Op-Ed: Pennsylvanians can’t afford Biden’s multi-trillion tax-and-spend plan

Originally published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

As much as some Democrats’ tax-the-rich stunts offend the senses and expose hypocrisies, the actual policy details of the tax-and-spend plans emerging on Capitol Hill matter more. Pennsylvania families and taxpayers should be far more concerned that the proposal making its way through Congress would be an unprecedented expansion of government spending, amounting to massive new federal deficits at a time of worrying inflation. Is now really the right time to double down on tax-and-spend policies that have pervaded Washington, D.C. for years? The answer from most Pennsylvanians is a resounding “no.”

With the legislative sausage-making now underway, it’s likely Pennsylvanians would find the menu of specific tax hikes distasteful. Among them:

• Imposing new limits on the small business deduction;
• Increasing the basic capital gains tax rate from 20% to 25% (nearly 29% with new surtaxes);
• Hiking the corporate tax rate from 21 to 26.5%;
• Instituting a new tax on vaping products (which many use to quit smoking); and
• Creating heavier death tax burdens.

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