The Daily Escape:
Bear Sculpture, Kent CT – August 2021 iPhone photo by Wrongo
ProPublica reported that: “Secret IRS Files Reveal How Much the Ultrawealthy Gained by Shaping Trump’s Big, Beautiful Tax Cut”. The article shows how billionaire business owners deployed lobbyists to make sure Trump’s 2017 tax bill was tailored to their benefit: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“In the first year after Trump signed the legislation, just 82 ultrawealthy households collectively walked away with more than $1 billion in total savings….Republican and Democratic tycoons alike saw their tax bills chopped by tens of millions, among them: media magnate and former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg; the Bechtel family…and the heirs of the late Houston pipeline billionaire Dan Duncan.”
Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the biggest rewrite of the tax code in decades. It is arguably the most consequential legislative achievement by any one-term president. It was crafted in secret, with lobbyist input, and then rushed through the legislative process.
ProPublica says that as the draft of the bill made its way through Congress, lawmakers and hired lobbyist friendly to billionaires were able to shape the bill’s language to accommodate special interests. The final version of the bill led to a vast redistribution of wealth to the pockets of a few wealthy families.
This siphoned away billions in tax revenue from the nation’s coffers. Here’s a chart of the tax savings of the big winners:
This gets a little technical. Corporate taxes are paid by what are known as C corporations, including large firms like AT&T or Amazon. But most businesses in the US aren’t C corporations, they’re what are called pass-through corporations. The name comes from the fact that when one of these businesses makes money, the profits are not subject to corporate taxes. Instead, the profits “pass through” directly to the owners, who pay taxes on the profits on their personal returns.
Pass-throughs include the full gamut of American business, from small barbershops to law firms to, in the case of Uline, #2 on the list above, a packaging distributor with thousands of employees.
Republicans touted the Trump tax cut as boosting “small business” and/or “Main Street,” and it’s true that many small businesses got a modest tax break. But a recent study by the Treasury Department found that the top 1% of Americans by income have reaped nearly 60% of the billions in tax savings created by the provision. And most of that amount went to the top 0.1%.
That’s because most of the pass-through profits in the country flow to the wealthy owners of a limited group of large companies. The tax break is due to expire after 2025, and Democrats in Congress want to end the provision early.
Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, (D-OR), has proposed legislation that would end the tax cut early for the ultrawealthy. He wants to end the gravy train for anyone making over $500,000 per year. It would be extended to the business owners below that threshold. Wyden’s proposal would make the policy both fairer and less complex, while also raising $ billions for priorities like childcare, education, and health care.
Time to wake up America! The current complaints by Republicans about the Biden efforts to rebuild the economy say that we shouldn’t have the nice things Biden has promised. They now (again) complain about the federal deficit. They continue to sit on their hands about raising taxes on their donors, despite those same donors reaping most of the benefits not only from the Trump tax cut, but from the surge of the national economy since it bottomed while Trump was managing the pandemic.
To help you wake up, watch and listen to “Patria Y Vida” (homeland and life) the song that has defined this summer’s uprising in Cuba. The title is a take-off on the slogan used by Fidel Castro, “Patria O Muerte” (homeland or death) for 62 years, since the start of the Cuban revolution.
This song of summer is also a deep protest song:
This is a rough time in Cuba. Trump’s sanctions policy sharply restricted the foreign remittances on which many Cubans rely. Then came the pandemic, which decimated the tourism industry. Cuba’s GDP has dropped roughly 11% since 2019.
In response to a recurring chorus saying, “It’s over now,” the singers call to Cuban officials and tell them: “Your time is done, the silence has been broken…we’re not afraid, the trickery is over now, 62 years of doing damage to our country.”
They add, “Let’s start to build what we’ve dreamed of; of what they destroyed by their own hand.”
