Coakley outlines tax plan; Brown hits ‘status quo’

By John Ellement, Globe Staff

Democratic US Senate candidate Martha Coakley today outlined a tax plan that she says would benefit the middle class and small businesses, and not the wealthy she argues have been unfairly helped by Bush-era tax cuts.

Coakley said she wants to make a $2500 college tax credit -- called the American Opportunity Tax Credit -- permanent for low- and middle-class families. She also wants to increase the child and dependent care tax credit to help offset the cost of day care.

In addition, Coakley proposed making permanent the federal Research and Development Tax Credit for companies and research institutes, as well as increasing money for microloans made by the Small Business Administration and enacting other tax credits for business who invest in hiring and training new employees.

"We must provide a targeted infusion of tax relief to the middle class and to small businesses to support them and continue to move us out of this difficult economy,'' Coakley, the state's attorney general, said in a statement.

Coakley used the opportunity to take a shot at her Republican opponent in the Jan. 19 election, state Senator Scott Brown of Wrentham.

"While Scott Brown supports the Bush-Cheney tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that contributed to our growing national deficit, I believe we should be offering real tax relief to those middle-class families and small businesses who need it most," Coakley said.

Brown's campaign cited research from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center showing that nearly three-fourths of families, not just the wealthy, are getting a tax cut this year from the two tax bills signed into law by President Bush in 2001 and 2002. His campaign also posted online a mock restaurant tab contending that some of the policies Coakley supports will cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion dollars by 2014.