In the opening month of her campaign, Kamala Harris was famously silent on her economic agenda. That posture left voters wondering if the Democratic Party’s nominee for the White House would embrace President Biden’s call for $5 trillion in tax increases on wealthy Americans and corporations over the next decade, or chart a separate, perhaps more moderate course. Among the biggest questions: Where did Harris stand on Biden’s proposal for a so-called billionaire tax—an instrument so controversial, revolutionary, and untested that, judging from this writer’s research, it’s never been attempted—not only in the U.S., but in any of the 32 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
On Aug. 21, the Harris campaign erased the mystery, stating that the candidate fully supports Biden’s comprehensive tax program as presented in the administration’s fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, issued in March. Overnight, we now know the Harris prescription in detail. That’s because a 248-page part of that document, General Explanations of the Administration’s FY 2025 Revenue Proposals, commonly known as “the Green Book,” contains all of the Biden administration’s ambitious recommendations for raising government receipts, from lifting the top personal income tax rate from the current 37% to 39.6%, to raising the corporate levy seven points to 28%, to mandating a huge funding increase for the IRS to bolster enforcement.
