A couple of weeks ago this column focused on the fact that many Democrats continue to spread the lie that President Donald Trump is a racist. A lot of people in America continue to be ignorant of the facts. I’m sure many of you will agree with me — some won’t — that’s not the only falsehood about Trump being repeated over and over again in the national media.
In this column I am going to focus on Trump’s tax cuts passed by the GOP in 2017.
Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont calls it a massive giveaway to the rich. He said, “President Trump, you’re not standing up for working families when … 83 percent of your tax benefits go to the top 1 percent.”
Here’s Senator Elizabeth Warren’s view on the tax cuts, “Those tax cuts are to give $1.5 trillion away to the richest Americans and the biggest corporations, and let everybody else pick up the crumbs.”
Sanders and Warren are not the only politicians spreading this lie like it was butter on your morning toast. Misinformation, disinformation and continual false information — let’s call it what they are, lies — continue to flow in almost daily from the left concerning tax cuts.
How do I know this is a lie — facts.
According to 2018 IRS data, “total tax liability fell for all income groups except one in 2018.” Care to guess what income group paid more in income taxes for 2018? Let me help, it wasn’t you or me. It was the mega rich, those earning over $1 million a year.
According to the Treasury Department, fully 90 percent of US workers experienced higher take-home pay in 2018 thanks to the new law.
H&R Block data through March 31, 2019 shows the size of its clients’ tax refunds was up 1.4 percent under the first year of tax reform and new withholding tables, while overall tax liability was down 24.9 percent on average.
What is disturbing is that polling has shown that most Americans feel that they did not receive a tax cut in 2018 and a large minority think their taxes have actually risen.
The reason for this big disconnect is two fold. First, in February of 2018 everyone in America who received a paycheck got a raise because the Federal Government lowered the amount deducted from our paychecks. It’s been there so long many may have forgotten about it. Maybe they were under the incorrect assumption that it came from their employers.
In my March 2018 column I said, “the federal withholding check that I wrote to Uncle Sam went from 10.54% to 8.2% for my employees. If our payroll would remain constant for the year that means an extra $226 in my employee’s checks every pay period. That comes to a raise of $5,876 over the course of a year.”
That was for 17 employees. Warden Publishing Co. now has a total of 29 employees.
Secondly and more important, leaders in the Democrat party have lied to us continually about this subject. This is not just my opinion.
According to the New York Times “...the gap between perception and reality on the tax cuts appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand it as a broad middle-class tax increase.”
All the candidates running for President on the Democrat ticket have expressed a desire to eliminate these tax cuts. If you really want your taxes raised, vote Democrat in 2020 they will be happy to oblige.
Why do they lie about this? Easy, no congressional Democrat voted for this law. That means they cannot take any credit for the extra money you have in your pockets every week. Consequentially they have to vilify it causing the middle class to believe the tax cut was just for the rich.
A reader from Vienna sent in a letter last week agreeing with me that “sometimes false things are repeated enough so that people believe them. On both sides.” She went on to site the example of the “birther” controversy about Barrack Obama when he was president.
What I want you to do is start questioning much of the rhetoric that is promoted by political pundits. Do research and discover the truth.
Many Democrats are lying to us about Trump being a racist and about his tax cuts. If they lie to us about that what else are they lying about?
I am willing to bet that next year the Democrat nominee for president will describe Trump’s tax cuts as only benefiting the rich. Now you know, that will be a lie.
