High profile individuals in American society when caught engaging in criminal, deviant or unethical activity disappear into rehab programs, hoping to recast themselves as victims. Addicts are sympathetic figures, the thinking goes.
But how are we to feel about addicts who won’t/can’t seek treatment? In the case of tax addicted Washington politicians on the left, they should be judged as scoundrels, at the very least. How else to characterize tax-and-spend zealots such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who says the Trump administration’s proposed tax cuts are “just plain immoral.”
Warren and her fellow tax revenue addicts break into sweats at the mention of tax cuts like alcoholics hearing suggestions of a return to Prohibition. They always fall back on the same tired rant. Tax cuts benefit only the richest Americans and give little relief to working class citizens (as if Warren, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, et al, actually know any such people). Corporate tax cuts only enrich the titans, not the factory workers. On and on they drone.
That’s why Republicans need to do a better job when it comes to promoting the actual effects of the tax cuts they propose under President Trump. They need to be very specific about the objectives of cutting taxes by drawing on jaw dropping data neatly summarized by columnist Walter E. Williams writing for DailySignal.com, “The Facts About Who Pays the Most in Taxes in America”.
Thirty-seven million tax filers have no tax obligation at all. (That’s 45.5% of American households). … These Americans become natural constituencies for big-spending (Democrat) politicians. After all, if you don’t pay federal taxes, what do you care about big spending?
But the average hard working American typically does not fixate on federal spending and national debt. That’s Washington insider stuff. Working class Americans want a path to higher wages and upward mobility within their chosen industry. The surest way to make that a realistic goal is to ease the tax burden on American corporations.
Williams deftly points out that the current 38.91% tax on U.S. corporate earnings, the fourth-highest in the world, is a tax on living, breathing people. A corporate tax cut potentially has more impact on a middle-class family than a tax cut on its take-home pay. Democrats refuse to acknowledge this because, of course, the narrative must always be that corporations are evil.
If a tax is levied on a corporation, it will have one of four responses or some combination thereof. It will raise the price of its product, lower dividends, cut salaries, or lay off workers. In each case, a flesh-and-blood person bears the tax burden.
The messaging is really simple. President Trump and fellow Republicans must not be trapped into using empty jargon when talking about tax reform.
More than 45% of American households pay zero federal income tax. Just say it. Less than 1% of the population, according to data Williams cites, pays 70.6% of federal income taxes. Just say it, while advocating for some relief for these folks, too. But most importantly, just say that a significant corporate tax rate cut from about 39% to 20% will open floodgates of higher wages and greater upward mobility for working class Americans.
If passing real tax cuts means that scores of Congressional Democrats disappear to enter fiscal rehab, just think of what that would do to ease gridlock in Washington.
RESOLVE 