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Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
Tax cuts are a systemic issue that the US government and economy has been battling since Clinton. Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy and cut taxes for businesses, families and capital gains. After that Bush came in and he cut taxes across the board. Those cuts expired under Obama but he signed an extension for those cuts to continue and subsequently made most of the Bush era tax cuts permanent. Trump came in and again imposed tax cuts. Under Biden there really hasn't been much change with some shifting in tax increases along with some tax cuts which basically balance out. Harris is campaigning on tax cuts which are essentially an extension of Trump's cuts for everyone under $400K. Harris wants to increase taxes on the rich but also provide a lot of cuts and credits to families and businesses.
The US has actually done a reasonable job of managing and controlling spending but no administration is really tackling the revenue side of things and because of that debt servicing has grown substantially.
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Obama extending the Bush tax cuts was not something he wanted to do, but had little choice due to headwinds in congress. Besides, the economy was in a precarious spot as it was trying to recover from the 08 financial collapse, so any sudden change to tax policy was deemed to be risky.
Biden couldn't cancel the Trump tax cuts because he didn't have the votes in the Senate to make it happen.
Harris is running on increasing taxes on the rich and lowering them on the middle class. If she wins, how much she's able to get done depends on whether or not she gets all chambers of congress, and whether or not there are Manchin/Sinema types within her party who stand in her way. But yes I'm hoping for very significant increases in taxes for those making over 400k/year. I would hope they also look at other ways to raise revenue, such as estate taxes.