Biden to Left of Obama on Tax Policy

Chuck O'Toole, Biden Seen as Traditional Democrat on Tax Policy, 2008 TNT 166-3 (Aug. 26, 2008):

[O]n taxes, Biden has followed a path more overtly populist than the one Obama has walked, pushing for a more progressive tax code that shifts the tax burden away from lower- and middle-income families and onto high earners and businesses. ...

Though Obama also wants a more progressive tax code, and supports rolling back those tax cuts passed in 2001, 2004, and 2006 that benefit wealthy households, he has also supported a corporate tax rate cut.

n recent years, Biden has voted against corporate tax cuts, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-222), and a motion to consider a permanent repeal of the estate tax. But in National Journal's ratings of congressional voting records, he gets a 94 percent on the liberal scale on economic issues, while the National Taxpayers Union, a conservative advocacy group, rated him an "F" for voting its way only 4% of the time. (The NTU also gave Obama an F, but he got 5%.)

Biden has reliably backed Democratic initiatives such as an end to IRS contracts with private debt collection agencies, tighter basis reporting requirements for securities transactions, and incentives promoting renewable energy production. In 2003 he repeatedly proposed raising the top four income tax bracket rates to finance the war in Iraq.