As Bob Kerrey ramps up his U.S. Senate campaign, Nebraska taxpayers are reminded of his left-leaning track record. Most prominent was his deciding vote in favor of President Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax hike, which Kerrey himself declared the “biggest tax increase in the history of the country.”
“Kerrey helped lead the fight to unravel Ronald Reagan’s bipartisan Tax Reform Act of 1986 when Kerrey supported first George H.W. Bush’s 1990 tax increases and then Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increases,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Both of these tax increases made the federal income tax structure more burdensome, less transparent, and more costly to taxpayers.”
The George H.W. Bush tax hike brought the top personal/small employer rate from 28 to 31 percent, raised the Medicare payroll tax, and increased excise taxes on beer, wine, and tobacco. Two years later, the Clinton tax package increased gas taxes and hiked the corporate income tax rate from 34 to 35 percent. It substantially raised the top personal/small employer rate—from 31 to 39.6 percent.
The implications could not be clearer: Bob Kerrey will resume his support of tax increases if given the opportunity. Once a tax hiker, always a tax hiker.