Howard Dean on Taxes and the Economy

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_policy_economy_reclaimingtheamericandream
Governor Dean’s first domestic priority as President will be to put America back to work. In the short term, the Dean economic program will aim to break the jobless nature of the current recovery. For the long term, Governor Dean’s strategy will lay the foundation for sustained economic growth.

Governor Dean has a plan for America

His vision is an economy in which all Americans have and hold good jobs — an economy in which America’s working middle class families do not have to struggle to make ends meet to provide health care, child care and education for their families or to put aside savings for their retirement. Governor Dean seeks an economy in which American companies compete successfully in all world markets, and where the United States leads the world in high-wage and high-return industries from biotechnology to renewable energy. His vision is an economy based on fairness, in which workers reap the rewards of their labor, corporations pay their fair share of taxes and follow the rules, and the government’s economic policies meet the needs of its citizens rather than special interests.

The Dean Economic Plan has four clear objectives:

Bring back high-paying jobs
Be a responsible steward of our nation’s finances
Relieve the crushing burdens on American families
Restore fairness as a guiding principle of American life.
The Governor has the leadership, experience, and determination to turn his vision into reality.

I. More Jobs and Better Jobs

The Bush program to create jobs has been ineffective. Governor Dean has a better plan to create jobs for Americans. It contains elements that will provide short-term stimulus if needed, as well as programs and policies to build a foundation for long-term growth.

The Fund to Restore America

Governor Dean will begin his work to improve the economy by proposing a two- year, $100 billion Fund to Restore America, designed to add more than one million new jobs to the economy. The Fund will benefit the economy in both the short and long term.

The Fund will be distributed to states and localities to assist communities that have been worst hit by the economic downturn. Some of the money will be used to improve homeland security by hiring and training first responders, public health personnel and security providers for critical installations and ports, and for purchasing new and improved equipment. Other funds will be awarded to states and cities to build new or to renovate and repair their failing infrastructure, including schools, roads, rail, water, wastewater, electrical and telecommunications systems.

The Fund will place a special emphasis on helping disadvantaged and minority communities, which have been hard hit by the downturn and have recovered the least. At the beginning of the Bush administration, the unemployment rate among African- Americans was 8.2 per cent. In September of this year, the rate had climbed to 11.2 per cent. One out of three young African-Americans in the work force is unemployed. Four hundred thousand more African-Americans of all ages are without jobs than the day President Bush took office. The Latino community is also carrying more than its share of the economic failures of this administration, with an unemployment rate of 7.5 per cent — nearly 30 per cent higher than January 20, 2001.

More Help for States and Communities

The downturn in the economy plus the jobless recovery has placed an enormous burden on the budgets and resources of states and cities. As a result, services have been curtailed, workers have been laid off and state and local taxes have soared. The plight of the states creates a continuing, major drag on the national economy. Economists generally agree that rapid action to relieve the fiscal burdens on the states would be one of the most effective ways to stimulate the economy and create new jobs. Governor Dean’s economic plan will offer both immediate help and a long-term commitment to helping the states in two specific areas: education and homeland security.

Aid to Special Education

The federal government has promised to pay 40% of the cost of special education, but presently pays less than 17 percent. As President, Governor Dean will work to fully fund special education. By taking some of the pressure off state and local budgets, this move will create jobs through rehiring of teachers and other essential employees, and free up resources to meet other critical needs and reduce taxes.

Homeland Security

The Bush administration has left the US without the resources to adequately protect our nation against possible terrorist strikes and unprepared to deal with the aftermath of such attacks. The critical requirements of our first line of defense — police, firefighters, hospital personnel and other first responders — have become unfunded mandates imposed on state and local governments. States and localities are struggling with the problems of insufficient people, inadequate training and nonexistent or obsolete equipment. Governor Dean’s $100 billion proposed Fund to Restore America will help meet many of these homeland security needs, but the Governor will also make a long- term commitment to increase funding by at least $5 billion a year over currently proposed Bush administration levels.

