New GOP bills would hand richest 1% over $28 billion in tax cuts next year
By: Jake Johnson
Tax cut legislation that House Republicans are set to consider this week after pushing the global economy to the brink of disaster would deliver more than $28 billion to the richest 1% of Americans next year—and just $1.4 billion to the poorest fifth of the country.
That's according to a new analysis of the legislation by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), which estimated Sunday that the poorest fifth of Americans would receive an average tax break of just $40 next year under the three new Republican bills , one of which is titled the Tax Cuts for Working Families Act.
By contrast, ITEP showed, people in the top 1% of the income distribution would see an average tax cut of $16,550 under the legislation.
The wealthiest 20% of Americans would receive a total of $60.8 billion in tax cuts next year under the new bills, which are unlikely to pass the divided Congress.
The three measures, which the House Ways and Means Committee is set to consider on Tuesday, would also reward foreign investors to the tune of $23.8 billion next year by slashing business taxes, the ITEP analysis found, pointing to research showing that "foreign investors own 40% of stocks in American corporations and would therefore receive a significant share of the benefits from corporate tax cuts."
Steve Wamhoff, ITEP's director of federal policy and the author of the new analysis, said House Republicans' legislative package "looks like a terrible deal for ordinary Americans and a windfall for foreign investors and the richest 1% of Americans."
Wamhoff noted that while the legislation "includes an increase in the standard deduction that would help some middle-income taxpayers," the change "would do little for those who most need help."
The bills, which House Republicans outlined late last week, came shortly after the House GOP used a looming debt default as leverage to impose damaging new caps on federal spending and add more harsh work requirements to federal safety net programs, including nutrition assistance—potentially stripping food aid from hundreds of thousands of older adults.
Republicans justified their push for spending restrictions by pointing to the exploding federal debt—not mentioning that tax cuts under GOP Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump , which starve the government of vital revenue year after year, are primarily responsible .
Wamhoff wrote Sunday that the new Republican legislation would further "increase the deficit by expanding the Trump tax cuts for corporations and other businesses."
"Officially the cost of the new tax cuts would be offset, mostly by provisions that would roll back certain parts of President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act addressing climate change, but the true costs are hidden by budget gimmicks," Wamhoff observed. "The most important budget gimmick is that the legislation enacts the biggest tax cuts for only two years even though its proponents plan to extend them in the future, making them, in effect, permanent."
In a statement summarizing the major provisions of the tax bills, House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) touted the supposed savings that would come from repealing the Inflation Reduction Act's clean energy tax credits, which are aimed at accelerating the nation's lagging transition to renewable energy .
But as Wamhoff wrote Sunday, the costs of repealing those tax credits "would ultimately fall on everyone in the form of greater climate damage."
Trolling, taunting, spamming, and off topic comments may be removed at the discretion of group mods. NT members that vote up their own comments, repeat comments, or continue to disrupt the conversation risk having all of their comments deleted. Please remember to quote the person(s) to whom you are replying to preserve continuity of this seed.
Oh no, we are going over the cliff. We have to cut spending or else...
By the way, let's give more tax cuts....
I called it during the debt ceiling negotiations. Though this is really nothing but a nod to the donor class with a side helping of gaslighting the working class for re-election campaigning. They go through the motions of "trying to help" but it gets killed in the Senate and both sides can raise cash on being the only people who can "save" the rest of us wretched souls.
I almost look at it as a sign of things to come if they get a majority back.
You aren't wrong. They would, just as the Dems would run a tax and spend policy if they got a solid majority. Most of us live more in the middle.
Of course. The first thing President Trump did was reduce taxes on the rich. Reducing taxes on the rich is always the priority for any Republican.
I will just say, the next time they bitch and complain and want austerity, I am going to tell them to go pound sand.
Same old shit, different day.
Remember when they tried to tell us all that filing for taxes would be so simple and fit on a postcard? Yeah... no one brings that up anymore.
Back in the day when I was still a pup my state income taxes for PA fit on a postcard. It was few simple lines and it was already addressed and stamped.
No surprise here. This is the purpose of the Republican Party: constantly lower taxes for the already-rich.
Then have to slash funding to social services. Fucking pukes.
It's their nature. It's who they are.
Republicans serve the ultra-rich.
Is it any wonder why the once Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln is now known merely as the gop?
Then the chorus of the people that still believe in trickle down will praise this somehow...
[✘]
[✘]
[Deleted]
[Deleted]
Of course they are because the only citizens who mean anything to the GOP in this country are the 1%.
[that was a blatant personal insult suggesting that ALL democrats don't pay taxes...take your hateful rhetoric somewhere else and stay off Ender's seeds]
Prove that any democrat on these boards pays no taxes. You're just spewing talking points now.
[✘]
Ok, then prove that any democrat on these boards pays no federal income taxes. Again, nothing but a conservative bullshit talking point.
[✘]
So, you have no proof to back up a comment you made. That right there is real trolling (not asking for something that can't be proven - YOU MADE THE COMMENT, YOU PROVE IT), and you did it just to denigrate democrats.
As for beating children...that's another trollish comment. Prove I do beat children (again you just trolling) or move the fuck along.
They can't defend this so they go off on other things.
“…move the fuck along.”
Please and thank you.
When they have nothing to offer, they have nothing but excuses.
[Deleted]
Democrats don’t need any help from me in this, it is one of the things they excel at.
[Deleted]
[Deleted]
That's your opinion. You're wrong, but that's all you know and that's all you're here for is to troll and denigrate the other side. It's what you people excel at since your side has absolutely no platform except more tax cuts for the 1%.
[Deleted]
[Deleted]