Spencer flagged this yesterday, and if you're a regular reader, this "revelation" is hardly revelatory. We've spent a lot of time and energy fighting Democratic misinformation – often conveyed with ridiculous hyperbole – about the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which passed Congress without a single Democratic vote and was signed into law by President Trump. Virtually everything Democrats claimed about the bill was inaccurate. Chiefly, it was not a "tax cut for the rich" at the expense of lower-income Americans; it cut taxes for the overwhelming majority of people, across all income groups. And it did not starve the federal government, forcing draconian and misery-inducing cuts to services; income and corporate tax revenues increased to record levels after the reforms went into effect. In short, it was the opposite of "Armageddon." The economy took off and was cooking with gas, including long-delayed and meaningful wage gains for working Americans, until the pandemic forced a recession. Yet the "millionaires and billionaires" Democratic talking point refuses to die. o it's time once again to examine the data – via this Justin Haskins column in The Hill:
IRS data proves Trump tax cuts benefited middle, working-class Americans most https://t.co/u9NAWdepWL
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 5, 2021
Income data published by the IRS clearly show that on average all income brackets benefited substantially from the Republicans’ tax reform law, with the biggest beneficiaries being working and middle-income filers, not the top 1 percent, as so many Democrats have argued. 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...
...The IRS data further shows that the tax reform law — which included a variety of business tax cuts, including a large reduction in the corporate income tax rate — spurred economic mobility. Every income bracket with a top level lower than $25,000 experienced a reduction in its number of filers, and every income bracket above $25,000 increased in size, with the biggest gains occurring in the brackets with a floor of at least $100,000. The fact is, Republicans’ 2017 tax reform law did exactly what was promised: It lowered taxes for all income groups, provided the greatest benefits for middle-income households, and spurred economic growth that helped reduce poverty and improve prosperity.
The results speak for themselves. Democrats were dead wrong about nearly everything in their dishonest campaign against the tax reform law, and they universally opposed legislation that brought about such strong outcomes for American families and taxpayers. To this day, they'll claim that it was a giveaway to the rich and a raw deal for other Americans, while amusingly feigning concern about the tax cuts' impact on deficits (again, revenues increased, thanks to economic growth). And yet, as we've now highlighted on several occasions, 220 out of 221 House Democrats just voted for a massive tax-and-spend bill that nonpartisan analyses have concluded will give large tax breaks to blue state millionaires – while raising taxes on tens of millions of middle-class people. The Democrats' bogus claims about the 2017 GOP bill actually apply to their own partisan reconciliation binge, the single biggest line item of which is a tax break that benefits two-thirds of American millionaires. President Biden is apparently hoping people will believe the exact opposite of what's true:
Republicans would rather the bills at your kitchen table be higher so the taxes in big mansions can be lower.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 2, 2021
Let me tell you something: Nothing will be more expensive for American families than a NO vote on the Build Back Better plan.
This is nonsense because the primary tax beneficiaries of BBB are rich people who own big mansions in Democrat-run states. And one of the bill's supposed benefits, lower childcare costs, will actually make childcare options scarcer and more expensive for millions of American parents while erecting work disincentives. And it's impossible to take seriously Biden's warning that "nothing" would be more expensive than a vote against an explosion of spending that he has already falsely claimed costs "zero dollars." It, in fact, costs trillions of dollars, with even a rigged CBO score determining a massive shortfall of hundreds of billions of dollars. I'll leave you with one vulnerable House Democrat making the case against supporting this mind-blowing spending orgy, especially in the context of rising inflation. As you listen to her make the case against the bill, please remember that...she voted for it, as did almost every single one of her colleagues:
Democrat Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger blasts Build Back Broke's "incomprehensible" cost estimates.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 2, 2021
When people are worried about rising grocery prices "and someone's on television arguing over $3T or $6T, it's kind of a head-exploding moment." pic.twitter.com/4i3ANlXguS
Perhaps some more media "re-education" will be necessary:
CNN reports (Scoop!) White House is sweet talking CNN, and it's going well!https://t.co/dR7NUysrmE pic.twitter.com/ggwWbhDLY4
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) December 7, 2021
That liberal employees of media corporations are earnestly trying to convince the public that the media was biased *in favor of Trump* and *against Democrats* reveals why they're increasingly hated and distrusted. They think people are very stupid and people know they think that: https://t.co/BDcaqsC0sO
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 6, 2021
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