Judy Taylor, Researcher
Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of tax relief for middle class Americans and bragged that the benefits of the GOP’s tax reform bill would go to the middle class, not high earners. Surprise: that isn’t what happened. The long-term Republican goal of reducing taxes for the wealthy justified by its “trickle down” theory, combined with the force of Trump’s billionaire cabinet, resulted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that benefits wealthy individuals and corporations, largely ignores the middle class, and hugely increase the federal deficit. Corporate benefits will trickle down—to investors and shareholders. But that’s not all. Now the administration is floating the idea of large cut to taxes on investment income worth $100 billion over ten years. Guess who will benefit?
There is some light at the end of the tunnel—some polls suggest that voters are increasingly aware of the deep inequities of tax “reform,” and that the same Republicans in Congress who voted huge tax breaks to billionaires are also responsible for increases in health care costs to ordinary Americans.