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Tuesday, July 17, 2018

What Difference Would It Make? Part One

Today, I'm starting a series of posts discussing the main issues for November's elections.  Obviously, these are not national races, so local issues matter in both congressional and senatorial contests.  There remain over-arching issues that should swing the vote nevertheless.

The first issue in the series is taxation.  There's a marked difference between the Democrats and the Republicans on this matter.  In short, the Republicans gave us a major tax cut in late 2017.  They want to keep that cut in place.  The Democrats, however, are on record committing to raise taxes on both businesses and individuals.  They seek a major jump in corporate taxes and a restoration of most of the taxes cut on individuals.  With the economy booming as a result of the tax cuts, it seems strange that the Democrats want to choke off that growth by pushing taxes back up, but they do.

The last time there was this clear of a difference between the parties on taxes in an election was in 1984.  Ronald Reagan ran for re-election seeking further tax cuts (which he later got).  Walter Mondale ran for the Democrats promising that he would raise taxes.  Reagan won 49 out of 50 states.

 

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