More Capital for Small Businesses

Small businesses create more jobs each year than large corporations. But entrepreneurs and small business people are too often handcuffed by a lack of growth and working capital. So good ideas languish and businesses fail to realize their potential. Small businesses are especially important to minority communities. They offer not only jobs, but also the opportunity to build wealth through ownership. Governor Dean will revitalize the lending and investment programs of the Small Business Corporation. He will establish a Small Business Capital Corporation within the Small Business Administration. The mission of the corporation will be to expand the modest secondary market that currently exists for SBA- guaranteed loans. Based on the model of mortgage financing that has increased American home ownership levels to the highest in the world, the SBCC will bring additional capital resources to small businesses.

Targeted Economic Development

The Governor believes we need a community and regional growth strategy for the 21st century, rather than the out-of-date concepts that dominate current thinking.

Federal spending for economic development totals more than $30 billion a year and is delivered through a bewildering array of programs, departments and agencies, each with its own requirements, mandates, matching requirements and timetables. Some are focused on business, some on transportation, others on workers, or pollution control. Putting together effective strategies for economic development at the state and regional level involves months and years of frustration and delay.

America’s national economy is actually made up of several regional economies, and the economic strength of each region varies from time to time. Yet our economic development efforts are built on national platforms, as if the entire economy moved in unison. There is little or no coordination at the national or regional level.

In a time of scarce federal dollars and a crying need for more and better jobs, an effective economic development delivery system is more than a need — it is a necessity. Governor Dean would improve the system dramatically by reinvigorating the National Economic Council and creating a White House Office of Economic Growth that would work with governors and mayors to create vital regional growth strategies, and break through bureaucratic logjams to deliver results.

A More Effective Trade Policy

Governor Dean believes that international trade is essential to the continued growth and health of the American economy and to the creation and strengthening of the middle class throughout the developing world. Promoting middle class societies is not only the right thing to do; it's also in our own self-interest. Our efforts will create consumers for our goods and improve our national security because nations with middle classes are generally more stable, more democratic, and less likely to foster terrorism. So the question is not whether one is for or against trade: The question is under what rules should trade be conducted, for whose benefit should the rules be drawn, and how should they be enforced.

The Bush Administration’s trade policy is not working. The Governor has seen the impact of job losses that result from this misguided policy plus the sluggish U.S. and international economies. Trade agreements must be fair. Specifically, they must include strict and enforceable labor standards based on the five core standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO):

freedom of association,
the right to collective bargaining,
abolition of forced or compulsory labor,
abolition of child labor, and
freedom from discrimination.
Our trade agreements should also incorporate environmental standards. To persuade other countries to adopt higher environmental standards, the U.S. will have to restore its role as a global leader by becoming once again an active member of the international environmental community.

Strong and enforceable standards need to be integral elements of trade agreements themselves, not side agreements. To help America’s trading partners incorporate labor and environmental standards into their domestic body of laws, the Governor will call on the World Bank, the regional development banks, the International Labor Organization, other multilateral organizations and our own government to provide developing nations with meaningful technical assistance when needed. We should be acting to protect middle class jobs in the United States and labor and environmental standards abroad with the same enthusiasm that we apply to protecting intellectual property rights, capital, and the interests of investors.

The promise of NAFTA — that it would trigger an economic boom in Mexico, create a huge middle class market for US goods, expand the US trade surplus with Mexico, generate net new jobs at home, and drastically reduce undocumented migration — that promise has not been kept.

Since the inception of NAFTA, Mexico’s growth rate has been less than 3 percent — for the last two and a half years has been less than 1 percent. The US has lost well paying jobs as businesses have moved production to Mexico, in search of cheap labor. The promised Mexican middle class of consumers to purchase US goods has not appeared and migration to the United States continues relentlessly. But NAFTA is here to stay — our economies have become too integrated. So Governor Dean will negotiate a “New Deal” with Mexico — a real plan that will generate Mexican economic growth and save American jobs.

As President, he will work to persuade WTO members that that body should take the lead in implementing and enforcing labor and environmental standards. The WTO members have accepted a number of US proposals that they didn’t want, such as corporate intellectual property rights. If the US makes labor and environmental standards as important a priority as it has made corporate rights, the Governor believes our nation can get the concessions we seek — history shows we can make it happen.

An Eye on the Future: Investments in 21st Century Growth

For over a hundred years, a critical part of the United States economy has been manufacturing — building the goods the world wants to buy. The Dean economic agenda will emphasize creating a level worldwide playing field in which American manufacturers can compete with success.

