Victory for Biden as Senate passes $1T infrastructure bill, page-8

"tax cuts for the rich" - crock of shyte

From Bloomberg

Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign website says, “Tax experts estimate that over the long run, 83% of Trump’s tax giveaway will flow to the top 1% of earners in this country.” That’s not quite fair to the president, though. While the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was far from perfect, it did cut taxes on the middle class and fueled the economic growth that brought unemployment rates to half-century lows before the pandemic.

The 83% claim comes from a study by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and refers to rates in 2027, which is after almost all of the TCJA cuts of individual income taxes are slated to expire. A fairer benchmark is what would happen to taxes while the Trump cuts are still in place. In 2025, according to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1% would get 25% of the cut. That’s still a lot, but keep in mind that the top 1% also pay a lot.

After-tax incomes of people in the top 1% are estimated by the Tax Policy Center to rise 2.9% in 2025 vs. a scenario of no change in the tax law. Here are the estimated increases for everyone else: the bottom fifth of households, up 0.4%; second fifth, up 0.9%; middle fifth, up 1.3%; fourth fifth, up 1.4%; and top fifth (which includes the top 1%), up 2.3%. So it’s fair to say that based on the TPC analysis, the tax cut is skewed to the rich, but it’s not as skewed as the Biden campaign one-liner implies.