Hard-left Axios  has taken on the Trump/Republican tax cuts, and as usual, it either misses the point or wittingly presents falsehoods to its readership in service to its DNC masters.

Most politicians agree on three truths: We have a spending problem (too much), a tax problem (too high or too low), and a debt problem (way too much).

• Yet the typical response is; Make all three worse

Why it matters: This truism sits at the very heart of Republicans’ fight over a grand budget deal. They’re trying to convince their members, and the American public, that you can take in less money (taxes) spend more on defense – and somehow reduce deficits without touching the programs that cost the most.

In years past, we might have expected, and certainly experienced, the  typical response, but as we’ve seen with Trump 47, the  typical response  has been thrown out the window.

Axios knows, or should know, that lower tax  rates, as instituted by Trump 45, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy increased (not decreased) federal revenues.   Lower tax  rates  stimulate investment and growth (GDP).   Revenue is the result of Rates x Investment x Growth.  

Heritage reports  on the Trump 45 tax cuts:

The congressional Budget Office’s May 2022 forecast shows that the government now expects to bring in more tax revenue in the decade following the 2017 “Trump Tax Cuts” than it had projected prior to the December 2017b passage of tax reform.

What Democrats (and Axios) don’t talk about is that if the Trump tax rates aren’t extended, then taxes are increased for everyone.   In my opinion, Republicans should make this fact more apparent, alongside split screens of the examples of waste, fraud, and abuse that (mostly) benefited Democrats and their pet projects (like funding Politico and Axios).   Americans  might have tolerated  that the government needed some of my hard earned money, because they were doing good things.   Finding out that they were lighting Benjamins on fire makes one significantly less tolerant of wasteful spending and over taxation.

Axios:

You could solve the deficit problem by raising taxes enough to erase it. Republicans hate the idea. But Democrats have long held that higher taxes on rich people and corporations could help wipe out deficits without touching social programs.    

How about ah, no!   Democrats see taxes as  their money, whereas Republicans see it as  your money.   Again, in the age of waste, fraud, and abuse, the people (Republicans, independents, and Democrats alike) would rather direct their money to their causes and interests, not the drunken sailors in Washington (no disrespect intended toward drunken sailors).

Another common refrain from Democrats is that the Trump 45 tax cuts and the Trump 47 cuts are targeted to benefit the richest 1 percent of Americans.   Although this claim provides “red meat” to their base, it is an absolute falsehood.

According to  The Hill  (12/04/21):

Income data published by the IRS clearly show that on average all income brackets benefited substantially from the Republicans’ tax reform law, with the biggest beneficiaries being working and middle-income filers, not the top 1 percent, as so many Democrats have argued.

A five minute Google search of these topics would have enlightened the writers at Axios and more adequately informed their dwindling readership.

As Ronald Reagan said,  “the problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.”

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.