But the Governor’s plan also emphasizes investing in the industries of tomorrow, so that the US will remain a leader in such important sectors as biotech, renewable energy and other technology and information based enterprises.

Over the coming decades, a global communications platform for voice, data and video will emerge that will generate large incremental productivity advances in business while also spawning an incalculable number of new enterprises and lines of business within existing companies. A technology sector that will have great impact on the pace and scale of this change will involve enterprises that are experimenting with and developing optical, molecular and atomic scale platforms that will replace the silicon based chips and storage devices in use today.

Federal investments in research and development can play a leadership role in these areas, and the federal government can serve as a convener, bringing together industry, academia and state and local governments to foster development in areas of opportunity. The Governor is also particularly concerned that broadband is made available to rural America, so that jobs dependent on the rapid transmission of large amounts of data can be created anywhere in the US.

The political and economic toll of our continuing dependence on imported carbon based fuels is not sustainable The Dean administration will expand energy research, which is now funded at half the rate it was 8 years ago, while reassessing other areas to assure that the ongoing work contributes to the nation’s economic strength.

II. Responsible Stewardship of America’s Finances

The Dean plan to revitalize the American economy rests on a foundation of fiscal responsibility. In contrast to the Bush administration’s reckless and irresponsible deficits that burden future generations with debt, Governor Dean has a record of wise financial stewardship, balancing budgets, and making tough decisions. As President, he will build on his record as governor — 11 consecutive balanced state budgets — by immediately setting the nation on a course to balance the federal budget.

A majority of Americans are receiving an average tax cut of $307 this year, but getting $5000 per household in their share of the federal debt ($500 billion in new debt this year, on the back of American's 100 million households). The debt is hidden on the federal books and doesn’t have their specific names attached, but it no less real for that. The deficits this President is adding to the national debt will come back to haunt our nation in only a few years, when Americans are faced with paying for — or losing — Medicare, or social security, or a prescription drug plan, or quality schools for their children.

Balancing the Budget

The Dean economic plan will put the US on the path to a balanced budget once again. Make no mistake — the reckless economic policies of the Bush administration, coupled with the cost of the war in Iraq, make this an enormous challenge. Only tough decisions and a firm commitment to long- term fiscal discipline will put our fiscal house in order. The projected 2004 deficit is over $500 billion. Governor Dean will pledge to the American people that a Dean administration in Washington will do what the Dean administration did in Vermont: we will balance the budget. Only if we start to balance the budget now can we restore the long-term balance that is necessary to meet long-term fiscal commitments to protect Medicare and Social Security, and relieve future generations of the stifling burden of debt.

Repeal the Bush Tax Cuts and Reform the Tax Code

Financed by federal deficits and by shifting the burdens to states and localities, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts benefited the wealthiest Americans while doing little or nothing for the middle class. In fact, the Bush tax policies furthered the administration’s goal of shifting the federal tax burden from income derived from invested wealth to the shoulders of working Americans. For many Americans, increases in state and local taxes, cuts in services, and falling incomes outweighed any modest decrease in their federal tax rate. The tax cuts are part of the long- term Republican agenda to starve the federal government of the resources it needs to meet our commitments to public education, Social Security and Medicare.

The first step in reversing this agenda, balancing the budget and putting the US fiscal house in order must be the repeal of the Bush tax cuts, and returning the tax code to rates that were in effect during the prosperous years of the Clinton-Gore administration.

The distribution of the income tax burden has changed dramatically. In 1973, corporations paid 40% of federal income tax revenues. Last year, the corporate contribution was down to 16.8%. Experts estimate that corporate tax avoidance schemes are costing the US taxpayers up to $100 billion a year. Senator John McCain claims that even a modest effort to eliminate unnecessary special interest tax preferences and loopholes would raise nearly $50 billion a year in increased federal revenues.

The current tax code is overloaded with special interest favoritism and stacked against working Americans. Unfair tax subsidies, shelters and loopholes abound. Corporations use foreign tax havens solely to avoid paying US income taxes. Tax cheats escape detection and prosecution. Abusive tax shelters are commonplace.

Governor Dean will make fundamental reform of the tax system one of his first priorities. He will crack down on tax shelter promoters and their clients He will pursue actions to impose hefty fines and bar further practice before government agencies by lawyers and accountants who certify abusive tax shelters. President Bush’s own tax commissioner testified that the IRS lacked sufficient resources to collect $30 billion in known unpaid taxes. The Governor will provide the Internal Revenue Service with the budget it needs to do its job.

The Dean economic program will strive for greater tax fairness for middle class working families. Closing corporate tax loopholes will help shift some of the burden off the shoulders of individuals. Ending unfair tax preferences will raise additional revenue to reduce the deficit and help set the federal budget on the road to balance.

Pay as You Go

From 1994 to 2001, the rule known as “Pay as you go” was in effect in the U.S. Senate. The rule required that there must be a 60% “super majority” of Senators to approve legislation that would increase the federal deficit over a 10-year period. In other words, new programs or increased funding had to be paid for with revenues or savings, not more borrowing. The rule was an important tool in the successful Clinton-Gore efforts to balance the budget, but an effort to extend the rule was opposed by the Bush administration and lost by one vote. As President, Governor Dean will strongly support reinstituting the Pay as You Go Rule. It is a guiding principle of his fiscal philosophy that the government must learn to live within its means.

National Performance Review

Another important element of fiscal responsibility is vigilant oversight of the efficiency and necessity of federal programs. In the period of 1995 to 1999, the National Performance Review came up with $108 billion in documented savings. The Review was ended by the Bush administration. As President, Governor Dean will immediately reinstitute the program to reduce waste and duplication in the federal government.

III. Support the Success of America’s Families

The typical American family is working longer hours, earning lower wages, carrying more debt and facing greater stress than at any time in recent history. The American dream is in jeopardy, and Americans know it. Whether it’s finding and keeping a good job, caring for young children or educating older ones, helping elderly parents or paying for health care, the typical family is stretched to the limit.

Governor Dean has been traveling across the US, talking with thousands of Americans. He’s heard their stories, and he knows that they want change. He also knows that an economic plan is not an abstraction. It ultimately affects the lives of millions — it has to be a plan that helps real people deal with real problems. That’s why the Governor’s program is not only focused on creating more and better jobs, but also on supporting American families and helping them make ends meet.

Universal Health Care

Recent data show that the number of Americans without health care insurance has increased again—to over 43 million. Governor Dean believes it is time for the United States to join most of the nations of the developed world and guarantee its citizens health care insurance that cannot be taken away. His proposal builds on his successful program in Vermont, where 96% of all children are covered by health care insurance and disabled persons and lower income seniors are able to get their prescriptions filled at low cost.

The Dean health care program will begin by extending the current Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance programs. Every child and young adult up to the age of 25 with a family or individual income up to 300% of the poverty level will be covered. Adults with incomes up to 185% of the poverty level will also be covered, while workers with higher incomes will get tax credits to cushion premium costs.

The program is also aimed to cover more small business owners and employees. Small businesses will be able to buy health care coverage at lower cost through large insurance pools modeled on the federal employee program. Total savings for small businesses with less than 50 employees will be $12.5 billion a year, and the annual savings per employee will be nearly $700.

As for large corporations, the Governor believes that providing health insurance is one of the fundamental obligations of being an employer. His program would deny the benefits of certain business tax deductions to companies that did not provide health coverage to their employees.

Child Care

Working parents face a continuing struggle to find and pay for quality care and pre- school programs for their children. Working families with more than 15 million children in them need help in obtaining affordable child care, but only one out of seven children receive assistance. As President, the Governor will make a major investment in pre-school programs. The Dean program will give states greater resources to use in providing help with child care to working families. States will have the flexibility to choose to expand Head Start, universal pre-kindergarten access for 4- year olds, or quality child care for pre- schoolers, depending on their particular needs

Universal Higher Education

A well-educated people will build a prosperous nation. All Americans should have the right to a post secondary education to meet the demands of today’s sophisticated, fast- paced and competitive economy. As President, Governor Dean will propose an ambitious new program to make access to higher education possible for all of America’s families and children.

Under his program, which will be announced later this fall, students and their families will be eligible for a new program of financial assistance, with special incentives for public service, particularly through a dramatic expansion of Americorps.

