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JANUARY 5, 2004 – While other tax
proposals offered by both the Democratic presidential hopefuls
and President Bush leave most people wondering exactly what it
will mean for them, Democratic candidate General Wesley Clark
unveiled a plan today that was striking both in its ambition and its
ease of communicability.
Gone are the questions about who exactly makes up
the middle class, who are the rich that get excessive benefits, as
the Democrats claim, and how much exactly will you still have to pay
after figuring your taxes under the various schemes out
there.
“No family of four making $50,000 or less will
have to pay any taxes.”
A striking comment that is sure to have families
around the country gasping at first, and then sighing with
relief. Nothing could be clearer than Clark’s plan and how he
laid it out.
“If your combined income is $50,000 or less, and
you have two kids, you can put your checkbook away. You owe
nothing.”
While other proposals say they will help this or
that group, the true brilliance of the Clark proposal is how easily
it is understood. You know what salary range he means, you
know exactly what sort of family set up. He is not talking
cuts or rates but total reform, far bolder a proposal than was
expected from this domestic policy newcomer.
Not only does Clark’s proposal make understanding
who will benefit simpler, but it promises to make doing taxes
simpler, if not obsolete.
Under his plan, tax filers would only have to fill
out three lines to figure if they owe taxes: how much they
make, how many children they have, and marital status.
“The majority of families will no longer be
required to file tax forms.”
Before looking at the details of the tax plan,
this is a massive communications victory for Clark. What could
families around the country want to hear more than they will have to
pay zero taxes and not even have to file a form? George W.
Bush can claim he helps the middle class or working people all he
wants, as can the other Democratic hopefuls, but only Clark has
issued a plan that offers to make taxes and everything associated
with them go away entirely.
He says his plan will not affect the deficits, as
it will be offset by an increase in taxes on people making over
$1,000,000. Again, Clark has a communications victory here,
not simply saying he will raise taxes on the rich without being
clear who he means, or saying he will roll back President Bush's tax
cuts for people earning over $200,000, an income which a number of
families and young professionals see within their sights, if only by
hope. While many aspiring professionals can see themselves
becoming a part of the group that has a combined household income of
$200,000 or more at some point, and so feel part of the group
attacked by tax increases at that level, Clark draws the line much
higher, at a level very few Americans will associate themselves
with.
“The top 0.1 percent,” Clark said plainly.
Indeed, his planned increase would not even count on the first
$1,000,000 earned, but only take effect on each additional
million. So even those who think they may be million-a-year
earners won’t be threatened by this law. And the sense of
fairness, that truly only those who have enough to give a little
more are affected, especially at a time when so many are so cash
strapped, is likely to play well among voters.
To be sure, Clark’s plan will be vulnerable to
attack, as it already has come under. Lieberman attacked it
for only benefiting families and not single people, and Senator John
Edwards decried its lack of effect on capital gains taxes, both
seemingly accurate commentaries.
But Clark, in true General style, predicted the
counterattack and headed it off by doing something no other campaign
has yet been able to do: tying together issues by
theme.
Hinting at what may become a central theme of his
campaign, Clark tied his tax cut to “family values,” and used a
little jujitsu to turn Lieberman’s attack line into an attack
against President Bush and the Republicans. He claimed plainly
that to really have "family values," you must value families, as his
tax cut scheme does.
“For years now, Republicans have campaigned under
the banners of tax reform and family values. But for them, tax
reform is all too often a cover for giving huge tax breaks to the
families of the wealthiest Americans. They don't care if it's fair
to working families ... if it makes the tax code more complicated
... or if it explodes the deficit. That's simply
unacceptable.”
And then Clark preemptively assaulted Karl Rove
and any Republican attempt to paint his proposal as class warfare or
unfairly raising taxes on the rich by simply, once again,
communicating very clearly, in non-obscuring, non-politician speak,
that he knows and is proud of what he is doing.
