Rigged: New Report Details How Combined $5.1 Trillion in Tax Cuts by Bush, Obama, and Trump Went Mostly to Nation's Richest
"These policies have
transferred trillions in wealth to those who were already rich."
—Alan Essig, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
—Alan Essig, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
When people demand specifics
on how to pay for expansions to social insurance, income supports, and public
investments, seems like part of the answer is just 'we could stop doing this.’
With $5.1 trillion, the U.S.
government could provide
healthcare for all Americans and make
public colleges tuition free with cash to spare, but a report released
on Wednesday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows that
the past three presidents have instead opted to send this vast sum of money to
the richest Americans through massive tax cuts.
Titled "Federal Tax
Changes in the Bush, Obama, and Trump Years," the new
analysis (pdf) finds that tax cuts enacted since 2000 have cost the
U.S. government $5.1 trillion in revenue, "with nearly two-thirds of that
flowing to the richest fifth of Americans."
Thanks in large part to
President Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cut package that was signed into law
last December—which will send
83 percent of its benefits to the top one percent—"the tally of tax
cuts will grow to $10.6 trillion" by 2025 and "nearly $2 trillion of
this amount will have gone to the richest one percent," the report
estimates.
At a time when tens of
millions of Americans are suffering from "massive
levels of deprivation" and "appalling
rates" of poverty, the tax cuts rammed through by George W. Bush,
extended in part by Barack Obama, and built upon by Trump "have mostly
benefited those who are least in need of help," Steve Wamhoff, director of
federal policy at ITEP and the lead author of the new analysis, argued in
a statement on
Wednesday.
"For example, the richest
one percent received more benefits than the bottom 60 percent," Wamhoff
added. "It's worth asking whether this is the result most Americans wanted
from their lawmakers."
Polling data suggests that it
is not. As Common Dreams reported,
a poll published last month found that just 37 percent of registered voters
support Trump's massive tax cuts, which America's largest corporations are
using to buy
back their own stock rather than boost worker pay.
While Trump's tax cuts are the
latest and most egregious example of tax policy that rewards the rich at the
expense of everyone else, ITEP executive director Alan Essig notes that this
upward redistribution of wealth is part
of a broad trend of soaring inequality that consecutive
administrations have fueled.
"These policies have
transferred trillions in wealth to those who were already rich," Essig
said of tax changes under Bush, Obama, and Trump. "Annual income for the
top 20 percent of households has grown since 2000. But it essentially has remained
stagnant for families in the middle-income quintile and declined for poor and
low-income households."
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