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Financial woes and the future of the economy have been top of mind for voters this election cycle. Whoever wins the Oval Office will need a cooperative Congress to enact their tax policies, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris have presented diverging plans.
Harris has said she would keep the Biden administration’s promises to not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 and enact a “billionaire” tax. Trump has promised to lower the corporate tax rate even further and lift the cap on deductions for state and local taxes.
Maine Morning Star asked the candidates running for U.S. Senate in Maine whose plan they’d support if elected, or if they’d try to advance an alternative path for the country’s economy.
Another key component of Trump’s plan for the economy is imposing steep tariffs on imported goods, which Maine’s congressional candidates previously detailed varying views on for Maine Morning Star.
The incumbent, independent U.S. Sen. Angus King, generally supports a tax policy that takes a larger percentage of income from high earners than from low-income groups. King has also said he wants to see Congress expand the child tax credit to what had been in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. These two stances make him fall more in line with Harris, although he did not respond to questions about whose plan he would support.
King, who has held his Senate seat since 2013 after serving as Maine governor, is being challenged by Democrat David Costello, Republican Demi Kouzounas and independent Jason Cherry.
Costello and Cherry generally share similar economic views with King. While Costello hopes to continue the tax plan outlined by the President Joe Biden’s administration, with some tweaks, Cherry is more skeptical of the Democratic Party’s efforts to create a fairer tax system.
Kouzounas declined multiple requests from Maine Morning Star about her stance on tax policy. While she hasn’t said whether she’d support changing tax rates for corporations or high-income earners, she’s previously criticized the American Rescue Plan Act as “a $2 trillion tax hike proposal” and voiced concern about legislative Democrats’ spending resulting in higher taxes for Mainers.
While Costello is supportive of the Biden administration’s tax plan, he indicated he’d be open to some of Harris’ proposed additions.
“I would support the tax fairness and revenue plan outlined by the Biden administration, including increasing the tax rate on corporations,” Costello said.
Cherry said he is not in favor of the current tax system as someone who pays taxes at the highest rate, 34%, because he believes it allows the wealthiest citizens to avoid contributing to the nation’s common wealth.
“As someone who values the contributions of successful entrepreneurs and ‘job makers,’ I am not against reasonable profits and rewards for their efforts. However, given the stark reality of the inequality, I would support a more even-handed taxing of investment assets and closing of loopholes that provide extremely unfair ‘tax shelters’ for the wealthiest citizens,” Cherry said, adding that he would also support tax regulations that mirror aspects of the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which would tax the super rich on both their net worth and typically untaxed wealth such as trusts.
Further, Cherry, an independent, took aim at the Democratic Party for what he sees as a failure to look inward.
“I am also not convinced the more elite members of the Democratic Party are fully behind honest efforts to instill a fairer tax system given their treatment of whistleblowers and the evident reality that their own wealthy supporters’ (donors’) continue to engage in outrageous tax avoidance schemes,” Cherry said, referring to the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Charles Littlejohn, an IRS contractor who stole and disseminated tax documents to the media related to Trump and other wealthy individuals.
Harris’ “opportunity economy” platform includes a permanent expansion of the child tax credit, which Congress adopted during the pandemic in 2021 but did not renew in 2022. Her plan would raise the tax credit back to $3,000 per child — $3,600 for preschoolers and $6,000 for babies.
King supports this expansion.
“The best thing we’ve done for children and families in the last several years was the child tax credit during the pandemic,” King said in a social media video last week. “It cut child poverty in half in this country and benefited over 200,000 Maine children. What we need to do now is re-pass the child tax credit.”
Currently, the maximum credit is $2,000 per qualifying child for an individual making less than $200,000 annually or a couple filing jointly that makes less than $400,000 — a refundability cap Trump increased with a 2017 tax law, expanding the credit to wealthier Americans.
While Trump has said little publicly about the child tax credit during his current campaign, the policy he set during his former presidency differs from Harris’ plan in that it excludes many low-income families who earn too little and owe no income tax.
Separately, Maine is one of a dozen states that has its own child tax credit program.
Like King, Costello said he would also support legislation that restores the child tax credit program to what existed in 2021.
Cherry is generally supportive of child tax credits but did not say whether he’d wants to see an expansion beyond what’s currently in place. He said he thinks they will help declining birth rates and help people take on the responsibility of parenthood without breaking the bank.
“Birthrates have plummeted in a number of industrialized nations, yet the private and public leaders appear to simply lament the reality without providing a means to resolve it,” Cherry said. “There are many industrial nations that understand addressing the declining birth rates means providing public support for the growth of families, especially in the face of sharply rising living costs.”
However, as he has noted for many of his policy stances, he’d want to hear from constituents, including critics of a specific plan, before voting on legislation.
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