Democrat Klobuchar Says She'd Preserve Parts of Trump's Tax Law
Democrat Klobuchar Says She'd Preserve Parts of Trump's Tax Law
(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar said Wednesday she doesn’t want to fully repeal President Donald Trump’s tax law, breaking with rival and fellow Senator Kamala Harris who said it should be eliminated entirely.
“I would’ve brought that corporate tax rate down some, but not to where they brought it,” the Minnesota senator said at a Fox News town hall in Wisconsin. “There are parts of that bill that I would keep in place.”
Klobuchar didn’t say where she’d set the corporate rate — which the law brought down from 35% to 21% at a cost of roughly $1.4 trillion — or which other parts of the law she would seek to preserve as president. Other candidates have criticized the tax law as giving greater benefits to the wealthy and corporations rather than middle-income Americans.
Klobuchar is one of many Democrats struggling to gain traction in a field of 21 candidates, with former Vice President Joe Biden as the clear early front-runner. At the town hall hosted by the conservative news network, Klobuchar showed her moderate streak, resisting some of the progressive ideas gaining traction in the Democratic Party, like Medicare for All and free public college, while speaking cautiously about abortion and legal marijuana.
Asked about reproductive rights after the first trimester, Klobuchar said some restrictions on late-term abortion are “important,” a split with many progressives who don’t want the government to impose limits on abortion.
“I believe in Roe v. Wade and that means — those rights that we have there. Those are the rights of our country,” she said. “And of course, there are limits there in the third trimester that are very important -- about -- except for the health of the woman.”
She said women should “have the right to make their own decisions."
Klobuchar also said marijuana laws should be a state issue, unlike some Democrats who want to legalize it nationwide.
“Each state should be able to make that decision,” Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar entered the race in February as a moderate alternative to the more left-leaning candidates such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But several other candidates also are staking claims as centrists, most notably Biden.
She has been stuck at 1% to 2% in most polls, well behind Biden and trailing Sanders, Warren, Harris, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, John Harney
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