President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda is supposed to tax the wealthy to help the middle class. If you don’t believe me, just ask Biden, who’s more than willing to tell you about it on his Twitter account.
To be fair, I’m assuming the messages aren’t written by Biden
himself, a man who seems like his relationship with technology
involves yelling at his phone, either asking Siri to find his slippers
or telling Scotty to beam him up. However, whoever tweets for
him stays on message when it comes to the president’s
“We’re going to pass a historic middle class tax cut — and we’ll
do it by making those at the top pay their fair share,” one tweet
from Sunday read. “I know the crowd on Park Ave might not like
it, but it’s time we give people in towns like Scranton — the folks
I grew up with — a break for a change.”
“From health care to child care, my Build Back Better Agenda
will lower everyday costs for middle class Americans,” a tweet
from this Monday read.
“I’m not looking to punish anyone, I just think it’s only fair that
the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share once again. Then,
we’ll use that money to invest in the middle class,” a tweet from
last week reads.
“For me it’s pretty simple: It’s about time working people got
the tax breaks in this country,” a tweet from the day before that
read. “That’s the Build Back Better Agenda.”
According to a media release from the Republicans on the House
Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday, the Joint Committee on
Taxation — a non-partisan congressional tax scorekeeper — found
that almost every income level below the threshold the Biden
administration said would be immune would take a hit.
Furthermore, the committee’s analysis found the vast majority of
taxpayers would see no benefit from the plan in its current form.
According to the analysis, by the calendar year 2023, nearly 5
percent of those making between $40,000 and $50,000 would see
a tax increase. Nine percent of those making between $50,000 and
$75,000 would see an increase, 18 percent earning between $75,000
and $100,000 would see their taxes go up and 35 percent of those
earning between $100,000 and $200,000 would be subject to a hike.
The media release also noted that the benefit most people see will
pretty much be nil.
In 2023, two-thirds of all taxpayers won’t get see any kind of real
benefit from the legislation, either seeing their tax bill changed by
less than $100 or getting a tax increase.
By 2027, this number would balloon to 85.5 percent, with huge
swaths of the middle class seeing a sizable tax increase; these
numbers are projected to stay mostly steady until 2031.
Meanwhile, the Joint Committee on Taxation also found that
hiking corporate taxes would hit middle-class Americans
hard, too.
“Within 10 years of a corporate tax increase from 21 percent to
25 percent, 66.3 percent of the corporate tax burden would be borne
by lower- and middle-income taxpayers with income well below
$500,000,” an August media release from the Republicans on the
House Ways and Means Committee read.
“This statistic becomes only more striking in absolute number of
taxpayers. Of the more than 172 million taxpayers who would bear
the burden of the increased corporate tax rate, 98.4 percent, or about
169 million, have incomes under $500,000.”
Of course, the charge from the left would be that this doesn’t take
into account what the spending these tax hikes will pay for is going
to buy for the middle class. Beyond the fact these “investments”
never bring back the kind of returns that are promised, Biden
promised a middle-class tax cut. At least in the plan’s current
form, it doesn’t look like it’ll end up delivering — no matter
what the president says.
Do you know who did lower taxes on the middle class? Former
President Donald Trump.Joe Biden may have spent much of the
campaign whining about Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017,
which slashed taxes across the board. Most of the outrage focused
on the fact he didn’t soak the rich: “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,” Biden’s campaign website read.
And yet, in March of 2020, MarketWatch reported that “Americans
paid almost $64 billion less in federal income taxes during the first
year under the Republican tax overhaul signed into law in late 2017
by President Donald Trump, with some of the sharpest drops clustered
among taxpayers earning between $25,000 and $100,000 a year,
even as the overall number of refunds dropped during a turbulent
tax season” in 2019.
Biden plans on taking that away. In return, he’s offered nothing of
substance — except, as promised, he’s soaking the rich. And the
upper-middle class. And some people in the middle class, too. But
mainly the rich. See, priorities!
Biden may not be giving people in towns like Scranton — the folks
he grew up with — a break the same way Trump did. But at least
they can watch as his administration takes (and then squanders)
Park Avenue’s money. He’ll be squandering Scranton’s money,
too, but at least they get the joy of class-based schadenfreude out
of the deal.
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