The Wall Street Journal - 07.03.2020 - 08.03.2020

A4| Saturday/Sunday, March 7 - 8, 2020 PWLC101112HTGKRFAM123456789OIXX ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

POLITICS

WASHINGTON

WIRE

Dispatches from the

Nation’s Capital

BYGABRIELT.RUBIN

Union Foundation, a nonprofit

research group affiliated with

a conservative organization.

Almost all of Mr. Sanders’s

proposed tax increases—ex-

cept for middle-class taxes de-

signed to replace insurance

premiums and out-of-pocket

health-care costs—target the

top of the income and wealth

distribution, the millionaires

and billionaires he castigates

on the campaign trail.

The Progressive Policy Insti-

tute, a center-left group, esti-

mates that his proposed spend-

ing would exceed revenue by

$25 trillion over a decade, with

much of the gap due to esti-

mated costs of his Medicare for

All program. Mr. Sanders’s

aides say their plans add up.

At some level, what sepa-

rates Mr. Sanders from other

Democrats on tax policy isn’t

necessarily direction but de-

gree.

Former Vice President Joe

Biden, who is Mr. Sanders’s

chief remaining rival, along

with the party’s leading tax-

policy thinkers and its former

presidential candidates, all

want to raise taxes, concen-

trating on high-income house-

holds. They want to reverse

parts of the 2017 tax law, let

people shield less money from

the estate tax, and close the

tax-rate gap between invest-

ment income and wages.

“I favor higher taxes on

high-income people,” said

Austan Goolsbee, an econo-

mist who worked for President

Obama and supported former

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete

Buttigieg’s campaign.

“I don’t think Bernie or the

other Democratic candidates

are wrong that we are in a his-

torical abnormality of tax

giveaways to high-income peo-

ple and big corporations,” he

said. “The question is: Is it

conceivable to get $20 trillion

of taxes just from high-income

people?”

SWING-SEAT DEMOCRATS

AIMto repeat 2018 success in

2020: Run on protecting and ex-

panding the Affordable Care Act,

with former Vice President Joe

Biden at the top of the ticket.

Both of those prospects became

more clear-cut after this week,

with Biden consolidating the

non-Bernie Sanders vote and the

Supreme Court deciding to take

up a Republican challenge to the

ACA, likely after the election.

Biden jumped on the news,

calling it a “life-and-death re-

minder how much is at stake” in

the election. National Democrats

used the court’s announcement

to boost its challengers and vul-

nerable incumbents, noting that

their top GOP Senate targets

have voiced support for the law-

suit against the ACA. President

Trump has tried to convince vot-

ers that the protection of people

with pre-existing medical condi-

tions is a Republican priority,

something Democratic strate-

gists believe will be significantly

harder with the lawsuit pend-

ing—-and assuming they hit Re-

publicans repeatedly over that

point.

But even if Sanders is not

the Democratic nominee, Repub-

licans plan on calling their health

care and pharmaceutical plans

socialist, because roughly half of

House Democrats support a sin-

gle-payer system. “Democrats

have embraced socialism,” House

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

said.

TRUMP AIDEAdam Kennedy,

the No. 2 official in the White

House communications office, is

leaving the administration and

expects to enter the private sec-

tor. Kennedy joined the Trump

White House on Day One as a

deputy research director and ex-

its as a deputy assistant to the

president, the second-highest ti-

tle in the West Wing. He super-

vised a rapid response team of

13, which he assembled during

the Mueller hearings, and during

the Senate impeachment trial

earned high marks from con-

gressional Republicans eager to

extract information out of the

White House.

In a White House with record

West Wing turnover—six na-

tional security advisers, Anthony

Scaramucci’s11daysonthe

job—Kennedy has been seen as

a quiet, steady hand who kept

the trains moving. “Saying that

we are sad to see him go is an

understatement,” said Stephanie

Grisham, White House press

secretary and communications

director.

ASTRONAUT LIFESTYLEScan

clash with running for office, Ari-

zona Democratic Senate candi-

date Mark Kelly learns. The re-

tired astronaut has been a paid

endorser for much of the past

decade for Breitling, a luxury

watch company. His commit-

ment to them required him to

make appearances at promo-

tional events for the company,

cutting ribbons and posing for

photos with brand models

dressed in aeronautic-themed

outfits and fans.

Kelly’s candidacy and his

watch-hawking career over-

lapped in March 2019, a month

after he declared his run for

Senate, when he had to do one

last event to fulfill his Breitling

contract: an opening of a “Bre-

itling Boutique” in Scottsdale

with champagne and hors d’oeu-

vres. “Mark used their watches

during his shuttle missions and

they worked well for him, which

is why he decided to work with

the company and wears them

occasionally. Mark committed to

attending last year’s event be-

fore deciding to run for Senate,”

a spokesman said. His contract

with Breitling formally ended at

the close of 2018.

