The Tax cut logic

 

Jubilant Trump voters on Thursday celebrated the prospect of a gigantic tax cut that will benefit everyone but them.

Across the country, Trump supporters were overjoyed that, after months of gridlock and wrangling, the man they voted for was about to make Americans other than them wildly richer.

“President Trump has taken a lot of hits from the fake-news media, but he stood his ground,” Carol Foyler, a Trump voter in Ohio, said. “Today he honored his pledge to the American people, except for me and anybody I know.”

Harland Dorrinson, a Trump supporter from Kentucky, agreed. “When I cast my vote last November, I said to myself, ‘I sure hope this means that people with a thousand times more money than I have get even more money,’ ” he said. “Promise kept.”

Tracy Klugian, a Trump voter from Minnesota, said that tax cuts for everyone but him are an important step toward making America great again. “Look at the stock market—it’s been going through the roof,” Klugian, who has no money in the stock market, said.

But some Trump supporters, like Calvin Denoit, of Texas, were more muted. “Tax cuts that completely exclude me and my family are a good start,” he said. “But, until President Trump eliminates all environmental and safety regulations for corporations that I have zero stake in, I won’t be satisfied.”

Source: The New Yorker

The numbers are in and it’s clear: this tax bill helps the rich and hurts everybody else. Just ask the very people who wrote it. The U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation is run by the chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee—Representative Kevin Brady and Senator Orrin Hatch, respectively.

The Joint Committee’s reports of this week make startling reading, or as startling as a series of spreadsheets of tax revenue data can be. The report shows that this bill is much like a teaser rate on a new credit card: there are some goodies in the first couple of years, but those disappear fairly quickly, at least for those below the median income. In 2019, the first full year that this bill would be law, the benefits are concentrated on the bottom of the income stream, with middle-class people, on average, paying just under ten percent less in taxes than they would if the law weren’t passed.

With each passing year, the benefits shift upward, toward the rich. By 2021, those making between twenty thousand and thirty thousand dollars a year are paying considerably more in taxes, those between thirty thousand and two hundred thousand see their benefit shrinking, and those making more start to see their taxes falling. By 2027, every income level below seventy-five thousand dollars a year sees a tax increase, while everybody above that level sees a continued decrease, with the greatest cut in taxes accruing to those making more than a million dollars a year.

Source: The New Yorker

Congratulations! This will make America great again for the 1% on the top and the other 99% will -as usual- pay for it.

18 thoughts on “The Tax cut logic

  1. Welcome back! I can’t remember which Presidential candidate said it, but there’s a famous quote that a reporter told him that all intelligent people would vote for him and he replied that he needed more votes than that. It seems that nothing has changed – never underestimate the stupidity and gullibility of the masses, who believe the lies they are fed. It happened here too with Brexit, and our lame government is cluelessly taking us to the edge of the cliff. And yes, only the rich will benefit here too. It’s criminal.

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  2. The real tragedy is the inevitability of this and as Pete says above that the US is one of many places in the same boat. I have always said, as a British citizen, that Britain manages to replicate all the worst things that come out of the US, seizing them and hugging them tight and then the great stuff is entirely overlooked and ignored. Hence at the moment Britain is a country that ignores those in need, has a broken healthcare system that can’t deal with an aging population and if you don’t have a house to sell you might as well check in under the bridge with your cardboard blanket and wait for the cold and Godot to come calling because you will never afford care at the time you need it most. Well done Trump, well done May …. read your history books because it seems to me that we are hurtling back to the worst of Dickensian Britain at an alarming rate. I am appalled, disgusted and dismayed and I send all my US friends my heartfelt sympathy – those in need fell for a pack of lies. It happens time and again.

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      • In a nutshell you have it! Sadly and tragically, you have it … I grew up in a country that though small and no longer an empire was proud of its heritage and had compassion. Where it went I know not – Margaret Thatcher should rot in hell because she was the architect of the canker, Tony Blair masquerading as a socialist perpetuated it but the fact is that the citizens have allowed themselves to be infected with a bigotry that shocks me. I will never live there again. My mother asked me recently if I still feel British and I replied that I feel as I ever did but that British seems not to mean the same any more. 😔

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  3. I find myself in a state of perpetual disbelief that there isn’t marching in the streets over this! The only comfort, and I say that word through clenched teeth, is that I hope the facts become so readily apparent, that when we get to mid-terms next year at least a few more people have figured out the emperor has no clothes! I’m not going to hold my breath. The blindness doesn’t seem as temporary as I once thought it would be.

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    • We are getting used to Trump, that’s why we are not on the streets. We have an overflow of information on a daily base. Whenever we think this administration has hit rock bottom they lower themselves the next day a bit more.

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    • Well, people ARE marching in the streets about this, at least near where I live in Knoxville, TN. The marches are directed at our Senators, Alexander and Corker, who are close to sane and moderate conservatives. You may have seen especially how Corker is showing signs of pushing back on some of what his fellow Republicans, especially the Prez, are trying to do here. There’s even a TV commercial encouraging him to vote according to what he has been saying all along re tax cuts. Alexander has been working with a Dem Senator to try to fix Obamacare so that it will remain viable and reasonable for at least the short term. I think there are similar politicians in other recently red/purple states, like Ohio, who may be in a similar state of mind on this issue, esp. if they hear from their constiuents.

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      • I am so glad to read your response! I so admire the examples of grassroots activism when I see evidence of it! My local and state representatives are Democrats and pushing back as much as they can, or I take them at their word, anyway, and so my tactic has been to give donations to support candidates in other states! My donations aren’t substantive, but I can say that in my 65 years I’ve never before supported candidates in other states. I have been watching Senators Alexander and Murray and I’m impressed at their bipartisan efforts–even if they don’t accomplish their goals, they are a good example. We just can’t give up. These are extraordinary times!

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  4. I’m glad to see you posting once again. Even if the subject is horrifying. And I must ask .. what about those who rely on the government for their livelihood — those like myself who are disabled or so elderly that social security is our income. Tell me…are they going to start mass execution for those too weak, elderly or sick to contribute at all? Damn that’s scary.

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  5. Yes Bridget that is about the size of it, and how Politics works world wide.. Great post which highlights how the 1% own the rest of us.

    On a lighter note.. Hope all is well with you, and so happy to see your post in my reader this evening.. 🙂 Hugs Sue

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