Dallas, TX
The tax plan proposed by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would fund tens of thousands of government jobs at the cost of five times as many private sector jobs, while lowering personal income, GDP and business investment, according to a new study from the National Center for Policy Analysis.
The NCPA study results are based on modeling of the U.S. economy for the NCPA’s Tax Analysis Center, in partnership with NCPA Senior Fellow Dr. David Tuerck and his team at the Beacon Hill Institute in Boston.
Findings include a boost in government jobs at the expense of private sector employment:
- In 2017, 49,000 government jobs would be created but 207,000 private sector jobs would be lost.
- In 2026, every government job created would cost five private sector jobs.
Personal income, GDP growth and business investment would be lower:
- In the first year, real GDP would be more than half a percent less than under the Congressional Budget Office’s current baseline estimate, and almost 1 percent less in 2026.
- Personal income would be $47 billion less in 2017 alone; this loss would increase to $103 billion in 2026.
Clinton’s tax increases mainly target high-income earners and include:
- Implementing the “Buffet Rule:” households earning $1 million or more would pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.
- Increasing capital gains tax rates for the top income tax bracket.
- Repealing carried interest, which is a provision that allows general partners in some businesses to book most of their earnings as (low-taxed) capital gains rather than labor income.
Despite her plan to soak the rich, the revenue raised will fall short of her planned spending projects. Compared to Congressional Budget Office estimates:
- From 2017 to 2026, personal income tax and corporate tax revenue will increase 3.4 percent and 1.2 percent respectively.
- Estate tax revenues will increase 30 percent due to Hillary’s plan to increase the marginal rate and lower the exemption amount on estates.
- However, Social Security payroll tax revenue and state and local revenues will be slightly lower due to fewer people working and reduced economic activity.
“Hillary’s plan is simply a continuation of the slow-growing Obama economy, except worse,” said NCPA Senior Fellow Pamela Villarreal, who summarized the new study impact in a report published Friday.
Dr. Tuerck said the Clinton plan is, at best, a redo of the failed Obama stimulus, while imposing a new drag on the nation’s slow recovery from the recession that ended seven years ago. “What we have here is a plan to destroy hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs just to pad government payrolls, while, in the process, doing almost nothing to improve tax fairness,” he added.
While this analysis does not address Hillary Clinton’s spending plan, several sources estimate that her promise of new spending on education, infrastructure and the like would cost in excess of $1 trillion over 10 years. The NCPA model estimates that the revenue raised by her tax plan would cover only half of new spending, resulting in further increases in the debt.
The Economic Effects of the Clinton Tax Proposal: http://www.ncpathinktank.org/pub/the-economic-effects-of-the-clinton-tax-proposal