tax hike on every American, Clinton replied: “No, no.”

Clinton told Philadelphia voters in April, “I’m very supportive of the mayor’s proposal to tax soda to get universal preschool for kids.”

“Frankly,” Senator Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.) responded, “I am very surprised that Secretary Clinton would support this regressive tax after pledging not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000.”

Clinton also is open to a tax on carbon dioxide, which would boost price tags across the economy and asphyxiate employment prospects for those looking for work and hoping to keep their jobs.

“Right now we’ve not proposed a carbon tax,” Clinton campaign chief John Podesta told journalists last week. “But if Congress wants to come forward with one, we’ll take a look at it.”

Meanwhile, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia wanted to take things even further. As governor, Kaine advocated a tax hike on those who aspired to the middle class. He sought to increase his state’s bottom tax rate from 5.75 percent to 6.75 percent. This would have socked families with annual incomes as low as $17,000.

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