Posted on 06/03/2021 6:38:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
The highest earners paid a greater share of income taxes after the Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts than they paid after the Democrats’ 2013 tax increase.
In a speech last week introducing his proposed $6 trillion 2022 budget, President Biden claimed that the benefits of the Republican Party’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act “went to the wealthiest 1% of America.” It’s not the first time he’s made this claim.
In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, Biden described the TCJA as a “huge windfall” for “those at the very top.” To right that wrong, he proposes getting rid of loopholes and raising the top tax rate from its current 37% to 39.6%. Why? So that “the wealthiest 1% of Americans” will “pay their fair share,” a phrase that the president and his fellow Democrats repeat with abandon.
But there’s a big problem with Biden’s claims: They are simply untrue. It’s time Republicans started more aggressively pointing that out.
Let’s start with that supposedly “huge windfall” that went to the “wealthiest 1%” of America. While the TCJA reduced effective income tax rates for all income groups in 2018, the top 1% experienced no windfall. Rather, according to the most recent IRS income tax data, the top 1% of taxpayers paid $616 billion in 2018, roughly the same amount they paid in 2017. But the bottom 99% paid $65 billion less. Some “windfall.” If the TCJA was a tax cut for the rich, it was the weirdest one in the history of tax cuts for the rich.
But did those evil 1-percenters pay their fair share? Turns out they did – and certainly a larger share than when tax rates were last at Biden’s proposed 39.6%.
In 2018, while the top 1%’s share of adjusted gross income declined slightly to 20.9% (from 21.0% in 2017), its share of the income tax burden increased to 40.1% from 38.5%. “Fair” is in the eye of the beholder, but consider: The top 1%’s share of taxes paid nearly doubles its share of income. For more “fair share” perspective, consider that in 2018, the top 1% paid more in income taxes than the bottom 90% of taxpayers – combined.
Biden also might be surprised to learn that the top 1% actually paid a higher percentage of income taxes in 2018 under the TCJA than in any year since at least 2001 – when it paid 33.2%. That includes each of the five years from 2013 to 2017 following the Obama tax hikes, when the top rate last stood at 39.6% – the rate Biden is currently proposing.
You read that right. The highest earners paid a greater share of income taxes after the Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts than they paid after the Democrats’ 2013 tax increase. But how can that be if the top tax rate in 2018 was only 37%?
Well, the TCJA increased taxable income for wealthier Americans by reducing the itemized deductions they could claim. High earners generally benefit more from itemizing deductions. Lower earners generally benefit more from the standard deduction. The TCJA increased the standard deduction and limited itemized deductions.
According to IRS data, following the TCJA, the amount taxpayers claimed for itemized deductions dropped by 55%, from about $1.46 trillion in 2017 to about $650 billion in 2018. That’s over $800 billion that was taxed in 2018 but not in 2017.
The TCJA’s capping the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) at $10,000 was responsible for $480 billion of that decrease – a whopping 59%. But Biden supports restoring the SALT deduction even though that deduction benefits mostly the upper-income taxpayers he so desperately wants to tax. Why would he want to do that?
Well, the SALT deduction primarily benefits high earners in high-tax blue states. So Biden is not alone in seeking to restore it. Repealing the cap President Trump put on the SALT deduction is a top tax priority for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who want either to increase or eliminate the $10,000 cap as part of Biden’s infrastructure bill.
Like Biden, these legislators also claim to favor closing tax loopholes for the wealthy – just not for their wealthy supporters. “Do you want to give the wealthiest people in America another tax cut?” Biden asked in his budget introduction speech. Apparently for the Democratic leadership, the answer is: Yes, we do.
So, the TCJA was not a windfall for the rich, and it did not result in the rich paying less than their fair share of income taxes. It closed loopholes – the largest of which Democrat leadership would like to restore – that primarily benefit wealthy taxpayers.
Raising the top tax rate to 39.6% under Obama resulted in the rich paying a smaller share of income taxes than they paid in 2018 under the TCJA. There is certainly no guarantee that they would pay a larger share if Biden repeated Obama’s tax-increase error – particularly if the Democrats start restoring tax loopholes for their wealthy backers.
Republicans have the better part of this argument. They need to start making it
This article is republished from RealClearPolitics, with permission.
Stalinists lie. Always
A never ending mantra. Typical class warfare Marxist meme. Been going on for generations.
There has never been a time in his life in which Biden didn’t lie.
