Dear John,
The Trump tax cuts were a HUGE scam.
The ONLY major legislation Trump passed as president was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It permanently slashed corporate taxes, and temporarily cut income tax rates (mostly for the rich) through 2025. The results were worse than we could have imagined.
Trump claimed the tax cuts would lead to corporations hiring more workers and increase household incomes by $4,000. But what actually happened?
How HUGE was the Trump tax cut scam? Check out this week’s video to see! Then share it with anyone who needs to know the truth about this trickle-down hoax.
The actual upshot was this: AT&T saw its overall federal tax bill drop by 81%. It spent 31 times more on dividends and stock buybacks to enrich wealthy shareholders than it paid out in taxes. Meanwhile, it slashed over 40,000 jobs.
And AT&T wasn’t the only one. America’s biggest corporations didn’t reward workers; instead they increased their stock buybacks and dividends. And those executives kept more of their increased income because Trump’s tax cuts for individuals were heavily skewed toward the rich.
How about middle-income families? Surely they got a piece of the pie as well?
Actually, many middle-income families saw their taxes go up. And I’m wondering, did you see that promised $4,000 raise?
The tax cuts have added $2 trillion to the deficit so far, but now the “party of fiscal responsibility” wants to renew them, at a cost of another $4.6 trillion over the next ten years. If Trump gets the additional corporate tax cut he wants, the cost will be another $1 trillion.
So this Tax Day, remember: Republicans aren’t the party of fiscal responsibility. They’re the party of making the rich much richer – while fleecing the working class.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
