A Clinton Presidency Would be Unprecedented.
No not just because she is a woman.
Not just because she is a woman and her unfavorables are 12 points above her favorables (according to the Huffington Post smoother)
1) She is attempting to be elected as a non-incumbent Democrat.
2) The top marginal income tax rate is less than 69%.
3) The 16th amendment has been ratified so the income tax is constitutional
and finally
4) she is not proposing to both increase taxes on high incomes and cut taxes paid by the middle class.
Here is a figure stolen from Kevin Drum
It’s hard to see compared to the huge tax cuts for the top 1% proposed by Republicans and the huge tax increases proposed both for top 1% and for mid incomes by Sanders, but Clinton is proposing a tiny increase in taxes on mid incomes.
This has not worked for a non incumbent Democratic candidate since the Reagan tax cuts. The two successful candidates, her husband and her 2008 rival, both promised to increase taxes on high income *and* cut taxes on the middle class. Obama also delivered.
Bill Clinton was convinced to be serious and responsible, so he proposed increased taxes on high incomes, reduced taxes for the working poor (via the 1993 increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit which had nothing to do with the 1996 welfare reform bill) and a tiny 4.7 cent a gallon increase in the tax on gasoline. For this I blame Robert Rubin, and I don’t even care if Matt Taibbi agrees. Clinton promised (accurately) that 85% of the increased taxes would be paid by the top 1%. He could have managed 95% or 105% but that wouldn’t have been serious. People were quite irritated (of course they were also scared by the attempted health care reform). Then the Republicans gained control of Congress.
Now in 2016, when the GOP is in the act of nominating Donald Trump, Democrats refuse to sink to the demagoguery of offering tax cuts to the middle class while raising taxes on high incomes. It’s not as if the current Clinton approach hasn’t been tried. It was tried in 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004. What do all of those elections have in common ?
I hasten to add that am not predicting that Clinton will lose the election.
Good point and Clinton apparently grasps it: the Clinton campaign told the Tax Policy Center that she will propose a package of additional tax cuts targeted at low- and middle-income families later in the campaign (top of page 5 here: http://taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/2000638-an-analysis-of-hillary-clintons-tax-proposals.pdf ).
That Drum graph is far from complete in showing the impacts of the various plans on top 1% vs middle-class. You would need a metric something like “disposable income , after out-of-pocket health care and education expenses” to give a realistic picture , and that would show a massive redistribution from top to middle with Bernie’s plan relative to the others , as would be consistent with his ( appropriately ) oligarch-bashing rhetoric.
Despite HRC’s wins Bernie has a 20% rise in new donators since super Tuesday.
Since HRC’s attack on Trump; see new Trump add on Hillary and not even started on all of the negatives in her pass. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE4h6tOgVgc)
I am sure your last sentence last paragraph is rhetorical; but it is worth stating; “Repubs win and the Dems lose the White House” at least, (didn’t look at the either).
Read somewhere then President Clinton made a pact with the devil during his presidency and agreed to not allow the economy to go awry with growth, hence the tax increases. The devil responded with keeping interest rates low for the long term or at least until we saw the increase in 2000 and then the race to the bottom in one year in 2001. The devil being Greenspan (kind of superficially explained).
Too lose in this election, Clinton would have to do something extremely dumb which would have to horrify the Dem base and other voters. I do not see such happening. It would be hard to pass; but, more stimulus to the economy would have a bigger impact to it. There are many places to apply it also.
I do not see the value of these “unfavorables” until they are put in the context of a two person race.
People, when looking at the entire field, will rate the candidates in these areas by comparing them to the entire field. When it becomes a two person race these will all change.
It looks to me that Clinton has a good tax policy that would greatly benefit the middle class working people of this country. The only problem is that tax policy is not the only criteria to become our next leader. Trust and personal integrity also matters to some. Remember that Trump did not break the republican party. It was broken long before he ran for president. We need a leader who will uphold democracy, fairness and the rule of law for all, not just for the wealthy and well connected…All Trump needs to do is learn when to keep his mouth shut…