Senators Warren and Moreno
One month after its unveiling with Elizabeth Warren, no elected or unelected conservative has endorsed Bernie Moreno’s $3 trillion tax increase which would impose a payroll tax increase resulting in a 56% all-in rate on Ohio small businesses (and a minimum 52% tax rate nationwide) and kill 1.8 million jobs across the country.
Conservative opposition to the tax hike is broad and deep.
Let’s review who does support the Moreno tax increase.
SUPPORTING the Moreno tax increase:
-Elizabeth Warren
-Pramila Jayapal
-Jasmine Crockett
-David Sirota (founder of the Progressive States Network)
-Martin O’Malley (Democrat former governor of Maryland)
-Democrat congressman John B. Larson of Connecticut
-an unnamed “Ohio Republican political strategist”
-an unnamed “second Republican strategist with experience in Ohio”
(You know its bad when even the “strategists” don’t want their name in the paper)
OPPOSED to the Moreno tax increase:
Heritage Foundation’s Peter St. Onge and Nicole Huyer — “With more money taken out of weekly paychecks, this tax on productive work and investment will slow wage growth and job creation.”
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) – “The proposed tax hike would be a hammer blow to small businesses. No thank you.”
Steve Moore – “Mr. Moreno has signed off on a plan that would blow up the economy and the Republican Party.”
Ben Shapiro – “So Bernie Moreno, who I campaigned for in Ohio, I like Senator Moreno a lot, but this is a bad idea.
He is signing on to some sort of plan for Social Security that Elizabeth Warren is signing on to. Elizabeth Warren, who again, is part of the Bernie Sanders left. The plan is basically just to raise taxes on people.”
Phil Kerpen, President of American Commitment – “Senator, I don’t think partnering with Elizabeth Warren to demand a huge increase in the top marginal tax rate is a good way to STOP a socialist uprising.”
David McIntosh, President of the Club for Growth – “Terrible idea. Awful. We gotta kill it.”
Larry Kudlow — “Worst Republican tax idea: Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio wants to jack up Social Security tax. It will just depress and sink the economy. Not solve a thing.”
Kamryn Crane, Budget and Entitlement Reform Policy Analyst at Independent Women — “The problem with eliminating the payroll tax cap is that it places a much larger burden on small business owners and the self-employed. Because they must pay both the employee and the employer side of payroll taxes, business owners and freelancers are subject to a higher tax simply because they chose non-traditional employment.
The senators proposing to eliminate the payroll tax cap paint those affected as wealthy corporate lawyers, but this skews reality. Hard-working Americans finding unique ways to support their families and supplement their incomes will be affected. Middle-class W-2 earners with a successful side business would surpass the cap. When the few thousand extra dollars a mom makes from grocery deliveries or selling handcrafted items on Etsy are suddenly taxed higher, her hard work is penalized, discouraging her efforts and making priorities like saving for her child’s future no longer worth it.
Instead of penalizing success and discouraging self-employment, policymakers need to reform Social Security so it works as intended.”
Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform – “Bernie Moreno is teaming up with Elizabeth Warren to scalp taxpayers. Bernie Moreno threatens to impose a 56% tax rate on Ohio small and midsize businesses, the key employers in every town. This a more radical, costly tax hike than Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris campaigned on.”
Ruthless Podcast — Josh Holmes – “I LOVE Bernie Moreno and that he’s thinking about the thing everyone else ignores. He’s one of the best we have. But this is a HARD no. In concept. In practice. In any capacity.”
Erick Erickson – “Senators Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have teamed up to destroy the American economy. Under their plan, the cap on the payroll tax would end. Right now, all earnings up to $184,500 are taxed for purposes of Social Security and Medicaid.
Moreno and Warren want to get rid of that $184,500 cap.
Anyone self-employed already knows the burden of taxation to fund our social welfare state. If Moreno and Warren are successful, the effective maximum federal tax rate would exceed the highest tax rate since Kennedy was President. Combined with state taxes, some Americans would pay a tax rate of over 65%.
Remember too that you alone do not pay the full tax rate. Businesses split it with you. This is why the self-employed are under a significant tax burden. Since they are both the employer and the employee, the self-employed pay the full rate. Independent contractors would be financially ruined.”
