Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have put together six “unity task forces” in hopes of finding common ground on major policy issues. The Sanders gang was leery, fearing it would have to compromise with the less liberal Biden group, but it’s been Biden who has been doing the compromising so far. He’s edged closer to “Medicare for all,” Sanders’s top issue, by proposing to reduce the Medicare age from 65 to 60.
Sanders has appointed 18 leftist activists, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for the “unity” effort. She is co-chairwoman of the climate panel. Uniting Biden with AOC won’t be easy, and she’s not the lone panelist who’s outspoken and contentious. The other task forces are focusing on criminal justice reform, the economy, healthcare, immigration, and education.
But a seventh panel is badly needed: taxes. It’s too big an issue to be left to the economy panel. Taxes aren’t a show-stopping issue at the moment. That will change once Biden confronts President Trump. That the former vice president advocates a $4 trillion hike in taxes didn’t outrage his Democratic rivals. But around Trump, the tax issue won’t be safe. It’s too juicy a target. Just four years ago, Hillary Clinton supported a mere $1.5 trillion in higher taxes.
Here’s the story: Taxes loom as one of Biden’s biggest problems. Initially, he must satisfy the two Democratic leaders, Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who want to raise tax rates far higher than he does. They see the political moment as ripe for taxing the wealthy, then spending the money on nice things the Left has wanted to for decades.
Democrats see the economy in a unique way. There are two economies: the one where businesses operate and the other, the one they care about, in which the government collects taxes and spends the funds. Each economy wants the same thing: money. And Biden is beginning to see it as the government does. Republicans are old-fashioned. They concentrate on the business.
Sanders, Warren, and lefty Democrats on the task forces don’t want to jeopardize Biden’s ability to defeat Trump. That’s priority No. 1. But the Left, more aggressive than it’s been in years, has the upper hand in the task force negotiations. And it doesn’t want to pass up the opportunity to push the country leftward.
Biden has encouraged this thinking with talk of not simply reviving the economy but reforming it. It’s clear he’s moved to the left, and liberals want him to keep on moving. There’s no secret about this. Articles in the leftist American Prospect magazine have headlines such as “Biden’s New Pressure from Progressives” and “The Progressive Pursuit of a Bolder Biden.”
Chances are he’ll continue moving. Pushing him works. Biden cannot afford a split with the Left, Sanders, and Warren. After all, he’s not committed to anything. He has never been accused of being an ideologue. He goes with the flow. Taxing the rich with a vengeance is part of the action.
Biden has had conversations recently with Warren, and it shows. That she’s influenced his position on taxes is inescapable. Like her, Biden seems to have adopted the idea that taxes must be raised no matter the bad effect on the economy.
On taxes, he’s become something of an echo of Warren. During a CNBC interview with host Joe Kernen last week, Biden was asked if he would raise taxes “right away” if elected. “I would repeal the $2 trillion tax cut for the folks who are making over a million bucks a year,” he said. “Because, as demonstrated, it’s demonstrated very little or no growth.” As for the corporate income rate, “I’d move back to what I had proposed at 285.” It’s currently at 215.
Biden’s tax increases would leave him short of Warren and Sanders. He would nearly double the capital gains tax rate from 23.8% to 43.4%. Warren’s top rate would reach 58.2%, Sanders’s 59.8%. The top rate on individual income, 35% today, would rise to 39.6% under Biden and 52% under Sanders. Warren? She hasn’t said.
This appeared deep in a New York Times story about their conversations: “This would not be the first time Biden considered Warren as a running mate. In 2015, the two had lunch at the Naval Observatory, the vice-presidential residence in Washington, where he suggested he would like her to be his running mate if he entered the presidential race. Associates said that Ms. Warren was excited by the prospect, but Mr. Biden ended up not running.”
Warren’s chances are better this time.
Fred Barnes is a Washington Examiner senior columnist.
