When then-President Donald Trump first entered office, his supporters believed that with a Republican congressional majority, he would immediately begin to accomplish great things and enact his agenda.
It didn’t happen, however. Rank-and-file Republicans who voted for him instead saw the “establishment” class of the GOP, which turned out to be most of them, rebel against Trump the outsider, refusing even to support measures they had long campaigned on such as getting rid of Obamacare and strengthening the border.
But one issue Trump managed to ‘convince’ Republican lawmakers to support was a major tax cut for the middle class and even on higher earners. Democrats politicized the effort with typical “tax cuts for the rich” talking points but now, five years after the law took effect, a new government report shows several things:
— Trump and Republicans were right for implementing the cuts;
— The federal government is better off;
— Congress (both parties) simply cannot control the urge to continue surpassing the vast amount of money Uncle Sam collects every year.
Trending Politics notes:
The Congressional Budget Office just released its report on the federal budget for 2022, specifically how much the government spent and how much it brought in. Though much of the report is concerning, as it shows the federal government is spending far, far more than it brings in, there is one positive in the report.
That positive stems from the Trump Tax Cuts, or Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and is what the right has been saying about that tax cuts package for years as leftists like Bernie Sanders bemoan the “giveaway to the rich” or “tax cuts for the rich”. Based on the CBO report, it turns out that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a massive success in raising federal revenues by lessening the tax burden.
The agency’s report showed that the central government collected an eye-popping $4.9 trillion in revenue in 2022, which is an increase of $1.5 trillion since 2017 (the tax cuts were passed in December of that year). That’s an astounding 40 percent increase in government revenues in just five years without raising taxes on American earners.
Trump Advisor Stephen Miller, noting on the CBO report and the success of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, said: “I compared these numbers with the estimates of what the Trump tax cuts were expected to ‘cost.’ Instead of an expected $1 trillion revenue ‘loss,’ the tax receipts over this period were almost precisely what they would have been if we didn’t cut taxes at all.
And remember, that estimate in 2017 never anticipated the two-year hit to the economy from COVID-19 lockdowns — which depleted the Treasury. In other words, there was a giant Laffer Curve effect from Trump’s tax cut. We got higher growth and higher tax payments with lower tax rates,” he continued.
“This shouldn’t be a giant surprise. The same thing happened when Democratic President John F. Kennedy cut tax rates in the 1960s and when Republican President Ronald Reagan cut tax rates in the 1980s. Lower rates and more revenues,” he said.
Where is the “mainstream media” to celebrate this huge win for average American earners (as well as the federal government)? And why aren’t they reporting that despite this massive increase in revenue, the national debt is $31.5 trillion and climbing?
