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Hillary Clinton Campaign Press Release - Clinton Outlines Tax Cuts For Pennsylvania Families On Fourth Day of Economic Tour

March 31, 2008

American Families Could Receive Over $100 Billion In Tax Relief Each Year

Hillary Clinton brought her Solutions for the American Economy Tour to Pennsylvania today hosting a roundtable with families in Harrisburg to discuss her plan to cut taxes. Her tax cut proposals would save families thousands of dollars who are struggling to pay for health care, college costs, or the care for an elderly parent or disabled child. It would also help families who are saving for a secure retirement. The cuts would provide middle class families with at least $100 billion in tax relief per year.

A typical family making $50,000 would receive a matching tax cut of up to $1,000 to help save and build wealth, a $3,500 tax credit to help pay for college costs, and a generous tax cut to make health care affordable. In addition, a family caring for an elderly parent or disabled child would receive a $3,000 tax credit to help cover the costs of caregiving. Hillary would also expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to help larger families, giving at least 3 million families with $1,000 in additional income and would triple the size of the EITC benefit for single workers, providing more than four million people a tax cut averaging $750.

"George Bush's economic ideology is bankrupt - and it's bankrupting America. And John McCain is promising four more years of tax cuts for billionaires and tax breaks for the corporate special interests," said Clinton. "We don't need four more years of Bush economics. We need a Commander in Chief for our economy - someone ready to confront complex economic problems with comprehensive solutions. As president, I'll rein in the corporate special interests and rebuild the middle class. I'll end $55 billion in tax cuts and corporate loopholes and put that money in your pockets with middle class tax cuts."

The impact of these tax cuts would be enormous for millions of Pennsylvania families. For example, 3.4 million Pennsylvania households would be eligible to receive with new matching tax cuts to help save for retirement, and Hillary's new $3000 Caregivers Tax Credit would benefit at least 200,000 Pennsylvania seniors, people with disabilities and their families.

Hillary discussed the financial challenges of paying for health care, college costs, and saving for retirement with seven families from the Harrisburg area at the Capitol Diner. Joe and Jody Rebarchek were two of the participants in the discussion. They have three children, one of whom is heading to college. After being a stay-at-home mom for ten years, Jody recently re-entered the workforce to supplement the family's income. In addition, Kathleen Panza, a small business owner who is struggling to pay for the health care costs for herself and her employees, discussed some of her challenges with Hillary today.

Senator Clinton was also joined by Annette Anderson, of Harrisburg; Phyllis Campbell, of Mechanicsburg; Marisol Craig and Angelo Craig, of Mechanicsburg; Wayne Scott and his daughter Kaylie Lauren, of Harrisburg; and Ana Vargas and her daughter Alissa Ramos, also of Harrisburg, PA.

The stories of people at today's event mirror what is happening to families all across America. As the economy slides into recession, hardworking American families face growing financial stress. Americans are working harder than ever but wages are stagnant and household income is down nearly $1000 since 2000. Record housing price declines have already eroded $2 trillion in household wealth and have rocked the basic economic security of millions of American families. And at the same time, gas is now over $3.50 in many areas of Pennsylvania, healthcare premiums have nearly doubled since 2000 and college costs are up 66%. With the mortgage crisis freezing up many sources of student loans, families in Pennsylvania are facing unprecedented financial difficulties in helping their children pay for college.

Rather than easing the burden on middle class families, George Bush's tax policies have exacerbated the problem. President Bush's answer to every economic challenge has been to lavish new tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans - to the tune of $500 billion already - while offering too little for the broad middle class. For example, the typical working family received about $500 from the Bush tax cut but is paying about $2000 more each year in energy costs alone than they were in 2000. What the Bush tax cuts did do, however, was reward the passive wealth of the wealthiest Americans and shift the tax burden onto the wages of typical workers by lowering taxes on capital gains, dividends and the Estate Tax even for the wealthiest Americans. They have created a tax code that allows a billionaire like Warren Buffett to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. And they have driven up our deficit, forcing us to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from countries like China and putting our economic security at risk.

Hillary Clinton believes it offends our values as a nation to have a tax code that allows Wall Street millionaires to pay lower taxes than teachers, nurses and truck drivers. And it undermines our economy's potential when America's middle class is being squeezed without any help. Her plan will close loopholes that benefit the wealthy and provide broad and direct tax relief to tens of millions of hardworking families in Pennsylvania and across the country. Under Hillary's plan:

Hillary Clinton's Plan to Lower Taxes for Middle Class Families

Rewarding Work and Restoring Fairness to our Tax Code

A typical family making $50,000 with a child in college would receive at least $4,500 in tax benefits

  • A matching tax cut of up to $1,000 to help save and build wealth.

  • A $3,500 tax credit to help pay for college costs.

  • A generous tax cut to make health care affordable.

