Proposal would reduce the tax burden on the vast majority of Americans;
Expand U.S. economy by $2 trillion in the next decade
WASHINGTON, February 29, 2016 – Hudson Institute senior fellow Jeffrey Anderson today unveiled a Main Street Tax Plan for comprehensive reform of the U.S. tax code.
The proposal’s streamlined tax code would reduce the number of separate itemized federal taxes paid by U.S. citizens while benefitting earners across the income spectrum. The pro-growth, pro-American worker, pro-fiscal responsibility policies built into the plan would expand the U.S. economy by $2 trillion and raise revenues by $679 billion over a decade, according to an assessment by the independent Tax Foundation.
“The Main Street Tax Plan focuses on the typical American without picking winners and losers,” wrote Dr. Anderson in an opinion editorial published today in The Wall Street Journal. “In light of the U.S. economy’s anemic performance the last sixteen years, this is the only politically potent way to unleash prosperity and restore the nation to fiscal sanity.”
Major recommendations in the Main Street Tax Plan include:
* Eliminating the Medicare payroll tax for both employers and employees, and instead funding Medicare through general revenues. The $679 billion in estimated additional revenue the plan would raise in the next decade will allow more money for Medicaid, not less.
* Providing tax relief for millions of middle-class Americans by cutting the first quarter of the 25% tax bracket to 20%, and making 33% the top rate.
* Adding a child tax deduction of $2,000 per child, and altering the child tax credit to a non-income tested $500 per child.
* Reducing the corporate tax rate to 25%, allowing full expensing of all capital investments, and eliminating the business tax deduction for interest paid.
Under the Main Street Tax Plan, the U.S. economy is predicted to grow at a rate nearly equal to that experienced after President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut and President John F. Kennedy’s 1960’s-era tax reform.
Dr. Anderson co-founded the 2017 Project and served as its Executive Director before coming to Hudson Institute. Previously, he was a Senior Speechwriter for Secretary Mike Leavitt at the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and a professor of political science at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Dr. Anderson received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California.
The report can be accessed at http://bit.ly/MainStreetTaxPlan":http://bit.ly/MainStreetTaxPlan. For paper copies of the proposal or to arrange a media interview with Dr. Anderson, please contact Carolyn Stewart via "email or (202) 974-6456.