Kaine backs aspects of Obama’s tax increases on wealthy Americans

A majority of Americans seem to support raising taxes on the wealthy. A New York Times/CBS
News poll released Wednesday showed that 56 percent of Americans
supported raising taxes on Americans who make more than $250,000
annually to reduce the deficit, while 37 percent opposed the plan.

But some centrist Democrats — including retiring Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), whose seat Kaine and Allen are seeking, and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who faces a tough reelection fight next year — have criticized the idea. Kaine supports repealing President George W. Bush’s tax breaks for those who make more than $1 million a year.

{mosads}The National Republican Senatorial Committee accused Kaine of “being shifty” and moving away from Obama on the plan in a statement earlier on Wednesday, but Kaine’s campaign told the Richmond Times-Dispatch the same thing late last week.

Allen’s campaign criticized Kaine’s stance.

“Like anyone would expect from a loyal DNC chairman, Tim Kaine is one of the first Democrat Senate candidates out of the gate to embrace President Obama’s $1.5 trillion tax increase,” said Allen spokesman Bill Riggs. “This isn’t surprising, considering he has a long track record of supporting higher taxes in a weak economy, proposing $4 billion in tax increases when he was governor, as Virginia lost more than 100,000 jobs.”

“Chairman Kaine’s support for this job-crushing tax hike just proves what we already knew,” continued Riggs.” Chairman Kaine wants to be senator for President Obama, George Allen will be senator for Virginia.”

Updated at 3:20 p.m. on Sept. 22 to include more details of Kaine’s position.