TAXES

“Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.”

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Key policies:

Increase taxes on the rich
Decrease taxes on middle and lower class Americans
Shut down corporate loopholes and tax havens
Tax small businesses fairly

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Taxes on the Rich

Increase the tax on those earning above $250,000 with the same marginal tax rate system.
- Create a new tax bracket for those earning between $100,000 up to $200,000, and those earning more than 200,000.
  - The income tax for the $100,000-199,999 bracket would be set at 30%.
  - The income tax for the $200,000 and up bracket would be set at 40%.

Taxes on the Middle and Lower Classes

Decrease the tax of those earning less than $100,000.
- Continue with the same current tax brackets, but each will have a lower marginal tax rate applied to it.
  - Those earning less than the national average living wage (~$50,000), will be placed in several tax brackets, ranging from 10% to 20%.
  - The middle class, those who earn a living wage, will be taxed at a marginal rate of 25%.

Taxes on the Environment

A regressive tax will be implemented on the usage of fossil fuels.
- Creating a carbon tax could have huge implications in terms of the national debt. According to the Tax Policy Center, it could “raise gross revenue by about 0.7 percent of the entire GDP from 2016 to 2025.”
- Additionally, taxes on such things as fossil fuels would diminish the incentive to use them. Thereby, this would also help combat global warming.
- The lowering of fossil fuel usage would also increase the independence of the US, because they would not be dependent on foreign oil and gas as much as now.

Taxes on Corporations

Shut down corporate loopholes and tax havens.
- Removing the rules that allow businesses to avoid paying taxes will increase the amount of money that is taxed from companies. This money can then be reinvested into the economy through programs.
- Implement a high tax on goods that are imported into the United States, so that the incentive for corporations to move to foreign countries will be removed. This would mean more and better jobs for Americans.

Small Business

Local companies will be taxed more fairly.
- Under current laws, small businesses in the US (those with one to five employees) pay on average more than 20 times the rate that big companies are paying.
- With new regulations, small business will receive lower tax rates, so that they can hire and grow.

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Tax Update

“Neither the individual nor the race is improved by alms-giving… He is the only true reformer who is as careful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in alms-giving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than be relieving virtue.”

--Andrew Carnegie

The Herscowitz campaign strongly disagrees with Carnegie’s stance on welfare. Welfare is a necessary step to propel the unemployed to employment, and in doing do, eliminates poverty.

In fact, a 2014 Pew Charitable Trusts study reports that without social security, the poverty rate for Americans 65 and older would be 52.67% instead of the current 14.6%. Not only that, but without food stamps, unemployment benefits, and earned income tax credits, the poverty level would be significantly higher, the same study reports. Perhaps more significant, a 2016 CBS article reports that by providing low-income Americans with a baseline amount of wealth, social welfare benefits the economy.

Kasperkevic, Jana. “Welfare programs shown to reduce poverty in America.” The Guardian,

Guardian News and Media, 12 Nov. 2014,

www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/nov/12/social-welfare-programs-food-s

tamps-reduce-poverty-america.

Thoma, Mark. “Commentary: How social welfare benefits help the economy.” CBS News, CBS

Interactive, 2 Nov. 2016,

www.cbsnews.com/news/how-social-welfare-benefits-help-the-economy/.

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