Back in January, I wrote about how CORY BOOKER had been quietly road-testing a BIG IDEA: no income tax on your first ~$70,000 of earnings.
This week, he officially rolled out the Keep Your Pay Act – there’s a calculator and everything – which would effectively increase the standard deduction to $75,000 per household or $37,500 per individual.
The bill also incorporates two proposals introduced by 45 Senate Dems last year, which would significantly expand the earned income tax credit and child tax credit. Booker says his plan would be paid for by a combination of raising taxes on the highest earners & big corporations, closing corporate loopholes, taxing stock buybacks more, etc., although they did not release a full cost estimate + details of the pay-fors.
And progressives’ favorite 2028 dark horse, Sen. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD), just rolled out a similar bill. It is more complex in design, but it would end income tax for people earning less than the median cost-of-living – pegged at $46k ($92k for joint filers) – and create an alternative maximum tax rate for people making $46k-$80.5k (or $92k-$161k for couples). Earners above that level would see no cut, making it far more affordable; it would be fully paid for by a new 5%-12% tiered surtax on millionaires.
Booker is actually a lead cosponsor on the Van Hollen bill, as is MARK KELLY. In fact, backers include everyone from Bernie Sanders to Chris Coons, plus about two dozen influential progressive groups.
But if you thought this would be a kumbaya moment — all factions of the Democratic Party unifying behind a new pitch to working people — well, you clearly haven’t met the Democratic Party!
As Semafor’s Dave Weigel wrote, the plans “sparked the first real debate about what Democrats should stand for when they next face voters, beyond saying ‘affordability’ … [Critics] argue that the party’s mission depends on doing good things with public funds — not pitching taxes as a pox that people need ‘relief’ from.”
HuffPost reported the proposals were “met with intense derision from the party’s policy experts, arguing the ideas…are poorly structured and will work against progressive goals in the long term.”
WSJ said they’re “stirring consternation inside the party, particularly among fiscal-policy experts who warn of a thinned-out tax base, diminished capacity to fund crucial programs and the dangers of trying to outdo Republican tax-cutters.”
You can click through for specific critiques by policy wonks from CAP, Searchlight Institute, the Biden admin, etc.
Unsurprisingly, I have a bunch of thoughts. Here are some of them…
First, this is a good fight for Dems to be having! Policy debates are healthy, and you need tension to break through. And of all the intraparty tensions to air out, please, keep fighting over the most efficacious ways to unrig the economy and help working families get ahead.
Suffice it to say, the loud internecine sparring on Lefty Policy Twitter is not representative of normal people, who famously cannot even afford to live, let alone find time to learn what a Chris Van Hollen is and post sick distributional burns… I’m not saying public opinion should unilaterally dictate public policy, but there would surely be supermajority support for these proposals.
On that point, I am genuinely befuddled why the Searchlight Institute – which preaches supermajority thinking and was founded to curb the influence of liberal groups whose litmus tests push Dems outside the mainstream – is treating working- and middle-class tax cuts like a categorical non-starter. I mean… this is literally from their website:
I think the following characteristics of the BOOKER proposal are politically important, and merit consideration (I recognize these may seem suboptimal for policy design, and I’m not arguing every policy must adhere to all of them):
Digestibility + Administrability. Voters need to understand in a tangible way what we’re promising them, and then we gotta deliver it swiftly. Get more earnings in working people’s bank accounts, and tell them about it. If a policy requires a 5-year on-ramp, or a PhD in economics to get why it’s good, or a white-shoe law firm to navigate the new regulatory regime, you’re doing it wrong.
Universality + Fairness. In this era of zero-sum politics, if we want to grow a big, enduring majority and enact big, enduring reforms, I think we should prioritize programs that give everyone (in the bottom 99%) who works hard and plays by the rules a better shot to succeed, as opposed to ones that can feel like narrowly-targeted giveaways to certain groups with no accountability. Americans don’t like handouts; they just want a level playing field and a backstop.
Relatedly, I think often about this rumination from Zohran Mamdani, who tells a story about a woman at a town hall asking if he’d honor NYC’s decade-old unfulfilled promise… to put a speed bump on her street. He emphasizes how hard it is to persuade people that a government that can’t deliver a speed bump is going to deliver universal child care. We need to rebuild basic trust with voters before they’re gonna choose massive new government programs over keeping a bit more of their hard-earned money.