EARNED MEDIAcan beat even

the most expensive campaign ad

strategies. Biden spent almost

nothing on TV ads for Super

Tuesday but emerged with ma-

jor victories, while Mike

Bloomberg shelled out over

$200 million on ads in those

states only to fall to an embar-

rassing defeat. But Biden did

flood the zone with media, he

just didn’t pay for it: His large

South Carolina win Saturday and

endorsements by Amy Klobu-

char and Pete Buttigieg earned

him around $72 million in earned

media—free press coverage—ac-

cording to media monitoring firm

Critical Mention.

TRADE TENSIONSbetween the

U.S. and its partners have led

to big changes at large and

midsize businesses, according

to a survey of tax executives

by the accounting firm BDO

USA. Two-thirds of the respon-

dents said they had re-evalu-

ated international supply chains

and logistics, while over half

had increased prices, altered

strategic sourcing processes or

applied for tariff exemptions.

Just 3% of those surveyed said

they hadn’t made strategic

choices as a result of trade-pol-

icy turbulence.

VETERANS AFFAIRSplans

to address concerns about how

the department will handle the

health care of the aging veter-

ans population in a report this

month, senior officials told Con-

gress. Within the next decade,

the veteran population over age

75 is expected to balloon to

around three million, and the

number of vets over age 85

could quintuple within 20 years

as life expectancy improves.

From 2014 to 2018, VA long-

term care programs increased in

cost by 33%, while the number

of participants increased by 14%,

from 464,071 to 530,327 veter-

ans.

MINOR MEMOS:Trump says

he hasn’t touched his face in

weeks because of coronavirus; “I

miss it.”... Reuters is criticized by

Texans after it misidentifies

Beto O’Rourke as Buttigieg and

burger chain Whataburger as a

“chicken joint.”... Software mogul

JohnMcAfeesaysheisdrop-

ping his campaign for the Liber-

tarian Party presidential nomina-

tion and instead wants to be

perennial protest candidate Ver-

min Supreme’s running mate.

WASHINGTON—Presiden-

tial candidate Bernie Sanders is

trying to expand federal taxa-

tion on a scale not seen since

World War II, pursuing policies

that would end the nation’s run

as one of the industrialized

world’s lowest-taxed countries.

Mr. Sanders’s combination of

taxes on wealth, income, finan-

cial transactions, corporate

profits, payrolls, estates and

capital gains would hit rich

Americans from every direc-

tion. If Congress were to pass

all of his plans, the total U.S.

tax burden—including federal,

state and local taxes—would re-

semble Canada’s or Germany’s

rather than being near the bot-

tom of the pack of rich nations.

Mr. Sanders views higher

taxes as a means to pay for

bigger health-care, housing,

education and climate-change

programs, and those plans

would cost at least $40 trillion

over a decade, according to

the campaign, or a 66% in-

crease in federal spending.

And he seeks to stick compa-

nies and the top 1% of house-

holds with most of the bill.

“In developing our tax poli-

cies, our major goal is to make

sure that we are reducing the

massive level of income and

wealth inequality that exists in

America today,” said Warren

Gunnels, a senior adviser to

Mr. Sanders.

Independent analyses have

cast doubt on whether Mr.

Sanders’s proposals add up,

suggesting that the campaign

overestimates how much

money his taxes would raise

and underestimates how much

the new programs would cost.

Mr. Sanders disputes that.

He also doesn’t explicitly ad-

vocate more deficit spending,

aiming to show that his tax in-

creases, nontax revenue in-

creases and some spending cuts

will cover the costs of his new

programs. His aides also point

to his votes against tax cuts and

wars as evidence of a Sanders

style of fiscal hawkishness.

His proposed tax increases

top $30 trillion over a decade,

by the campaign’s own reckon-

ing. That is more than 10% of

gross domestic product and at

least a 60% increase in taxes

over what would happen oth-

erwise.

The last U.S. tax increase of

this magnitude occurred from

1942 to 1944, during World

War II, when the income tax

was expanded to the middle

class, raising federal revenue

to 20.5% of gross domestic

product from 9.9%.

“You made the income tax a

mass tax, which was a big

deal,” said Mark Mazur, who

was the top Treasury Depart-

ment tax-policy official in the

Obama administration. “This

is like five of those.”

Since World War II, U.S. fed-

eral revenue has stayed be-

tween 14.2% and 20% of GDP,

and is slated to average 17.4%

over the next decade.

Mr. Sanders’s proposed tax

increases would send that level

past 28%.

“These are unprecedented

tax increases. These are huge,”

said Nicole Kaeding, an econo-

mist at the National Taxpayers

BYRICHARDRUBIN

Sanders’s Plan

Dramatically

Alters Taxation

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren spoke to supporters at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last month ahead of the state’s caucuses.

CHRISTOPHER LEE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

50% of GDP

40

20

10

No More Low-Tax

Country

IfBernieSanders'staxplan

wereenacted,thetotalU.S.

taxburdenwouldbesimilar

toCanada's.

Tax revenue* in developed

countries as a pct. of GDP

Note: Data from the 36 countries in the

Organization for Economic Co-operation

and Development from 2018.

