Overview
- Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act would exempt income up to about $46,000 for single filers and $92,000 for couples via a cost‑of‑living exemption, funded by tiered surtaxes on millionaires, and it rolled out with multiple Senate co‑sponsors and labor and activist endorsements.
- Sen. Cory Booker’s Keep Your Pay plan would more than double the standard deduction to $37,500 for single filers and $75,000 for joint filers and expand refundable credits, paired with higher taxes on corporations and top earners as partial offsets.
- Budget estimates vary sharply: analyses cited place Van Hollen’s plan from roughly budget‑neutral or under $200 billion in lost revenue over 10 years to about $1.6 trillion, while Booker’s plan is pegged around $5.3 trillion to nearly $7 trillion without specified full offsets.
- The Tax Foundation reports that filers with zero or negative federal income tax would rise from about 63.3 million today to roughly 94.5 million under Booker’s proposal and about 95 million under Van Hollen’s.
- Supporters frame the proposals as affordability relief and a bid to compete with GOP tax messaging, while critics warn the designs could skew benefits up the income scale and crowd out other Democratic priorities; neither plan has an official Congressional score.