Retirement Security

Governor Dean will protect the integrity and solvency of Social Security. The impending retirement of the Baby Boom generation will put great stress on the system, but the Governor believes that the repeal of the Bush tax cuts and a return to sound economic policies will help resolve many of the challenges, and that a strong and growing economy is the best solution to keeping Social Security intact. He will continue to adamantly oppose any attempt to privatize Social Security, and he opposes raising the retirement age.

The Governor will also work to strengthen the private pension system. Pensions should be easily portable, and retirement savings should be invested prudently. To this end, Governor Dean will support putting those who advise and invest pension savings for others under strong fiduciary standards.

Care for Seniors

The Medicare Board of Trustees estimates that Medicare has sufficient funding to pay full benefits until 2026. Governor Dean will work to ensure that Medicare continues to play its important role for seniors for generations to come. He will oppose any effort to turn the whole program over to managed care or to provide vouchers to seniors — both of which are efforts that would dismantle it in the name of modernization and reform.

As a doctor, Governor Dean has seen the dramatic changes in the practice of medicine over the past 30 years. Now, more and more medical care can be provided by prescription drugs rather than through inpatient hospital procedures, yet Medicare still lacks a basic prescription drug benefit for all seniors. As President, Governor Dean will support a prescription drug benefit that allows choice, provides for a level playing field between Medicare and the private sector, and includes assistance to low-income beneficiaries.

Finally, Governor Dean understands the challenge of long-term care. Millions of American families are struggling to care for an aging parent who needs help with the most basic, daily activities. The aging of the baby boom generation means tens of millions more families will soon join their ranks. Governor Dean wants to give these families a better deal and new long term care options: a greater emphasis on non-institutional care, which means more and better care at home or in the community, with support to family caregivers. He will work toward more reliable and less expensive private, long term care policies and make more information available for consumers of nursing home care, so they can choose a safe environment for their loved ones.

Tax Simplification

For most Americans, the days leading up to April 15th are filled with joyless paperwork, calculating their annual income taxes. The Governor will work to simplify the tax system, by reducing its complexity and eliminating many of the duplicative reporting requirements that burden small businesses. He will move the US tax system into the 21st century by creating a formless tax filing system.

IV. Restore Fairness to the Governing of America

The United States was founded on the principle of equality among its citizens, without regard to economic status, social standing or political influence. But over the past 30 months of the Bush administration, the nation has seen an alarming move away from this fundamental belief, as evidenced by biased tax cuts, corporate scandals and greed, dishonest accounting practices, anti-union campaigns and the award of favors to political contributors and cronies.

Governor Dean is waging his campaign for the Presidency with the participation of hundreds of thousands of Americans, not just the privileged few. His vision for our nation is change — not more of the same. The Governor will make fairness the guiding principle of his Presidency — a better deal for all Americans, not merely those who have bought their access to the corridors of power.

Securing the Rights of Labor

Strong unions help reduce the growing disparity between rich and poor in the United States, and have been important contributors to the rise of the middle class in our nation. The principle of fairness means strengthening collective bargaining rights and ensuring the safety of American workers. As President, Governor Dean will support an immediate increase in the minimum wage to $6.65 an hour, and protecting overtime pay. He will work to expanding unemployment insurance coverage to those engaged in part-time employment and those who have become unemployed as a result of sexual harassment, loss of childcare, or domestic violence. He will strengthen the enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act, and reinforce the importance of worker safety, including the restoration of ergonomics standards.

Corporate Accountability

Ineffective corporate laws and unethical corporate practices have corrupted the flow of accurate financial information that our markets depend on to run efficiently and effectively, impairing investor confidence and depressing market values. Inadequate corporate governance has resulted in scandalous compensation schemes for top executives and plain outright fraud.

As President, Governor Dean will take steps to improve the effectiveness of corporate governance through legislation and Securities and Exchange Commission regulation. He will move to assure the independence of boards of directors, and improve their accountability to shareholders.

As part of his commitment to fairness, the Governor strongly supports equal pay for equal work and women’s rights in the work place. One of the first things President Bush did was to disband the Equal Pay Initiative program of the Clinton-Gore administration. Governor Dean will restore the program and aggressively pursue companies that practice sex discrimination in their pay policies.

Stopping the Loss of Jobs

Governor Dean is acutely aware of the pain being felt by many hard-working Americans who have lost their jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector, sometimes as a result of trade and sometimes as a result of the recent economic downturn. He believes it’s time to stop talking and take action to help the workers and the families who are feeling the impact the hardest.

