Democratic congressional candidate Matt Cartwright promised to fight, if elected, "powerful forces ... that want to stamp out the middle class."
The powerful forces are "multi-multi-billionaires" like David and Charles Koch, who contribute millions of dollars to Republican political campaigns in hopes of rolling back long-established laws governing the minimum wage, child labor and the 40-hour workweek, Mr. Cartwright told The Times-Tribune editorial board Tuesday.
"There are reactionary forces in this country that want to go back to that (the days before all those laws)," he said. "And that's why they fund the campaigns of people who want to cut, cut, cut all of the good things that government does, all in the name of reducing taxes."
"Who I am is somebody who has been standing up on my hind legs and sticking up for people in working families and the middle class my whole adult life," he said. "It's something that I've come to love, standing up for regular people against powerful forces."
Mr. Cartwright, a lawyer, is seeking the 17th Congressional District seat against Republican home-health nursing company owner Laureen Cummings of Old Forge. The district encompasses all or parts of six counties, including the Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Pittston areas and all of Schuylkill County.
Mr. Cartwright said he favors gradually phasing in a "return fully to the Bill Clinton (-era) tax rates," starting with an increase on the wealthiest Americans.
Under President Bill Clinton, tax rates in his final year in office ranged from 15 percent on earnings up to $35,150 to 39.6 percent on all earnings over $288,350. Under President George W. Bush, the lowest tax rates were reduced to the present 10 percent on all earnings up to $12,150 and 15 percent on all earnings between that amount and $46,250. The highest rate is 35 percent on all income above $379,150. The job Mr. Cartwright is running for pays $174,000 a year.
"I think if you do that (raise taxes) for people making a million dollars more a year, it's not really going to impact their lifestyles, impact their spending habits. It's just going to change numbers in their brokerage accounts," he said.
He's against raising taxes on the middle class during the economic slump, he said.
Mr. Cartwright called for "reasonable cuts" to defense spending to reign in deficits.
"In a peacetime economy, it's appropriate to make modest cuts to defense spending," he said. "Even defense industry understand that and are prepared for it."
But he drew the line at cutting funding for the Tobyhanna Army Depot, one of the region's largest employers and largest federal appropriation in the district. "And you better believe, I intend to have Tobyhanna at the top of every white board in my legislative office in Washington," Mr. Cartwright said.
He dismissed Ms. Cummings' push for a "fair tax" - a 23 percent national sales tax to fund the federal government - to replace the major existing federal taxes, including the income, capital gains, Social Security payroll and Medicare payroll taxes.
"The fair tax is a wonderful example of naming a bill the opposite of what it is," Mr. Cartwright said. "You see a lot of that in Congress, but the fair tax has to take the cake."
He called the tax unworkable and said it would fall hardest on the middle class.
"And the wealthiest Americans are spending a tiny, tiny, minuscule portion of their income on tax. It's such a regressive system that the Wall Street Journal has called it unworkable, that bastion of left-leaning pinko liberals," he said sarcastically of the conservative daily business newspaper.
Mr. Cartwright also said he would work to repeal the "Halliburton loophole" that allows gas drillers to avoid disclosing the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing; keep Israel at "the top of our list of great friends and allies," and prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com, @borysblogTT on Twitter