Economics 101: A Primer Before We Delve into Project 2025's Tax Recs
This week, I dust off my CPA hat and take you into the Den of Legislative Prostitution that is the US Tax Code (Scroll to the end to listen)
Imagine you grew up in the world of Christian Nationalism. You’re a woman who dreams of going to college for journalism or theater or writing, but your parents say, “Nope. We’ll only pay for you to study something useful so you can do it part-time once you marry your Good Christian Husband, pop out several Good Christian Babies, and send them to a Good Christian kindergarten.”
You’re not rebellious at the lowly age of 18. You’ve been conditioned to be compliant and subservient. So you major in accounting even though you are dyslexic with math. You study harder than you ever have and graduate magna cum laude; you pass the CPA exam; and you spend eleven miserable years in public accounting.
You run a couple of multi-million dollar companies. You operate a successful consulting firm, because people like your business advice. Then you turn 40, go off the rails, and return to your dream of being a writer.
By 2017, you are growing alarmed. Your childhood friends, those Christian Nationalist ones, keep discussing proposed income tax changes on Facebook. You barely pay attention to news because it is all an Orange Sewer, but you look up The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and skim through its proposals.
It is the biggest handout to billionaires, millionaires, and corporations in your lifetime. It eliminates itemized deductions like mortgage interest for most taxpayers, thereby raising the taxable incomes of many in the middle class. It lowers tax rates on corporations and on capital gains. It all but eliminates the federal estate tax.
To fool average people into thinking this is a good thing, Republicans talk about potential refunds. Your Christian Nationalist childhood friends salivate at the prospect of an extra $1100/$1200/$1400 in tax refunds.
No matter how many times you explain that a potential refund won’t cover years of the higher taxes proposed for many Americans under this bill, people are still fixated on the immediate pay-off. You try to explain how politicians often take advantage of Americans’ short-attention spans and lacking economic education and are told you sound like a novelist who makes stuff up for a living.
Everyone returns to talking about how they will spend their “windfall.” You decide not to attempt to educate people about the economy or taxes ever again.
Yet here I am. Doing what I said I’d never do.
Here’s how American taxpayers actually fared in the aftermath of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017:
Key takeaways
High-income individuals were the most likely to see tax savings, while low-income and middle-class families saw mixed results.
88.2% of taxpayers claimed the standard deduction in 2018.
The higher standard deduction wasn’t enough to offset the loss of personal exemptions for some families.
Businesses appear to have saved the most from the Trump tax cuts; corporate income tax collected by the IRS decreased by 22.4% from 2017 to 2018.
Source: PolicyGenius
As we dive into a few of Project 2025’s proposed tax changes this week, please remember this: Politicians lie to you. They dangle pennies in front of your face to distract you from the big tax cuts they’re giving their donors. They take for granted that you’ll blame whoever is in charge when your wallet gets hit hard.
Every Republican-led tax cut is a gift to the 1%. EVERY. ONE. If you are in the upper-middle, middle, or lower income class, YOU ARE PAYING FOR BILLIONAIRES’ TAX CUTS.
Think about that every time Jeff Bezos blasts himself into space. Or Mark Zuckerberg builds another apocalypse bunker. Or Elon Musk buys another yacht. Or Stephen Schwarzman says you must work in the office because his private equity firm isn’t making as many billions in its commercial real estate sector. Or Bob Iger sits in one of his mansions and says striking writers and actors are too demanding. Or Clarence Thomas takes another undeclared bribe from billionaire nazi-sympathizer Harlan Crow.
It is absurd to cry about inflation when most American business is run by monopolies who raise prices for pure profit. It drives me insane to hear my MAGA relatives whine about the cost of food and blame Biden when they voted to oust migrants who were willing to do that work to keep prices low. I don’t understand how so many Americans willingly vote to be robbed by the donor class or think Republicans give one good bowel movement about economic security for them or their families.
Great information, and your writing itself is also on fire.
And you are correct... people have very low attention spans, this is another reason why the Republican states are lowering their working age for teenagers and offer waaaay more co-op programs than before...... , this is all an effort to streamline them from high school directly into service or factory jobs- instead of going to college which is what they should be doing. Republicans know the allure of money, even if only $35,000 per year, is hard to resist when your family is already struggling. It's about keeping people in caste system.