Source: OECD (revenues); Sanders

campaign estimates

*Includes state and local taxes

Highest

France:46.1%

Lowest,

Mexico:16.1%

U.S.(current):

24.3%

OECDavg.:34.3%

Canada:33.0%

Sandersplan

35% (estimate)

30

GABRIELA BHASKAR FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, top, dropped out of the race Monday. The only

woman remaining, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, hasn’t gained traction.

who have opinions about who

is capable and qualified to be

the commander in chief of the

United States and the president

of the United States.”

The first round of 2020

Democratic debates included a

total of six women and 14 men.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of

New York, Ms. Harris and au-

thor Marianne Williamson

failed to make it to the first

nominating contest, the Iowa

caucuses on Feb. 3. Ms. War-

ren and Minnesota Sen. Amy

Klobuchar departed this week

with dozens of primary con-

tests still ahead when it be-

came clear they had no path to

the nomination.

The only woman remaining,

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, has

consistently polled in low sin-

gle digits and hasn’t qualified

for a debate in months.

Polling this election cycle

consistently has shown that

Democratic voters—more than

half of whom are women—are

overwhelmingly concerned with

defeating President Trump. Vot-

ers across states holding early

primaries said in interviews that

a top consideration was a candi-

date’s perceived ability to win.

A University of Southern Cal-

ifornia/Los Angeles Times poll

last year found that two-thirds

of Democratic primary voters

believed a man had the best

chance of defeating Mr. Trump.

That consideration helped pro-

pel Mr. Biden to a slew of pri-

mary victories on Super Tues-

day, amid concerns among

centrist voters that Mr. Sand-

ers’s avowed position as a dem-

ocratic socialist might weigh

down his prospects against Mr.

Trump in battleground states.

Both men are longtime Wash-

ington figures who have had na-

tional profiles for years.

Some Democrats said Mr.

Trump’s victory over the Dem-

ocratic 2016 nominee, Hillary

Clinton—the first woman to

lead a major-party presidential

ticket—had fostered a false

narrative that only a man could

defeat him, even though she

received nearly three million

more votes nationally, while he

won the Electoral College.

WASHINGTON—The depar-

ture of the last prominent

woman in the Democratic

presidential contest, effec-

tively leaving the race to two

men, has raised anew among

some Democrats the issue of

gender in politics and whether

female candidates are held to

the same standard as men.

“Gender in this race, you

know, that is the trap question

for every woman,” Sen. Eliza-

beth Warren of Massachusetts

said Thursday as she an-

nounced her exit from the 2020

race. “If you say, ‘Yeah, there

was sexism in this race,’ every-

one says ‘Whiner!’ And if you

say, ‘No, there was no sexism,’

about a bazillion women think:

‘What planet do you live on?’ ”

Her remarks came as a Demo-

cratic primary field that began

with a historic number of

women has come down to Ver-

mont Sen. Bernie Sanders and

former Vice President Joe Biden

in top contention for the nomi-

nation. That prompted some in

the party to lament that it will

almost certainly be at least four

more years before America could

elect its first female president.

“Frankly, it’s just a shame

that there are no more women

left in the race,” said Sen. Ka-

mala Harris of California, who

departed the contest in the fall.

“The women who ran [are] ex-

traordinary leaders, and I think

it does present a question

about how women are per-

ceived by the media and others

BYSABRINASIDDIQUI

After Warren’s Exit, Democrats Weigh

Treatment of Female Candidates

MIKAYLA WHITMORE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2)

leading” account of Mr. Muel-

ler’s findings in summarizing

the report weeks before a re-

dacted version was released to

the public. Judge Walton, who

was appointed by President

George W. Bush, said he would

review the full Mueller report,

including the material not pub-

licly released, to give Ameri-

cans confidence that the Jus-

tice Department’s redactions

were made for good cause.

The judge’s ruling came in a

Freedom of Information Act case

brought by BuzzFeed journalist

Jason Leopold and the Elec-

tronic Privacy Information Cen-

ter, a group that advocates on

civil liberties and privacy issues.

Both sought access to the special

counsel report under the act,

which provides for public access

to government information.

Kerri Kupec, a Justice De-

partment spokeswoman, said

Friday the original redactions in

the public version of Mr. Muel-

ler’s report were made by de-

partment attorneys in consulta-

tion with the special counsel’s

team, as well as prosecutors

and other officials. Career offi-

cials reviewed the entire report

in response to the media re-

quests, she said, “a process in

which the Attorney General

played no role.”

“There is no basis to ques-

tion the work or good faith of

any of these career Depart-

ment lawyers,” she said.

WASHINGTON—The Justice

Department said a federal

judge’s criticisms of Attorney

General William Barr’s handling

of the special counsel Robert

Mueller’s Russia investigation

“were contrary to the facts.”

Judge Reggie Walton of the

U.S. District Court for the Dis-

trict of Columbia said in a rul-

ing Thursday that Mr. Barr put

forward a “distorted” and “mis-

BYSADIEGURMAN

Justice Department Rejects Criticism of Barr