By Phil Kerpen | BookerFail.com
Yesterday I wrote: “The lesson from Newark is that attempting to replicate this corporate-welfare-based development strategy nationally from the U.S. Senate would be very painful for American taxpayers — and would fail to create jobs.”
Today, as if on cue, Cory Booker has put out a massive tax-and-spend plan that removes any doubt.
The major tax hikes he proposes would wallop the U.S. economy with $1.486 trillion in higher taxes. He does propose some minor tax reductions, but the net tax hike is still well in excess of a trillion dollars. The money goes to vast new federal stimulus spending in the form of a so-called “National Infrastructure Bank,” expansion of the corporate-welfare Export-Import bank, and other spending programs that will, like in Newark, reward the rich and politically well-connected while failing to create a significant number of jobs.
Even his proposed “tax cut” element of the plan — echoing Obama’s call to lower the corporate rate from 35 percent to 28 percent — provides relief only to the biggest companies that are C corporations and, like Obama’s proposal, is dwarfed by tax hikes.
Just for liberal good measure, he also proposes universal federally-funded preschool for children starting at 3, a new “national college trust fund,” a so-called “smart grid” federal taxpayer-financed upgrade of electric utility infrastructure, and other spending pet projects. The spending proposals are not quantified, but would likely cost even more than the $1-trillion-plus of new taxes Booker proposes, meaning his plan would also increase the deficit.
Here are the four biggest tax hikes:
