Chart from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
The tax policies that convicted felon and President-elect Donald Trump wants to enact will raise taxes on working-class Americans, like those in Mesa County, while cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
Policies that raise taxes on poorer people while disproportionately benefitting wealthier people are called “regressive taxes.” A regressive tax essentially takes the most from people who can least afford it.
Trunp’s 2017 tax cuts greatly benefitted Elon Musk, the richest man in the country, and a reason Musk supports Trump.
Examples of regressive taxes include sales taxes, tariffs (also being proposed by Trump) and user fees, like parking, admission to museums and parks, and tolls for using roads, bridges, and tunnels. If a government taxed every household in its jurisdiction a flat amount of $800 per year, regardless of household income, it would be a regressive tax because $800 is 2.67% of the total income for a household that makes $30,000/year but it’s only 0.27% of the total income for a household that makes $300,000/year. Thus that $800 tax would put a far bigger financial burden on the households that earn less money.
Trump is proposing extending his 2017 “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” which disproportionately benefits the wealthiest Americans and big corporations. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts led to record low revenues for the federal government outside of an economic recession, and plunged the federal government far deeper into debt.
The richest 748 Americans have collectively seen their wealth increase by 77%, or $2.2 trillion, since Trump passed his 2017 tax cuts, despite the fact that Trump and Republicans promoted their tax cuts as a boon for average Americans.
They weren’t.
The favoritism Trump’s tax policies have shown the wealthiest Americans via the tax code made it possible for Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Elon Musk, the country’s wealthiest man, and others, to pay zero dollars in federal taxes in 2018.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if Republicans extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts without also providing a way to pay for them, they will add $4.6 trillion (yes, that’s trillion with a “T”) to the national debt over the next 10 years.
Continuing to give huge tax breaks to billionaires and wealthy corporations means the federal government won’t bring in enough money to pay for what it has already promised its citizens, so to cover its financial obligations, the government will have to borrow even more money — and pay interest on the additional debt — thus digging America into an even deeper debt hole. Republicans then point to the rapidly increasing deficit that their own policies created as a reason to propose cutting programs that help poorer people survive, like Medicaid, disability assistance, Social Security and Food Stamps.
In the 2023-2024 Congress, Democrats introduced the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax Act to help reduce the deficit get America’s billionaires to pay their fare share of taxes.
The last time the U.S. had a budget surplus was in 2001, after Bill Clinton, a Democrat, served two terms as president. Clinton’s presidency was also the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.
Same old Republican antics. They have their playbook down pat. Tax cuts for the wealthy is no big surprise. Things did get bad under Biden for the working class, but that’s due to cleaning up Trump’s Covid mess. These two clowns, TDS Plague and badhatterharry bought trumps Bible and drank his Kool Aid.
Could you give us some details or examples of what “cleaning up Trumps Covid mess” entails?
I’m old enough to remember Biden campaigning on and then going through with cancelling federal o&g leases & cancelling Keystone XL on day one, which made energy prices skyrocket, thus triggering the highest inflation any of us had ever seen.
Also on day one, he reversed Trumps remain in Mexico policy and then soon after he reinstated catch and release, allowing border crossing numbers to explode, which brought in exponential demand for the same amount of supply already in our country. Regardless, I thought the inflation was “transitory” anyway, right?
Apparently following factual data means “we (and that would be the MAJORITY of the country) drink the kool aid.”
But go ahead and parrot more Rachel Maddow BS while providing zero data or substance to back up your comment.
Drinking the kool-aid means remembering all the insane stuff that has happened in the past four years.
*PPP loan forgiveness
*eviction moratorium
*student loan forgiveness
*$1400 stimulus check to every adult
*12 million unvetted immigrants in our midst
Rationale? cleaning up Trump’s covid mess.
I always try to give Anne the benefit of the doubt that she’s sincere because I often can’t figure out what the heck she’s talking about.
First…the lengthy explanation of “regressive” taxes for which she uses “use fees” as an example. And this is supposed to enlighten us about the Trump tax cuts??? Maybe it’s just a red herring.
It’s a popular democrat trope that the Trump tax cuts benefit the rich the most…to which I say…no kidding! because they are the ones who BY FAR pay
the most taxes. And many, many low wage workers pay NO federal tax.
Anne and her friends on the left subscribe to the “soak the rich” economic philosophy…never imagining that the rich will find many ways to hide their income and lose incentive to invest.
Back in the Reagan days, Art Laffer came up with the idea that there is an ideal way to tax the rich so that the most revenue for the government is collected. I think Trump likes this idea and will try to implement it.
The fact that literally everything we purchase inflated dramatically as soon as Biden took office, alone should prove the BS in this drivel. It’s like you idiots are too ignorant to look at your receipts over the last 4 years for fear it will taint the narrative you’re trying to spin. Every single poor person I know was better off economically from 2017-2021 than they are currently.
Not to mention, a simple google search of musks wealth shows that it was virtually flatlined from ‘17-‘21 and then SKYROCKETED under Biden. Also, he NEVER supported Trump until the first assassination attempt.
Do you do ANY research on the BS you post, or are you just expecting people to trust you like we’re supposed to trust corporate media?