Not Much of a Tax Cut for Ordinary Americans

John Cassidy: “The business tax cuts and A.M.T. abolition don’t leave any room for ordinary American households to receive substantial tax cuts. Both Republican bills do expand family tax credits and reduce the marginal tax rates that most households would face; but they also claw back a lot of revenue in other ways, some of which are targeted at families.”

“The upshot of all this is that the Republican tax proposals, which Trump has promoted by promising the biggest tax cuts in history, isn’t much of a tax cut at all in the sense that most Americans understand the term. It’s really designed to reduce the tax burden on businesses and wealthy individuals, and it could only be justified if, defying history, it delivered the economy-wide upsurge in G.D.P. growth, capital investment, and wages that the White House has promised, and which Cohn talked about in his interview. The supposed middle-class tax cuts are a fig leaf.”