According to the Brookings Tax Policy Center, Donald Trump’s 2017 tax bill gave the top-earning 0.1% of families a $193,000 tax cut. The bottom 20% received nothing.
The March 2021, relief bill under President Biden, gives families with kids making $25,000 or less an average tax cut of almost $7,700.
As supporters of basic equality ideals, Democrats have known this is part of a longstanding trend. Republicans in power favor the wealthy by a large margin.
The non-partisan Center for Public Affairs Research (AP/NORC) recently finished some interesting studies showing that 38 million Americans say they are worse off financially since the beginning of the pandemic. Plus, we know that 45 million Americans experienced food insecurity in 2020, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Compare this to the fact that the combined net worth of 657 American billionaires actually increased by $1.3 trillion, or 45%, during the first year of the pandemic.
The wealth gap needs to be part of our issue discussions as we approach next year’s elections. Things will not get better until we reduce the large legislative majorities of Republicans in Wisconsin and many other states across America.
Clif Morton