Democrats Ready to Raise Taxes

The Washington Post reports that this year’s crop of Democratic candidates have thrown off the shackles that have burdened their party’s candidates ever since Walter Mondale ran on a tax-raising platform, and are openly vowing to increase income taxes if elected.
The conventional wisdom is that this favors Republicans, and on balance that’s probably true. But with every tax cut, as well as every tax increase, the income tax code has gotten more progressive, so that the top 10% of taxpayers are now paying a large majority of all income taxes. This creates a dangerous situation, in which more and more voters, knowing that they get more or less a free ride on income taxes, are happy to vote for higher taxes on “the rich.” It will be interesting to see whether the tax issue actually favors Republicans next year.