Should the Democrats win power in one or both houses, here is what they will do.
- Raise Taxes - The chances that the Democrats will make permanent the 2003 Bush Tax cuts that expire in 2010 are slim to none. Chances are, they will try to raise taxes well before 2010. While they say they support middle class tax cuts they do not support tax cuts on the high end and will work hard on reversing those as soon as they can. This means raising the top income and dividend tax rate back to 39.6% from 35% and the capital gains rate back to 20% from 15%, substantially raising the cost of new investment. Note that the current strong expansion of the economy coincided with Bush's tax cuts in 2003.
- Energy Policy - Democrats favor a windfall profits tax on oil companies and a moratorium on drilling for domestic oil in Alaska and off our coasts where we may have more oil than Saudi Arabia. This will make us more dependent on foreign oil. It is also a huge disincentive to punish a company for making a profit. Who determines how much is too much of a profit?
- Unions - Democrats support the Employee Free Choice Act which allows labor unions to unionize workplaces without an election or secret ballot. Unions only need to gather signatures from the majority of workers at a work site. Workers will be strong armed and pressured to sign. Democrats also will push the wrong headed hike in minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 which would wipe out a lot of jobs for people who need them most.
There is more and it all means more government control, regulations, and higher taxes.
Democrats are not dumb and they are keeping pretty quiet about it all. Bush's and congress' low numbers due to Iraq are the only thing that is giving them the chance that they have. If they really believed that their policies were popular with the majority of Americans they would and should heavily promote them just like the Republicans did in their "Contract With America" in 1994.
But these policies are not popular and would, in fact, hurt them in this election if they were up front and honest about it. So it's very smart, if dishonest, to keep them under wraps.
I am sure there is as much employer intimidation as there is union intimidation. That's the beauty of the secret ballot.
ReplyDeleteIf the workplace is such that the workers are unhappy and treated unfairly and desire union representation, they can vote for the union via a secret ballot and the employee is protected by that secrecy.