Bernie Sanders has yet to announce the details of how he will pay for the national single-payer Medicare. | AP Photo Clinton hits Sanders on middle class tax hikes 'The last thing you should do is cut their take-home pay right off the bat,' says Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon.

Hillary Clinton is spoiling for a fight over middle-class tax hikes.

Three days after the fairly cordial second Democratic debate, Clinton’s campaign is mounting an attack against Sen. Bernie Sanders for proposals to raise taxes on the middle class that were part of the national single-payer health care bills he introduced in Congress.


“Bernie Sanders has called for a roughly 9-percent tax hike on middle-class families just to cover his health-care plan,” said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, referring to legislation Sanders introduced in 2013, “and simple math dictates he'll need to tax workers even more to pay for the rest of his at least $18-20 trillion agenda. If you are truly concerned about raising incomes for middle-class families, the last thing you should do is cut their take-home pay right off the bat by raising their taxes.”

Sanders introduced a single-payer health care bill in 2013 that included a 2.2 percent income tax across the board, as well as a 6.7 percent payroll tax for employers, The Washington Post reported Friday, and he has introduced similar legislation in multiple sessions of Congress. While payroll taxes are split between employers and employees, economists and the Congressional Budget Office have said that most of those fees are carried by the workers in the form of lower wages.

Sanders has yet to announce the details of how he will pay for the national single-payer, "Medicare for all Americans" proposal that is a major plank of his presidential campaign. Economic experts have said it would be impossible to institute a single-payer system relying solely on tax hikes on the wealthy. Sanders camp has argued in response that in the long run, the single-payer system will save the country trillions of currently wasted dollars.

"On Medicare for all, the middle class would be far better off because it would save taxpayers money," Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said in response to Clinton's latest line of attack. "More people would get better care at less cost. Didn't she used to be for that? We wouldn't throw money away on costly premiums for profit-making private insurance companies. Pharmaceutical companies would no longer be able to rip off Americans with the most expensive prescription drugs in the world. Didn't she used to be for that?"

"Secretary Clinton has singled out Senator Gillibrand and praised her [family leave]

legislation which, it turns out, Secretary Clinton now refuses to

support because of the way it's paid for," Briggs added, noting it requires a small tax hike on the middle class. "No wonder people have their

doubts about her."

For months, Clinton’s campaign has been highlighting issues on which it can carve out a lane to the left of Sanders — gun control became a flash point in the first debate when Clinton attacked Sanders for his vote against the Brady Bill, and she doubled down on those attacks for days afterward on the campaign trail.

The latest attempt to draw a contrast on tax hikes and wage increases can be seen as an attempt by Clinton to undercut any momentum Sanders is building among union workers and middle-class voters, and to position herself as the candidate most concerned with take-home pay for working families.

“Hillary Clinton believes strongly that middle-class families deserve a raise, not a tax increase,” Fallon said. “She has proposed a bold, aggressive agenda, but when it comes to paying for it, she will make sure the wealthiest Americans finally start paying their fair share, not force the middle class to pay even more than they already do."

During the debate, Clinton stated that she will not raise taxes on the middle class to pay for her debt-free public college program and her proposal to institute mandatory paid family leave — but stopped short of drawing a contrast with Sanders’ tax plans. “I have made very clear that hardworking, middle-class families need a raise, not a tax increase,” Clinton said Saturday night. “I will pay for it by, yes, taxing the wealthy more, closing corporate loopholes, deductions and other kinds of favorable treatment, and I can do it without raising the debt, without raising taxes on the middle class."

When he was asked about his forthcoming tax plan during the debate, Sanders demurred.. “We haven’t come up with an exact number yet,” he said when asked how much he would raise the country’s top marginal income tax rate to pay for his proposals.

