Tax Cuts for Millionaires and Corporations: Not Populist. Just Terrible Policy.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Yesterday, President Trump gave a speech about the lightly sketched proposal to provide massive tax cuts to corporations and millionaires and pay for them by slashing programs and services that help families meet basic living standards, which he persists in calling “tax reform.”  
 The speech offered no new policy details. But in a way, we already know all we need to from the talking points and principles released earlier:  40% of the tax cuts under President Trump’s tax plan would go to the top 1 percent of earners (those making more than $732,000 per year). Despite President Trump’s rhetoric, this tax plan would shortchange low-income and middle-class families.  President Trump’s tax plan has been estimated to cost almost $5 trillion dollars, and the Administration has proposed cutting vital programs and services, from health care to education to infrastructure to disaster relief and entitlement programs to boot, to pay for these trillions of dollars in tax cuts. This would leave many low- and moderate-income workers worse off, on balance. And the argument that cutting taxes for corporations would spur significant job growth has been widely debunked.
We deserve better. Real tax reform should make the tax system fairer and support an economy that works for all of us, not just the wealthy few. The Administration should scrap this fatally flawed plan, and start from scratch — maybe focusing on helping working families for real this time.