That doesn’t have to be done via tax cuts – you could mandate that companies share profits with workers, for example.
These bills aren’t meant to set the totality of the Democratic agenda. Both Senators have, in fact, proposed other ambitious federal policies to address other problems. Van Hollen said he supports Bernie’s $4.4T wealth tax & views his own (budget-neutral) bill – which Bernie cosponsored – as complimentary. So unless Bernie is now a closet Republican who has abandoned socialism for Bush tax cuts or whatever, I feel like we’re gonna be ok.
Random aside: If Dems are revenuemaxxing, they should maybe low-key leave Trump’s insane tariffs in place, cuz those puppies were set to bring in like $3T. It’s a massive regressive tax / truly awful policy, but the new normal is already baked in, and companies are unlikely to slash prices when tariffs are lifted, so there’s probably no political impact… just saying!!
Quick Hits
At an over-capacity town hall with Rep. Pat Ryan in Glens Falls, NY on Sunday, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ flashed her increasingly pragmatic brand of progressivism – and offered a lifeboat to Dems who aren’t on board with single-payer health care, long villainized by the left: “I of course have been a very vocal advocate for Medicare For All… But also, I think that if our party can get to a place where everyone can buy into Medicare, I’m gonna take that, too.”
AOC also endorsed Junaid Ahmed in the competitive IL-08 primary.
GRETCHEN WHITMER’s willingness to work with Trump continues to be seen as proof she’s not running. But if she does, her commitment to working across the aisle to get shit done – with less bravado than her male contemporaries – may prove a good long game. In an interview with Semafor’s Ben Smith in DC this week, she gracefully shrugged off the left’s criticism with absolute clarity about what matters, noting that people who are worried about making ends meet don’t worry much about Beltway chatter. Other Ds should take notes.
PETE BUTTIGIEG attended Jesse Jackson’s funeral in Chicago last Friday; spoke at the Selma Bridge Crossing & Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast in Selma on Bloody Sunday; packed a town hall with Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin on Monday; held a news conference with Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Toledo + an event with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb on Thursday, and has an event Saturday with GA-14 special election candidate Shawn Harris.
Governors JB PRITZKER & WES MOORE also made the voyage from Chicago to Selma, where each spoke at Bloody Sunday events – and substacked about their experience.
ANDY BESHEAR is arguably pre-campaigning harder than anyone. After an event in Detroit last week, he spent the weekend in NH, packing in an event at Dartmouth, house parties in Keene, Concord, Dover, & Portsmouth, an AFL-CIO visit in Hooksett, and interviews with NH Today and WMUR. He’s set to headline annual Dem galas next month in MI & GA.
ELISSA SLOTKIN is headlining the Polk County Dems’ Spring Dinner in Des Moines on April 7, continuing her tour of middle America; she was in Boise last week, where she delivered a strong speech to 1000+ Idaho Dems.
RUBEN GALLEGO headlined a Montana Dems’ gala, intro’ed bipartisan bills on psychedelic therapies for vets & clawing back CEO pay when big banks fail, called on Trump to renegotiate USMCA, and is set to speak at a DNC finance retreat this weekend, alongside MARK KELLY & CHRIS VAN HOLLEN.
MARK KELLY proposed suspending the gas tax as the war spikes prices at the pump, reigniting the eternal debate over whether Ds should help spare voters from the pain of GOP policies. He also introduced a bill with Josh Hawley to better track AI job displacement.
GAVIN NEWSOM wraps up the first leg of his cross-country, creator-forward book tour in Miami tonight – but I gotta say, I’m most interested in whether he actually ends up doing Hasan Piker, which he soft-agreed to on stage in NH. Hasan is hilariously ready for it.
CHRIS MURPHY & CORY BOOKER are part of a group of Dems seeking to use every tool at their disposal to force public debate, hearings, and additional votes on Trump’s Iran war.
KAMALA HARRIS got the JMart treatment, and Martin’s column was understatedly brutal, painting a picture of a party looking past its former VP & nominee as she weighs a 2028 bid.
WES MOORE will deliver commencement addresses at his alma mater in PA & Johnson C. Smith University, an HBCU in NC.
Highlights from the Big, Beautiful Tracker
WES MOORE on Le Batard & Friends - South Beach Sessions
GRETCHEN WHITMER’s interview with Semafor’s Ben Smith
RUBEN GALLEGO on Plain English with Derek Thompson
MARK KELLY on Impolitic with John Heilemann