Addressing the loss of jobs in our nation requires a broad and comprehensive strategy.

Contrast the Dean approach with the Bush administration. To address the loss of jobs in this country and build a strong economy for the future, Governor Dean would initiate effective job creation programs, and install fiscal discipline. He will create strategies to encourage the development of new industries in areas hardest hit by manufacturing job losses, and provide education, training and health care portability for displaced workers to help them prepare for these new jobs.

The Bush Administration’s efforts on this front have been utterly inadequate. Their vision for America has a near-sighted focus on helping those who are helping themselves. Governor Dean has a different vision — an American economy that supports our communities, allows our people to attain their dreams, and is a moral example to the world.




http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_policy_economy_reclaimingtheamericandream


Howard Dean on Budget & Economy

Politicians promising everything causes budget deficit. (Sep 25)
Balance budget, even if unpopular. (Sep 25)
Republicans haven't balanced a federal budget in 34 years. (May 17)
Stand up to Bush for a balanced budget. (May 3)
Social justice with fiscal responsibility. (Nov 2002)
Fiscally to the right of "borrow-and-spend" Bush. (Nov 2002)
Regional transportation network to foster trade & economy. (Jul 2000)
Bankruptcy reform: limit Chapter 7; protect states' role. (Feb 2001)
Uphold commitments to states before other spending. (Sep 2001)

http://www.issues2002.org/Howard_Dean.htm

Howard Dean on Free Trade

I support NAFTA & WTO-but they need revision. (Sep 25)
Support NAFTA & WTO with level labor standards. (Sep 25)
Free trade based on labor and environmental standards. (Sep 4)
Trade tariffs to enforce labor & enviro standards. (Mar 26)
Free trade is in our long-term national security interest. (Mar 26)
WTO should care about human rights. (Feb 26)
Free trade must equal fair trade. (Nov 2002)
China
Use trade as basis for constructive engagement. (Mar 26)
Use trade to enforce morality on China. (Mar 26)
Develop an open North American energy market. (Jul 2000)
Foster globalization with New England & Eastern Canada. (Aug 2001)
More business cooperation between New England & East Canada. (Jun 1998)

Howard Dean on Jobs

Trade helps some but has hammered the Midwest. (Sep 25)
Reduce minority unemployment by investing in small business. (Sep 9)
We're exporting jobs if we trade with no labor standards. (Sep 4)
Invest in small businesses & renewable energy. (Sep 4)
Supports living wage via subsidies for kids & housing. (May 17)
Trade should strengthen labor unions in foreign nations. (Mar 27)

More at http://www.issues2002.org/Howard_Dean.htm

I've read this in the past, but a refresher is always good.

The guy has people write stuff for him to read. During the "candidates forums," if the issue is not about health insurance in Vermont, he can barely put two sentences together without fumbling. That indicates to me Dean has, at best, a rudimentary grasp of the issues.

like you did:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=920589#920636

...or would you prefer some comprehensive comments?

PM me when you get beyond monosyllabic responses and cut-and-paste abilities. :)

For a more specific plan and no tax raising on the middle class:
http://clark04.com/issues/

I want to be realistic here. Seeing the world through rose-colored glasses won't get us anywhere.

All our candidates are going to have to raise taxes on the middle class to fund these things they want to do. The rich are a handful of people and they have any number of ways to shelter and defer income so as to pay minimum taxes. The middle class are the people who turn in W-2's on April 15th, not the rich. Any candidate that says they can do all these things and not raise taxes on the middle class is misrepresenting the truth.

The question becomes how to convince the average citizen that by them paying higher taxes they will actually get more in return. OK?!? Tough job to do. Joe and Jane Average feel like they'd rather keep what they made and do with it how they see fit. And can you blame them? On the surface it makes perfect sense. And given some of the pork projects our government has funded over the years, it's hard to convince people otherwise.

Bush is going to run on "I'm going to continue to cut your taxes" while our candidate will run on "I'm going to increase the taxes on the rich." Now, what is more appealing to the average person? I suppose in November 2004 we'll find out.

marginal rate adjustments and the disparity between gains/dividend taxation versus income/work tax. Hey, maybe we could start calling the income tax the work tax, like Republicans renamed the inheritance tax the death tax.