Glenn Beck — “Even Bernie Moreno from Ohio has teamed up with Elizabeth Warren. No. Yeah, yeah. A Republican in air quotes and the Democrat in air quotes get together. Lift it, tax every single dollar, soak the rich completely. And you know what that buys you? If you soak them completely, it closes half the gap. Half. That’s the government’s own number. That’s not my number. You can confiscate everything above the count. Take it all, and you’re still standing in a hole. Because you cannot tax your way out of it.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) – “There is no path to 60 votes for far-left proposals focused solely on imposing punitive tax hikes.”
Senator John Husted (R-Ohio) – “I’m not on board with the approach that they’ve outlined in terms of the process that they’ve outlined with the tax increase, the targeted tax increase that they have. So, I love Bernie Moreno, he’s my friend, he’s my colleague, and I agree we should protect Social Security, we’ve gotta strengthen Social Security, but this rifle approach with the giant tax increase is not the way that I would go about this.”
NFIB — in testimony opposing a payroll tax increase, NFIB said:
“85% of small businesses are organized as pass-through entities for federal tax purposes and report their business earnings and expenses on their individual tax returns.”
“As a result, business income earned through pass-through entities such as S-Corps, sole proprietorships, and partnerships would be subject to these additional Social Security taxes.”
“At a time when small businesses continue to struggle with inflation, labor shortages, rising borrowing costs, and general economic uncertainty, Congress should not impose another significant tax increase on entrepreneurship and job creation.”
The S-Corporation Association — The tax hike “would result in a smaller economy, fewer jobs, and less revenue than what the proponents expect.”
Ken Blackwell, former Treasurer and Secretary of State of Ohio AND Club for Growth President David McIntosh — “This new tax hits hardest the people who power Ohio’s economy. By stacking the uncapped payroll tax on top of the top income-tax rate, many small-business owners will be crushed by Bernie’s new tax. These individuals pay both halves of that payroll tax themselves and will face effective federal rates over 56%. These are the employers on Main Streets from Cleveland to Cincinnati. Punishing their success isn’t fairness; it’s a drag on the wages and jobs Ohioans depend on.
It also claws back the relief Americans were just promised. The 2025 Working Families Tax Cuts, which Sen. Moreno himself voted for, held the top rate at 37% and stopped the scheduled climb back to 39.6%. Families and business owners were told their taxes would stay down.”
Alex Durante, Senior Economist at the Tax Foundation – “A payroll tax increase of 12.4 percentage points would be the largest tax increase since 1982, at about 0.83 percent of GDP in 2027, and would push top income tax rates punishingly high. A business owner in New York City, for instance, could face a top marginal rate as high as 60 percent—well above the approximately 52 percent revenue-maximizing rate recently estimated by Treasury and Joint Committee on Taxation economists. Lifting the payroll tax cap would exceed that revenue-maximizing rate in many cases, inducing behavioral responses that erode the revenue gain by causing excessive economic harm. Shifts to non-taxed compensation, such as employee fringe benefits or employer contributions to 401(k)s, would also be incentivized by uncapping the payroll tax.”
Guy Benson – “It would not solve the problem, and it would raise taxes (…) The details have to be right, and I think there are some relatively easy ways, especially on Social Security, to make the program a lot stronger and viable. I don’t think this is it.”
Donovan O’Neil, State Director of Americans for Prosperity Ohio – “Another bad idea. Among many bad ideas from the Progressive left on how to further wreck our country. Stop taking their advice Bernie.”
Ramesh Ponnuru, Editor at National Review Online – “A Republican senator endorses the largest increase in federal tax rates in 94 years.”
Charles C.W. Cooke, Senior Writer at National Review Online – “Unbelievable.”
Conn Caroll, Commentary Editor at The Washington Examiner – “Correct me if I’m wrong but this is just a tax hike.”
Dan Mitchell, President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity – “RINO Alert: supposed GOP senator proposes massive tax increase on investors, entrepreneurs, and business owners.”
Steve Forbes — “There are two big things that tax-raisers like those senators never understand. First, taxes are a price and burden. Real-world experience repeatedly shows that when you boost the price of productive work and success, you get less of them. Less growth means less revenue to pay Social Security benefits, among other things. Second, victims of higher taxes don’t stand still and get sheared like obedient sheep. These two facts mean that revenue estimates from higher levies are rarely realized.”