And the last of Trump’s achievements begins it’s death roll into oblivion. This is the wages of cooperating with and trusting DC Republican Judases. MAGA has been replaced with the MacGuffin of McCarthy or Stefanik, will Murkowski survive or not, oh my. Same old same old.
That wasn’t even Trump’s achievement. It was an establishment GOP tax bill from top to bottom. Trump was going to sign whatever Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell put on his desk in that bill.
Unfortunately, every one of his accomplishments were executive actions because the GOP blocked all MAGA oriented action. The new regime rolled all of that back the first week. Trump and MAGA, gone like fleeting dreams.
So . . . which of the GOP frat boys can put together a persuasive argument that will be meme-worthy since that’s the only way to convey info to the Tickety-Tocked masses?
It’s not like the days of Ross Perot with his simple, big charts on national broadcast TV.
“There has never been a time in his life in which Biden didn’t lie.”
Okay, let’s not act like dImocrats. I very much doubt that Biden told a single lie before age six. I mean six months of course.
All of Biden’s claims are simply untrue try and find one that isn’t.
He was born an idiot and he never got any better.
I predicted back in December 2016 that Trump would be minimally successful at best in terms of actual concrete accomplishments as President -- because a President has no leverage whatsoever over Congress.
Trump's term in office gave us a great glimpse of how this country actually functions best: with a President in office who is -- for all intents and purposes -- an unaffiliated independent.
That’s where Trump destroyed himself, he became affiliated. When he burst upon the scene his attitude towards politicians of every stripe was F’em all. He knew what they were and how much to trust them. Then he became a Republican and tailored all of his decisions based on how his Republican handlers convinced him it would play out politically. Can’t fire Sessions, Comey, Barr, Wray, Fauci, etc.,etc., etc. Can’t hire, can’t release, can’t affirm, can’t denounce. The republicans sold him a bill of goods from day one till the bitter end, “no new party, stay with us”. Trump had leverage, he just refused to use it. On 1/7 a denouncement of the election coup, the false flag capitol attack, Barr, McConnell and Roberts and a real threat of a 75 million strong new party would have changed the entire power structure within the party. Hell, it could have conceivably blown up both wings of the Uniparty. That is the only way DC republicanism would have ever changed. Now it’s all lost.
No offense, but any Freeper who thinks Trump could have been elected in 2016 as a third-party candidate is delusional.
P.S. — Trump does not have, and never did have, 75 million dedicated supporters. I suspect he’s got a solid base of 25-30 million supporters, and another 45-50 million Republicans who voted for him only because he ran as a Republican. If he ran as a third-party candidate for President tomorrow he’d get no more than 30 million votes and probably wouldn’t win a single state.
I think you are completely wrong. You weren’t watching the same campaign I was. Trump transcended party until he boxed himself into the confines set by his Republican handlers. Trump was an escape from the swamp until he opened the doors of the cabinet room to the worst of the DS. You are certainly right about Trump today. He is completely ruined. He was ruined by March of 2017 when he deferred to his DS handlers regarding his defense against the three coups. Now he is emasculated, incommunicado and irrelevant as the fascists strut the streets of DC. We patriotic Americans have no voice in this once again. We’ve gone from working to implement MAGA to occupying ourselves with McCarthy or Stefanik. No need for a real second party now, there’s nothing left to save.
Please tell me ONE THING President Trump could have done any differently in 2017 that ever would have made a difference in terms of his accomplishments or his legacy.
Keep in mind that he was elected president while running a campaign that looked like a WWE promotional tour. It was awesome, but it also meant that he didn’t show up in Washington with an inner circle of associates that was ready, willing and able to join his crusade against “the Swamp.”
Fired Sessions, Fired Comey, Never hired Barr, Fired Rosenstein, Released every Russiagate file he could lay hands on, Appointed acting cabinet members ala Richard Grenell again and again and again, Fired most US Attorneys, Cleaned out Obama’s Preatorian Guard, the NSC. Why was Trump not the boss, couldn’t do these things, while every other president did? If you want and have the time, I can go on and on about Trump’s dismal performance vis a vis the swampers he surrounded himself with.
Every person you named there was appointed to a position that required Senate confirmation. As I said earlier in this thread, Trump was NOT in charge of his own presidential appointments. That’s probably a good thing ... because I would have half expected him to nominate some jackass like Michael Cohen to be the U.S. Attorney General if it was all up to him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.