She's running, Kamala Harris edition

"The lift the Middle Class Act would provide monthly cash payments of up to $500 to lower-income families, on top of the tax credits and public benefits they already receive."

Sort of a misnomer.

Kamala Harris’s Trump-Size Tax Plan by Annie Lowrey (via Neera Tanden)

Harris is offering as much as $3,000 a year for a single person or $6,000 a year for a married couple, on top of existing tax and transfer programs, disbursed either as a lump-sum tax refund or as a monthly payment. Working families making less than $100,000 a year would qualify, including those making close to nothing. As many as 80 million Americans would benefit, Harris’s office has estimated, with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculating that the proposal would lift 9 million people out of poverty, including nearly 3 million kids.

...

Her proposal joins a growing number of aggressive plans coming from Democrats concerned with economic stagnation, competing to win over younger and more progressive voters, and emboldened by the success of President Donald Trump. They differ in their mechanisms, costs, and effects, but all point to the same Robin Hood goal: not just raising taxes on the rich, but shunting vastly more money to the working classes and the poor. In Harris’s case, that means something like $200 billion a year more.

Senator Harris Seeks To Raise Incomes Using A New Tax Credit by Elaine Maag (TPC)

via Josh Mound:

On one hand, Harris’s LIFT proposal is probably the best Dem tax proposal put forward in while. On the other hand, it’s still EITC-like (predicated earned income) and therefore excludes the very poorest. The front yellow line should be vertical IMO.

As Matt notes, Dems need to get out of the trapezoid trap. Just make it a UBI or make it a backdoor UBI by letting people declare a trivial amount of earned income. LIFT is better than EITC, but it still shares its work-centric problems.