Richard A. Stern, Vice President at the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom – “You can’t claim to be pro-family if your plan is to steal from young working families to give to mostly well-off retirees.”
Tim Chapman, President of Advancing American Freedom – “At a time when Democrats are sinking further into the socialist abyss, ‘new right’ republicans keep throwing them a lifeline. Add Senator Moreno’s new proposal to the increasingly growing list of ideas that blur the line between Democrat socialists and big government Republicans.”
Joel Griffith, Senior Fellow at Advancing American Freedom – “Bernie Moreno (R-OH) is teaming up with @SenWarren (D-MA) on an enormous tax hike proposal spiking the federal marginal rate from 38.5% to 50.9% for many small business owners. Confiscating more than half of a family’s income is anti-growth.”
Preston Brashers, Research Fellow at Advancing American Freedom – “Oh, I thought this was the other senator named Bernie.”
Ryan Ellis, President of the Center for a Free Economy – “This is a huge marginal income tax rate hike not only on wages, but also the self-employed and partnerships. We’d have a top marginal income tax rate of over 50%, the highest level in over four decades. How would your fellow small business owners of Ohio fare, Bernie Moreno?”
Akash Chougule, President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity – “There’s good bipartisanship that actually attempts to address a problem in a serious manner that has a real path to becoming law, like the housing bill. And then there is absolute garbage slopulism like this that treats Americans – Republican voters in particular – like they are idiots. Rather than protect any struggling American – or the long-term health of Social Security, for that matter – this would be the biggest tax hike in decades to protect a status quo that disproportionately benefits wealthier Americans. It simply deepens Total Boomer Luxury Communism. Our entitlement programs badly need to be reformed, and fast. This is not the way.”
Will Burger, Senior Advisor at Americans for Prosperity – “This is an awful, economically illiterate, pandering idea. Most importantly, it won’t solve the problem.”
Rick Esenberg, President of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty – “And there’s no way this happens without distorting markets. If I can only keep a bit over 30 cents on the dollar, then the relative value of working and playing pickleball changes.”
Andrew Biggs, Senior Fellow at American Enterprise Institute – “One of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history and concentrated on a small number of workers.
Effectively increase the top marginal tax rate by 12 percentage points, a massive increase that would give the U.S. higher top tax rates than nearly all European countries.
“Added to existing federal income and payroll taxes and state income taxes, high earners in places like New York and California would be paying over 60 cents on each additional dollar to the government. Those workers will either work less or try to avoid the tax.”
Moreno and Warren call their idea a ‘no-brainer.’ I agree, though not in the way they might appreciate.”
Jack Salmon, Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center – “Eliminating the Social Security taxable maximum would add another 6.2 (or up to 12.4) percentage points to labor income above the current cap. The result would be a combined marginal tax burden exceeding 60 percent on some forms of earned income in states like California. Similarly, in New York City, with state and local taxes included, the top rate would be 64.1 percent.”
Ultimately, eliminating the taxable maximum would be one of the largest tax increases available within the Social Security system, yet it would still leave a substantial portion of the program’s long-term financing gap unresolved. That reality underscores the scale of the challenge and suggests that durable reform will require more than simply taxing high earners at higher rates.”
Eric Teetsel, CEO at Center for Renewing America – “For those who aren’t in the weeds of Social Security policy, what Senators Moreno and Warren are proposing is effectively a 6.2 percent tax on wages above ~$184,000/yr (employee side) plus 6.2 percent on the employer side — or 12.4 percent for self-employed workers.”
Dominic Pino – “The bipartisan proposal to raise the top marginal rate on wage income by 12.4 percentage points and use 100% of the extra revenue to keep paying the wealthiest generation ever the same level of benefits they already receive.”
Andrew Biggs, American Enterprise Institute — “Eliminating the payroll tax ceiling, as Moreno and Warren propose, would repeat this foolhardy process. It would generate a fizz of new revenues but be followed by a hangover of higher benefit costs and fewer taxes available to meet them.”
Jared Dillian — “The government’s take as a percentage of gross domestic product would go to European levels and beyond.”
Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center — “Sens. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) want you to believe that eliminating the cap on payroll taxes would fix the problem. That solution fails on its own terms.”
