Surprise! The Senate Tax Bill Kills the Middle Class, But It’s Great For the Rich

A few days ago the Joint Committee on Taxation released its analysis of the Senate tax bill, which I wrote about here. My conclusion was that the bill was “batshit crazy,” but Republicans cried foul. The JCT analysis included the effects of eliminating Obamacare’s individual mandate, and while that seems fair to me, it didn’t to them. They want just the taxes, ma’am.

The Tax Policy Center heard their pleas and did an analysis based solely on the tax provisions in the bill. Here it is:

In 2027, the very poorest will see a small tax increase and the middle class will see a tiny decrease. The rich, of course, will get a sizeable tax cut.

But believe it or not, that’s not the worst part of the TPC analysis. The chart above is an average of all the winners and losers in each income category. But if you dig a little deeper, just how many winners and losers are there? This many:

Among middle-class families, 50-70 percent will see a tax increase by 2027. Among the rich, that number is only 15-30 percent. And among the super-duper rich, almost no one sees a tax increase.

It’s really hard to think of things to say about these charts. They come out every few days, and they’re from reputable sources. And they all show a massive preference toward the rich. But Republicans like Orrin Hatch pretend to be outraged when anyone points this out. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan stay scarce so they don’t have to answer questions. Other Republicans insist that these analyses are totally bogus because they don’t account for supercharged growth, and Fox News eagerly joins in. Donald Trump, who would reap tens of millions of dollars from this tax bill, routinely lies in public about how he’d “get killed”—and then tosses in a real thigh slapper: “The deal is so bad for rich people, I had to throw in the estate tax just to give them something.”

Yuk yuk. But this is fundamentally why Donald Trump is president: despite everything, rich people backed him because he’d give them a tax cut and Hillary Clinton wouldn’t. The love of money may not be the root of all evil, but it sure is responsible for a lot of it.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate