Raw Story: 'Outright worse': Expert warns Trump's tax bill crosses line even Bush avoided

[Dennis Donovan]

Raw Story - ‘Outright worse’: Expert warns Trump’s tax bill crosses line even Bush avoided

Matthew Chapman
May 21, 2025 3:22PM ET

President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" on tax cuts, energy deregulation, and border security is in many ways a repeat of past enormous GOP tax cuts for the wealthy — but there's something different about this one compared to recent similar bills, wrote Mike Konczal of the Economic Security Project.

Specifically, he wrote, the George W. Bush tax cuts, and Trump's own first major tax cut bill in 2017, cut taxes across the board, giving the overwhelming majority of savings to the highest-income earners but at least giving some small tax relief to lower-income Americans as well. This time, however, the bill raises taxes on the lowest-income earners, with the bottom quintile seeing their take-home pay fall by $1,000.

"Even though conservatives are still blowing out the deficit, this time they aren’t even bothering to bring everyone along," Konczal wrote. "Instead, those at the bottom are outright worse off. The cuts to spending programs, especially Medicaid and SNAP, are severe. Estimates suggest at least the bottom two quintiles, 40%+ of Americans, will experience a clear loss in income. This isn't a subtle debate over which basis to judge the proportionality of tax cuts: millions will simply have less money, even as the bill adds $3.8 trillion to the deficit."

Moreover, this doesn't even factor in the effect of Trump's tariffs, which, even after he has eased off his most draconian plans, amount to a significant tax increase on purchasing goods and services, that will heavily impact lower-income households.

In essence, Konczal wrote, Republicans have brought back their obsession with what they call the "Lucky Duckies" — people who are so poor they don't pay income taxes, which in their view means they aren't contributing to society. Such lower-income people pay a much higher share of their income on things like sales taxes, and often struggle to afford basic necessities.

/snip

[Walleye]

1. If Trump keeps this up, we might have white genocide right here in the US

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Maddow Blog-Budget office: Republicans' megabill would give to the rich and take from the poor

If GOP officials are looking for good news in the Congressional Budget Office's new report on the party's reconciliation package, they won't find any.

In theory, the new CBO score on the Republicans’ megabill would rattle lawmakers and bury the legislation.

In practice, Republicans are too indifferent to the substance of governing to care. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-05-21T13:02:31.942Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/budget-office-republicans-megabill-give-rich-richer-take-poor-rcna208175

Common sense might suggest that congressional Republicans would want to know basic details about their giant reconciliation package, such as how much it would cost and the practical implications of its provisions. GOP lawmakers are, after all, federal policymakers. It stands to reason that they’d care enough about governing to want to legislate with open eyes......

That did not, however, stop congressional Democrats from asking the CBO to scrutinize the House Republicans’ proposal, and as The Associated Press reported, the nonpartisan budget office’s findings were quite brutal.

A fresh analysis from the Congressional Budget Office said the tax provisions would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending. The lowest-income households in the U.S. would see their resources drop, while the highest ones would see a boost, the CBO said.

For Republicans, there’s plenty of data to chew on in the CBO’s newly released findings, but if GOP officials are looking for encouraging news in the report, they won’t find any. The nonpartisan budget analysts found that the Republicans’ proposal would:

decrease household resources for the poorest Americans by 2% in the short term, and 4% by 2033 as additional GOP cuts take effect;

increase household resources for the wealthiest Americans, thanks almost entirely to Republican tax breaks;

increase the budget deficit by $3.8 trillion;

take health care benefits from roughly 15 million Americans;

cut roughly $700 million from Medicaid;

and cut $267 billion from SNAP (better known as food stamps).

Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the ranking member on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement, “This is what Republicans are fighting for — lining the pockets of their billionaire donors while children go hungry and families get kicked off their health care. CBO’s nonpartisan analysis makes it crystal clear: Donald Trump and House Republicans are selling out the middle class to make the ultra-rich even richer. Every word out of Trump’s mouth about helping working Americans was a lie.”