I hope they get it, and read it.
To: Dean for America (Speechwriters, Research Department, etc.)
Re: Tax Reform Spin
Hello:
I am a Dean supporter, have contributed considerable (for me, anyway) amounts of money and time to the campaign, and will be going to Iowa next week to campaign for the governor.
Please indulge my "backseat driving"/"armchair QBing" on this (although, admittedly, the Dean campaign is probably the first campaign I've ever seen that actually seems to be encouraging this kind of feedback, and I like it!)
I am concerned that the campaign may be missing a great opportunity to lay out a clear platform on tax reform which does not appear as a flip-flop.
On CNN's Inside Politics today, I feel that Joe Trippi perhaps laid the groundwork for the argument I am going to propose; but as far as I can tell, Donna Brazille (who is a nice lady, I met her once during the Landrieu campaign in 2002) didn't seem to understand what was really going on.
Accordingly, I hope you guys pull together a coherent story line and make sure all the invited guests on the "talking heads" shows get the memo.
Anyhow, here it goes.
I believe that Gov. Dean's position in re: the Bush tax cuts is a good one. All the tax cuts need to be repealed.
There are two kinds of tax bills -- ones which are deficit-creating, and ones which are deficit neutral. The Bush tax bills were clearly deficit-creating, because they handed out trillions of dollars without off-setting increases in other revenue (fees, tariffs, taxes on other people, closing loopholes, etc.)
Repealing the Bush tax cut bills is necessary to close the deficit. I think Joe Trippi was intimating this.
The other kind of bill, deficit-neutral bills, could reduce taxes for the vast majority of Americans without reducing overall government revenue. Gen. Clark's plan - which leaves me quite frankly very impressed and almost envious - is deficit neutral because it offsets his tax cuts for families with tax hikes on corporations and the obscenely wealthy.
Another way (and I think this was intimated in the Washington Post the other day, and I'm pretty sure the governor has said this before ) is to cut the payroll tax and offset it with un-capping FICA.
It seems to me that the campaign's plan is very simple: Repeal Bush's deficit-creating tax cuts and replace it with a better deficit-neutral plan.
It ought to be an easy point to get across, and it's good for America.
Unfortunately, at least at this point, the argument isn't getting across, and I'm afraid that people who aren't very politically-sophisticated aren't going to "get it" unless there is an orchestrated drive from within this campaign to educate the people about what, I suspect, you guys are getting ready to do.
Thank you for your time,
Jim Dallas
Galveston, Texas
ad5nl@hotmail.com