“If Karl Rove is watching today, Karl, I want you
to hear this loud and clear - I'm going to provide tax cuts to ease
the burden for 34 million American families and lift hundreds of
thousands of children out of poverty by raising the taxes on
one-tenth of one percent of families in America, those who make more
than a million dollars a year. You don't have to read my lips, I'm
saying it. And if that makes me an "old style" Democrat, then, I
accept that label with pride and dare you to come after me for
it.”
Once again, the clarity and easily communicable
nature of his cuts makes his rebuttal arguments as easy as the
explanation in the first place. “…Those who make more than a
million dollars ,” are the only ones who are asked to pay more,
every family making under $100,000 gets an increased child credit,
every family of four making $50,000 or less pays nothing and doesn’t
even have to file.
The round numbers, $50,000, $100,000, over
$1,000,000 were brilliant choices from a communications perspective,
and truly starting the income at $50,000 will make most Americans
feel this is something that will affect them, if not now, then at
some point in their lives' course.
As further evidence this plan was crafted for ease
of understanding as much as for policy, Clark heads off “tax and
spend” arguments by saying, “…it can only be used toward tax relief
for America's working and hard-pressed families. Not a penny will go
to increase government spending.”
It is unclear how he can make that statement, as
budgets that are drawn up spend whatever tax revenue comes in.
And indeed, it will take some time to sort out what the effect on
the non-married individuals will be, as well as for married people
without children.
But as a communications vehicle, Clark’s plan is
an amazing success. It is both bolder than expected and far
easier to comprehend. Rather than talking about messing with
this tax rate or that, he has laid out a comprehensive plan for
major reform, all with the theme of making things simpler and
entirely getting the income tax monkey off of most American
families’ backs.
And by drawing the bar so high, at over
$1,000,000, for those he will raise taxes on, Clark has picked a
fight with an enemy so small in number, “0.1 percent” of the
population as he points out, that the old Bush/Limbaugh game of
pretending the Democrats, when they say “the rich,” really mean all
of us, will be hard to make.
You have to wonder if Clark was spending time
reading Rush Limbaugh’s web site and his misleading tax arguments,
which we debunked in "Rush Limbaugh Runs Numbers On His Website He Claims
Prove Republicans Are Right About Tax Cuts For The Rich, But Even
The Numbers He Presents Show How Stupid And Inaccurate His Argument
Is", which claimed that “only the rich pay taxes,” and misled
people to think by rich the Democrats really meant anyone who makes
over $26,000 a year. Rush can claim whatever he wants, but any
family of four or more with an income under $50,000 will know that
if they go with Clark, they don’t have to bother thinking about tax
arguments – or tax forms – at all.
And the tying his tax policy to the general theme
of “family values” shows that Clark is going to go after the
Republicans on their own turf.
But, more importantly, it marks an important
campaign strategy shift which, if we are reading this shift
accurately, makes Clark only the second candidate to have a
circumstance-proof plan for winning the election. As we
pointed out in "Elections 2004 - Inside The Campaigns", most of
the Democratic candidates, by making Iraq and the economy the
guiding issues of their campaigns, are setting themselves up for
irrelevance if Iraq seems to stabilize and the economy appears in
recovery at election time. And, indeed, they are making the
argument that, in that case, perhaps President Bush should remain in
office.
Only Lieberman, so far, had been making
“integrity” and values the central focus of his campaign. No
matter how Iraq goes, no matter what the economy does, Lieberman
makes the case that Bush must go because he is dishonest, lacks
integrity, and has the wrong values – an argument which is the one
truly on many Americans’ minds to begin with.
Now it appears Clark is moving himself onto that
solid ground. A very smart strategy.
It appears that one of two things is the
case: that having the war planning, strategy-making skills of
a military commander can be useful in non-military campaigns as
well, or; 2) that reading The Moderate Independent can help
candidates find the strategies that make the most sense and that the
American people, as a whole, are really looking for.
In either case, and regardless of what is made of
this tax proposal upon closer review, from a communications
standpoint – and in an election, communications is everything –
Clark’s bold tax reform plan is a true winner. | 
