Americans for Tax Reform warns that Kerry’s plans would hurt Wisconsin’s families by raising taxes while producing no benefits
WASHINGTON –John Kerry’s tax and spend proposals pose a significant threat to the health and pocket books of families in Wisconsin, according to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the nation’s leading taxpayer group. ATR estimates that Kerry will need to impose a tax hike of $815 per taxpayer in Wisconsin, or more than $8,000 over the next decade.
Kerry has proposed a $2.8 trillion spending increase over the next ten years according to budget reports by the non-partisan American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and ATR. Kerry’s proposed healthcare plan alone would cost an estimated $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. Individually, voters would receive a benefit of just $451 from Kerry’s healthcare plan, which ATR estimates would be more than offset by the $851 cost of his liberal spending.
To pay for his spending plans, Kerry would repeal President Bush’s tax relief package which has reduced the marriage penalty, increased the child tax credit to $1,000 per child and created a 10 percent tax bracket to aide single-parent households. These tax hikes would harm American families to bring in estimated revenues of only $860 billion, resulting in a federal deficit between $1.94 and $2.4 trillion over the next ten years.
“Kerry’s spending will result in either of two things,” said Grover Norquist, president of ATR, “It will either drive America deeply into debt, or hike taxes on American families at the risk of driving them deeply into debt.”
Additionally, Kerry would institute a massive 36 percent minimum wage increase, forcing poor mothers, first-job teenagers and immigrants into unemployment. Employers make hiring decision based on the amount of money available to pay workers and many would not be able to afford additional wages.
“Kerry’s plan in a nutshell: raise taxes, displace the burden of healthcare costs onto the shoulders of American families and when they are deeply in debt, raise the minimum wage so that working families cannot pay their grocery bills,” concluded Norquist.