OPINION:
Joe Biden has made it clear: The first thing he would do if elected president is “repeal those Trump tax cuts.” Bernie is even worse: Repeal the tax reform legislation and impose a wealth tax. America would say goodbye for good to President Trump’s blue-collar boom.
In the new coronavirus economy, two things become clear. America must issue a firm, clear “No” to Democratic-socialist tax increases. And there needs to be a firm, clear “No” to crazy Democratic regulations phasing out oil, gas and even coal, which launched the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago, and the birth of the modern world.
Roughly 7 million new jobs have been created since Mr. Trump entered office. America now enjoys the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, at 3.5 percent, when America was enjoying President Kennedy’s tax-cut boom.
That has included the lowest unemployment rate in American history for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans. Wages and middle-class incomes have soared to their highest level in American history, averaging over $65,000 a year.
Mr. Trump’s decision to put American workers first has caused wages to rise among lower-income workers faster than among their bosses, cutting down on low wage competition from abroad. That is reducing inequality, which Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and the Democrats profess to care about.
All these facts are still true to this day, even with the steep stock market declines over the past couple of weeks, due to the scare of the coronavirus worldwide pandemic. That coronavirus scare is having such a negative effect on the stock market because it threatens world trade and the business necessary to transact it.
Bottom line: We are still enjoying the American Dream, with still-persisting economic growth, no significant unemployment, effectively zero inflation, historically zero interest rates, peace and prosperity, with even the troops coming home from Afghanistan.
Now Mr. Biden stumbles in and proposes to increase taxes by at least $3 trillion over a decade. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. What does Mr. Biden think he is going to make better with such huge tax increases on the private economy?
To the contrary, Mr. Biden and the Democrats would tip the economy back into the recession of the failed, slow-growth, Obama-Biden years, with such huge tax increases. Blue-collar workers across the Midwest rejected precisely that in 2016, when Hillary Clinton pledged to continue Mr. Obama’s failed economic policies. Like a moth to a flame, Mr. Biden can’t wait to stumble back into the extended recession America’s workers suffered through.
Mr. Biden also wants to reverse Mr. Trump’s deregulation, with his Green New Deal. What happened with the first New Deal in the 1930s? All-time record unemployment of 25 percent persisted for a decade, until millions of workers were sent overseas to fight in World War II. Mr. Biden’s Green New Deal would also include a carbon dioxide tax, effectively a super gas tax.
But Mr. Biden won’t stop there. His tax reform repeal would restore America’s corporate income taxes to the highest rates in the world. Who is that good for?
The same could be asked about Mr. Biden’s proposal to double the capital gains tax to 40 percent for “every single solitary person.” Experience has shown that when the capital gains tax is raised, the government gets less, rather than more revenue. Who wants to pay higher taxes for less revenue, actually increasing the deficit?
Mr. Biden would also increase the most hated tax in America, the double-taxing death tax. Just when death darkens your door, Mr. Biden would as well, taking the family farm, or shop or store. Mr. Biden would also restore the Obamacare individual mandate tax, penalizing you if you don’t like Mr. Obama’s health plan enough to keep it. That fell hardest on households making less than $50,000 a year, exactly who Mr. Obama pledged not to tax.
This is no time for such unprecedented, skyrocketing, tax increase experimentation. If Mr. Biden’s tax increases do tip America’s economy into recession, the result of the whole tax increase package combined would be less revenue rather than more, as revenue declines when the economy declines. America cannot afford such economic troubles now when the whole world is reeling from a deadly global pandemic.
Bidenomics would be like a stroll down memory lane through all the worst economic policies America has suffered. Mr. Biden can’t remember any of that, of course. But the voters will still be of sound mind, and retire Joe Biden, before he retires all of us.
• Lewis K. Uhler is founder and chairman of the National Tax Limitation Committee and Foundation. Peter J. Ferrara is a senior policy adviser for the foundation and teaches economics at Kings College in New York.
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