November 8, 2017

The Republican Tax Plan Is a Disaster for Families With Children

After correcting an error in their model, the Tax Policy Center has re-released their analysis of the Republican tax plan. The basic numbers are no surprise.:

The biggest cuts go to the rich, and this lopsidedness gets even worse ten years down the road. Here’s the number of households who will see their taxes increase:

This is pretty similar to the estimates from ITEP that I showed you on Monday. And here’s an estimate from a different source on the effect of the Republican tax plan solely on families with children:

Keep in mind that the Republican plan has already changed to the tune of about $100 billion, and it’s likely to change more. So these estimates are already out of date. However, I doubt that the changes will dramatically change these results.

It’s a little hard to understand how Republicans think they’re going to sell this. They’re already in trouble with their base over things like ending the adoption credit and killing off the deduction for state and local taxes in blue states:

There’s a lot of families with kids who are going to see a tax hike, and that’s marketing gold for Democrats. It’s pretty easy to send mailers just to families with children, and the disclosure that these figures are for 2027 is likely to be a very tiny footnote on the back page. In fact, it’s quite possible to break down the tax implications even more precisely and then target mailers and social media to very narrow segments of the population.

What happens to the suburban vote when families learn that a third or a half of them are getting a tax hike so that Republicans can fund a tax cut for big business and the rich? Or in Republican districts in blue states where lots of people learn that their net taxes are going up thanks to the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction or the state and local tax deduction? And that’s all on top of a Democratic electorate that’s pissed off and ready to vote in big numbers. I sure wouldn’t want to be the guy who has to defend this.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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