Wednesday Edition: Corporate Tax Impact

Kamala Harris’ plan to increase the corporate tax rate to 28% is popular, but is it wise? (NBC News)

The latest: A Harris campaign spokesman told NBC News on Monday that increasing corporate taxes was “a fiscally responsible way to put money back in the pockets of working people and ensure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.”

• As president, Donald Trump slashed corporate taxes from 35% to 21%, the current rate.

• Trump wants to lower the tax rate even further to 15%.

The impact: Research suggests it’s not just businesses who bear the burdens of higher corporate taxes.

• According to some studies, workers pay more than half, and potentially up to 75%, of the corporate tax burden through lower wages.

• Other research indicates workers may bear up to 400% of the revenue cost of corporate taxes.

• One study, published in the American Economic Review, found that for every $1 in increased taxes, GDP decreased by $3.

The Tax Foundation, a libertarian-leaning think tank:

Bubba’s Two Cents

Anti-corporate sentiment in America is growing (71% of the country has a negative view of large corporations), and it looks like Dems are shrewdly making it a bigger part of their messaging.

It’s quite difficult to be a defender of big businesses these days for myriad reasons. But at the same time, this chart featured in Bubba News on Friday demonstrates that reality can be quite different from perception. For instance, the grocery industry has been posited by the Harris campaign as greedy to the point of price-gouging, yet maintains an net profit margin of just 1.18% last year.

Speakers at the Democratic National Convention have spent a decent amount of time talking about Donald Trump.

The big moment: President Biden, who spoke for 52 minutes and capped off day one of the event, mentioned Trump 23 times in his speech.

• According to the Trump campaign, the former president was mentioned 147 times throughout the DNC’s first day.

• Meanwhile, policy areas like the economy (27 mentions), the border (8 mentions) and crime (6 mentions) got noticeably shorter shrift.

Compare and contrast: According to a New York Times analysis of the words used at the Republican National Convention last month, Biden’s name was referenced 393 times over the four-day event.

• Aside from the border, which was mentioned 199 times, there wasn’t all that much rhetoric on specific policies at the RNC.

• “Trump” was the most commonly used word (1,049 mentions), followed by president (905) and America (663).

The impact of conventions: Historically, presidential nominees enjoy a modest bump in the polls following their party’s convention, but that phenomenon’s been shrinking in recent years.

Bubba’s Two Cents

It shouldn’t be all that surprising that these conventions are more focused on “rah-rah” vibes and broad strokes vision as opposed to substantive policy. Coming in the wake of Trump’s attempted assassination, it felt like the RNC had a special kind of energy. Fast forward to today and nobody’s talking about it, while Harris has enjoyed a substantial bump in the polls. I guess the lesson here is that the news cycle moves fast and that a lot of events that get really hyped up by the media don’t end up having all that much impact.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how impactful the news cycle leading up to the last 2-4 weeks could shape the election…

Voters aren’t buying the idea that, actually, the economy’s in great shape — and a few data points can help explain why. (WaPo)

A new analysis by American Enterprise Institute fellow Marc Thiessen:

Third party candidates in the 2024 election appear to be petering out. (The Economist)

A new YouGov poll: While 7% of Biden’s 2020 voters were considering third-party candidates in July, that number has dropped by half since Kamala Harris entered the race.

• Before Biden's withdrawal: Donald Trump had a 1.3 percentage-point advantage in multi-candidate polling compared to head-to-head.

• After Harris's nomination: Harris gained a 0.9-point advantage when third-party candidates were included.

• Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now pulls more support from 2020 Trump voters than Biden voters.

Zoom out: In the past few elections, polls have overestimated the actual third-party vote share.

The latest: Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr.’s running mate, said yesterday the Kennedy campaign is thinking of dropping out of the race and backing Trump.

• Kennedy is polling at about 5% nationally, while no other third party candidate has managed to pick up a significant share of the vote.