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Joe Biden Just Promised America A Massive Tax Hike


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | APRIL 24, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/24/joe-biden-just-promised-america-a-massive-tax-hike/

Joe Biden and AOC

Here is our president today:

Well, obviously Trump should be “proud” of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is set to expire at the end of 2025. If the GOP presidential candidate had any sense, he would be running Biden’s promise to enact a $2 trillion tax hike, one of the biggest in American history, in a perpetual ad loop. Of course the rich benefited. As did everyone else. Even the New York Times and Washington Post were compelled to admit as much.

In raw terms, as with any across-the-board tax cut, Trump’s reform helped higher earners most, because high earners pay most of our federal taxes. In 2023, the top 1 percent paid eight times the rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers. The idea that the rich aren’t paying their share is a preposterous zero-sum economic myth spread by resentment-racket class warriors on left and right. If everyone actually paid his “fair share” in this country, we’d be years deep into a violent revolution.

If anything, the problem with Trump’s tax cuts was that the code became more progressive, although other downsides include the lack of any corresponding cuts or reforms of debt-driving entitlements. Quite the opposite.

As a percentage of income, though, the Trump tax cuts benefited the middle class most, as Justin Haskins explained:

A careful analysis of the IRS tax data, one that includes the effects of tax credits and other reforms to the tax code, shows that filers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $15,000 to $50,000 enjoyed an average tax cut of 16 percent to 26 percent in 2018, the first year Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect and the most recent year for which data is available.

Filers who earned $50,000 to $100,000 received a tax break of about 15 percent to 17 percent, and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 in adjusted gross income saw their personal income taxes cut by around 11 percent to 13 percent.

By comparison, no income group with an AGI of at least $500,000 received an average tax cut exceeding 9 percent, and the average tax cut for brackets starting at $1 million was less than 6 percent. (For more detailed data, see my table published here.)

That means most middle-income and working-class earners enjoyed a tax cut that was at least double the size of tax cuts received by households earning $1 million or more.

Let’s not forget, as well, when “that tax cut is going to expire”—and there are no assurances anything would pass to take its place—that would slash child tax credits from $2,000 per child to $1,000 and cut additional credits for older children and dependents in half. It should also be remembered that corporate taxes—which Trump cut from 35 percent to 21 percent and Democrats raised again—are also just a tax on consumers.

You may also recall the fearmongering and performative meltdowns among Democrats over the tax reform. Larry Summers, a relatively moderate voice on the left, warned Trump’s bill was “a threat to democracy” and would lead to more than 10,000 dead Americans every year.

“Armageddon,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned, declaring Trump’s tax cut “one of the worst bills in the history of the United States Congress”— potentially, then, in a category with the Fugitive Slave Act and the Espionage Act. Unhinged progressive economist Bruce Bartlett said on MSNBC the tax cuts were “really akin to rape” of the poor, while the Washington Post ran an article from a “depression historian” who contended, “The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929.”

What happened? The bill passed at the end of 2017. In 2018,

  • the real GDP increased 3.1 percent, compared with an increase of 2.5 percent the previous year.
  • The price index for GDP purchases increased 2.1 percent in 2018, compared to 1.9 percent in 2017.

Many “new right” populists don’t like defending tax cuts (Ronald Reagan talked about them a lot, so yuck). But the average American family — which is middle class, lives in the suburbs, and votes in high numbers — will surely be more concerned about a rising tax bill than about any issue animating the populist Internet influencer crowd.  

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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House passes sweeping tax bill in huge victory for GOP


Reported By Naomi Jagoda and Cristina Marcos – 11/16/17 01:48 PM

The House on Thursday passed legislation to overhaul the tax code, moving Republicans one step closer to achieving the top item on their legislative agenda.  The measure was approved by a vote of 227-205. No Democrats voted for the bill, while 13 Republicans broke ranks to oppose it.