A family caring for an elderly parent or disabled child would receive at least $4000 in tax benefits

  • A $3,000 tax credit to help cover the costs of caregiving.
  • A matching tax cut of up to $1,000 to help save and build wealth.

A working family looking to move up into the middle class could receive $5000

  • An expanded Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) totaling more than $5000.

  • A generous increase in the minimum wage, to $9.50 by 2011, and indexed to congressional salaries afterwards.

Details of Hillary Clinton's Middle Class Tax Agenda

  • Matching Tax Cuts to Help Middle Class and Working Families Save: Hillary's plan will provide a matching refundable tax credit "dollar-for-dollar" for the first $1,000 of savings done by every married couple making up to $60,000. The plan will provide a 50% match on the first $1000 of savings for every couple making between $60,000 and $100,000, which will be phased out after that. Hillary's plan would provide 3.4 million Pennsylvania households with new matching tax cuts to save.

  • • A New $3,500 College Tax Credit. Hillary is proposing to more than double the HOPE tax credit, raising the maximum amount of benefits that students and their families can receive from $1,650 to $3,500. This new credit will cover more than 50% of the typical cost of public colleges and universities and more than the full cost of tuition for community colleges. Taxpayers will be able to claim 100% of the first $1,000 of college expenses and 50% of the next $5,000 under this new credit. This new credit will also be partially refundable in order to increase its value to low-income individuals. It will phase out in a manner similar to the current HOPE credit and will also be "advanceable" to allow families to receive the tax credit when their tuition bills are due instead of 16 months later. Hillary's college tax credit would provide a tax credit of up to $3,500 to many of the more than 680,000 students in Pennsylvania.

  • A New $3000 Caregiving Tax Credit: As many as 52 million Americans are informal, un-paid caregivers. And according to a new study by the National Alliance of Caregiving, the average out-of-pocket costs for long-term caregiving, usually by a spouse or a child, is $5,531 - more than double previous estimates. To ease this financial burden, Hillary is proposing a new $3000 Caregiving Tax Credit, which will be available to any person with substantial long-term care needs or to their caregivers (the credit would be phased out for couples earning more than $150,000). The credit will not require a complex accounting of out-of-pocket costs, but instead would be available directly to any individuals with substantial long-term care needs or their caregivers. Hillary's new $3000 Caregivers Tax Credit will benefit at least 200,000 Pennsylvania seniors, people with disabilities and their families.

  • Healthcare Tax Credits to Make Healthcare Affordable for All Americans: Hillary's American Health Choices plan will provide generous tax credits to ensure that healthcare is affordable for all Americans. The credits will be designed to ensure that no family ever pays more than a reasonable percentage of their income on healthcare. Hillary's plan will provide quality affordable healthcare to 1.2 million uninsured Pennsylvanians and will lower healthcare costs for the millions of Pennsylvania families with healthcare as well.

  • Expanded Earned Income Tax Credit for Families and Single Workers. The EITC is widely seen as the most effective anti-poverty program in the U.S. today. Yet because the EITC offers the same size credit for all families with two or more children, it does not do enough to reduce poverty among larger families. The poverty rate for families with more than three children is 26% - more than double the poverty rate for families with one or two children. Hillary will create a third tier in the EITC for families with three or more children to help lift the children living in larger families out of poverty. This will provide at least 3 million families with $1,000 in additional income. In addition, Hillary will triple the size of the EITC benefit for single workers, providing more than 4 million people a pro-work tax cut averaging $750.

  • Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts. Hillary will extend the middle class tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2010, including the expanded Child Tax Credit, marriage penalty relief and the 10% income tax bracket.

Restoring Tax Fairness

  • Closing the "Carried Interest" Loophole. Currently, a loophole in our tax code allows a Wall Street investment manager making $5 million pay a lower tax rate than a nurse making $50,000. Hillary will close that loophole to restore fairness to our tax code.

  • Allowing the Bush Income Tax Cuts to Expire for those Over $250,000. Hillary will allow the Bush income tax cuts to expire for those making over $250,000 and use those resources to help pay for healthcare tax credits for middle class families. She will freeze the Estate Tax at $7 million per couple - leaving untaxed 99.7% of estates - and use those resources to fund her matching tax cuts to help middle class families save.

  • Ending Tax Breaks for Companies that Ship Jobs Overseas and Investing Those Resources to Help Create Middle Class Jobs. As president, Hillary will take away tax breaks from companies that are sending jobs and production overseas and use those tax dollars to encourage job creation in the U.S. She would permanently extend the R&D credit to help attract R&D facilities and high-paying research jobs to the U.S. She would establish a national broadband strategy to enhance the competitiveness of communities across Indiana and America. And she would ensure that the U.S. continues to be an engine for innovation and cutting-edge technological breakthroughs by doubling the basic research budgets at the major federal agencies and tripling post-graduate research grants in math and science.

Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Campaign Press Release - Clinton Outlines Tax Cuts For Pennsylvania Families On Fourth Day of Economic Tour Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/293172

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