For decades, mainstream Democratic officeholders supported a centrist, moderate tax policy. While Democrats supported slightly higher tax rates and pushed to close corporate tax loopholes, they never supported the radical tax proposals advocated by left-wing academics and the far-left members of the party.

Proposals such as a financial transactions tax, a wealth tax, and sharply higher capital gains tax rates were all seen as radical nonstarters, fringe ideas that were bad economics and had no chance of being enacted in Washington.