“Passing this bill is the single biggest thing we can do to grow the economy, to restore opportunity and help these middle-income families who are struggling,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said ahead of the vote.

Once the bill reached the magic number for passage, Republicans in the chamber erupted into applause. Democrats mockingly joined in, with some singing “na na na na, hey hey, goodbye,” like they did when the chamber passed an ObamaCare repeal bill earlier this year.

Besides Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), who had concerns about the bill’s impact on the debt, all of the GOP no votes came from the states of New York, New Jersey and California.

Opposing the bill were New York Reps. Dan Donovan, John Faso, Pete Kingc, Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin; New Jersey Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen , Leonard Lance , Frank LoBiondo  and Chris Smith, and California Reps. Darrell Issa , Tom McClintock 

Passage of the tax bill, which was unveiled just two weeks ago, was relatively drama-free compared to the GOP’s failed effort to repeal ObamaCare earlier this year.

The stakes are high for Republicans, who are feeling pressure to show that they can govern ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The Democratic wave in last week’s gubernatorial and state house elections in Virginia and New Jersey has only added to their anxiety.

GOP leaders are hoping to get legislation to President Trump’s desk by Christmas, an ambitious timeline given the obstacles that are mounting in the Senate.

Ahead of the House vote, Trump visited the Capitol to rally the House GOP conference in support of the bill. The president and his economic advisers have touted tax reform as the key to unlocking economic growth.

The measure approved Thursday would reduce the number of individual tax brackets, slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent and eliminate a number of tax breaks and deductions.

The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated that the bill would lower federal revenues by about $1.4 trillion over 10 years — a key finding, as the Republican budget only allows lawmakers to add $1.5 trillion to the debt during that time.

JCT said that all income groups would see a tax cut on average under the bill in 2019, but that some income groups, particularly those making $20,000 to $50,000, in some future years would see tax increases on average.

House Republicans who have labored for months on the tax bill celebrated the vote on Thursday, saying the GOP is on track to put more money in people’s pockets and spur investment in new jobs.

“For too long, this broken tax code has eroded America’s economic leadership around the world,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady  (R-Texas), the chief architect of the legislation.

Democrats denounced the bill, saying it mostly benefit wealthy individuals and corporations while increasing taxes on some in the middle class.

Rep. John Yarmuth  (D-Ky.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, brought a giant check to the House floor debate giving $500 billion to “The Wealthiest 1%” from “The American Taxpayers.” The fake check was signed, “Congressional Republicans.” 

“Hard-working families get pocket change,” Yarmuth said, holding up a handful of coins for emphasis. “But millions don’t even get that.”

The House bill would eliminate the deduction for state and local income and sales taxes and cap the property-tax deduction at $10,000, which could hurt people in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.

“I just have too many constituents who are going to see their taxes go up or not see the benefit of the tax relief,” Zeldin said.

Senate Republicans have their own tax bill, which is currently being considered by the chamber’s tax-writing committee. The Senate legislation differs from the House’s in a number of ways. Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill fully repeals the state and local tax deduction, delays the corporate tax cut until 2019 and repeals ObamaCare’s individual mandate. The Senate’s bill also sunsets tax cuts for individuals after 2025, in order to comply with the “Byrd rule” that the measure can’t increase the deficit after 10 years if it is to pass with a simple majority.

No more than two Senate Republicans can vote against their bill if Democrats are united in opposition to it. Already, Sen. Ron Johnson  (R-Wis.) has said he doesn’t support either the House or the Senate bills because they provide more of a benefit to corporations than to other types of businesses. Sen. Susan Collins(R-Maine) has expressed concerns about including repeal of the individual mandate, but has not taken a hard stance yet on the measure.

Senate Republicans are aiming to vote on their tax plan during the week after the Thanksgiving holiday.

If the Senate passes its bill, it will set up a difficult conference negotiation between the two chambers over the final legislation.

– This story was updated at 2:15 p.m.

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