Saying it would boost working families and lift children out of poverty, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark on Monday proposed eliminating federal income taxes for families of four earning up to $50,000 a year.
Families that have children and earn up to $100,000 a year also would receive a tax cut, while people who earn more than $1million annually would face a substantial tax increase.
“My tax-reform proposal is simple,” Clark told a gathering of the New England Community Action Association in Nashua. “Those who make the most should pay more. Those who make the least should pay less.”
Clark charged that President Bush has signed three tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the richest Americans while the typical working family has seen its income fall by nearly $1,500.
“When you work so hard, in the wealthiest country in the world, you shouldn’t be struggling so hard to get by,” Clark said.
Officials at the Republican National Committee said the president’s tax cuts reduced the percentage of federal income taxes paid by families earning $50,000 or less, from 5.6 percent to 2.9 percent.
Also, under current tax law, a family of four earning up to $39,000 a year does not pay federal income taxes, Clark aides acknowledged.
The campaign said the tax-reform plan would benefit 31 million families without adding to the federal deficit. Besides levying a steeper tax on the wealthiest 0.1 percent of taxpayers, Clark said he would close corporate loopholes that siphon revenue from the treasury.
Clark already proposed repealing Bush’s tax cuts for families earning more than $200,000 by moving the top tax rate from 35 percent back to 39.6 percent. For those who earn more than $1 million annually, he would increase the top tax rate to 44.6 percent.
Current federal programs to help families and the working poor, such as the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and the dependent exemption, would be consolidated to provide a $2,250 tax credit per child.
The Clark plan is geared primarily toward families and would do little to help single people without children.
“The bottom line is our tax system is broken,” Clark said. “The Republicans are always talking about family values, but it’s about time in America that we stopped talking family values and we started valuing families.”
Clark’s plan would allow taxpayers to forget about filing complicated income tax returns. Rather, they would be required only to fill out a three-line form providing their income, number of children and marital status.
Another Democratic contender, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, has called for the repeal of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, while Howard Dean has proposed rescinding all of the tax cuts passed under the Bush administration.
Dean “wants to raise taxes on middle-class Americans,” Kerry said. “A whole bunch of voters don’t know that.”
Campaigning Monday in Des Moines, Kerry disputed the notion that the economy is improving for most workers. He said wages are not growing much, even as corporations make larger profits.
“They may be celebrating this so-called recovery in the White House and on Wall Street, but it’s not being celebrated in places all over Iowa and across America,” he said.
Kerry also promised to “scour the tax code and close every loophole” for “Benedict Arnold companies and CEOs” who take jobs abroad.
