Opinion

WILFORD: A Look At Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s Tax Policies

Andrew Wilford Contributor
Font Size:

The Klobucharge is real. No, that’s not a nonsense word connoting what Dr. Seuss would use as a form of electricity, but the the momentum that Sen. Amy Klobuchar has following strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire’s Democratic nominating contests. And with her newfound relevance should come newfound scrutiny: Sen. Klobuchar’s tax policy deserves a real look.

Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have vied for the far-left vote, leading to former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg looking “moderate” only by comparison. While they may not be as radical as their populist opponents, the reality is that both Biden and Buttigieg have very liberal policy proposals.

Buttigieg has supported returning the corporate tax rate back to 35 percent, free college for students coming from families earning less than $100,000 per year, and has supported single-payer healthcare in the past (he now supports a watered-down version). Biden, meanwhile, supports raising taxes between $2.3-2.6 trillion and shelling out $1.7 trillion in clean energy boondoggles.

This has led to Klobuchar styling herself as the only true moderate left in the race. That may come as a surprise to those who have witnessed her relatively liberal Senate career, where her voting record earned her low marks from fiscal conservative organizations. Nonetheless, in relation to her primary counterparts, she has taken a much more incremental approach.

The corporate tax rate is a good example. Corporate taxes are a favorite bugaboo of Democratic candidates, who have collectively forgotten that President Obama called for a cut to the corporate tax rate when he was in office. After all, the American corporate tax rate, then at 35 percent, was well above the rest of the developed world, putting American workers and businesses at a competitive disadvantage.

Though the tax reform law cut the corporate tax rate down to 21 percent at the federal level, putting it roughly on par with the EU average, each major candidate in the Democratic field has proposed raising it. Sanders, Buttigieg and Warren have all proposed a 35 percent rate, while Biden and Bloomberg have proposed a 28 percent rate. Though she still proposes an increase, Klobuchar’s proposed 25 percent rate is the smallest tax hike in the field. (It would still be above 30 percent with state and local taxes added.)

Klobuchar has also taken more measured positions on education and healthcare. She supports free community college and expanded Pell Grants, as well as various smaller changes to student aid and tax credits for trade education and apprenticeships. These are fairly mainstream Congressional Democratic proposals, but they’re notable for how they leave out more impractical plans to forgive student debt or make four-year college free.

On healthcare, Klobuchar supports a public option, not single-payer healthcare. This position may anger leftists on Twitter, but it separates her from a Democratic field that is either flirting with or fully married to Medicare for All.

Her voting record in the Senate and her campaign platforms make clear that a Klobuchar administration would be a mainstream liberal one. Her real moderation, however, may be in style and tone. Each candidate in the race has felt the need to plant their flags on a “bold new idea” (that is often “bold” and “new” because others know it’s a bad one). Sanders and Warren are most guilty of this, but they’re not the only ones.

Buttigieg has expressed support for mark-to-market taxes and a 49.9 percent top individual tax rate. Biden supports various progressive gimmicks such as a financial transactions tax and a minimum book tax. Bloomberg has proposed a 5 percent surtax on income above $5 million.

No one would confuse Amy Klobuchar with a fiscal conservative, or even a “Blue Dog Democrat”-style budget hawk. That her lack of radical rhetoric and proposals allows her to claim the moderate lane in a primary simply illustrates just how far left the debate has moved in recent years.

Andrew Wilford is a policy analyst with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to tax policy research and education at all levels of government.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel