Tonight, President Obama will deliver his sixth State of the Union address. He’s widely expected to present tax hikes as “fresh ideas” to help middle class Americans.
Obama’s wannabe successor, Hillary Clinton, has desperately tried to craft the same kind of populist message the President will deliver tonight—a clear indication she would serve as a third term for Obama. But the problem is she’s a terrible candidate to carry this message.
Take the estate tax, for example. Just like Obama, Clinton claims to support increasing the estate tax to make the wealthy pay “their fair share,” they claim. But the Clintons skirted the estate tax rules by dividing their properties into smaller trusts. That allows them to pay a lower effective estate tax rate.
As the Occupy crowd might say – that’s a total 1%er move. Not exactly the kind of message Democrats want to be sending to middle class voters in 2016.