During her economic speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Kamala Harris once again lied about the Trump tax cuts, also known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Harris has done this since TCJA’s enactment in 2017 and has never retracted her repeated vow to “repeal that tax bill.”
Harris does not want to admit that TCJA cut taxes across the board. Harris continues what the NYT described in 2019 as a “sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand it as a broad middle-class tax increase.”
If they can muster up the courage, reporters have everything they need to follow up when Harris fibs, as numerous center-left outlets have previously weighed in:
CNN’s Jake Tapper: “The facts are, most Americans got a tax cut.”
New York Times: “Most people got a tax cut.”
Washington Post: “Most Americans received a tax cut.”
FactCheck.org: “Most people got some kind of tax cut.”
FactCheck.org also stated: “The vast majority (82 percent) of middle-income earners — those with income between about $49,000 and $86,000 — received a tax cut that averaged about $1,050.”
H&R Block: “The vast majority of people did get a tax cut.”
Janet Yellen: Even the Biden-Harris administration — via Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — acknowledged TCJA cut taxes for all during testimony to the Senate Finance Committee.
Finance Committee Ranking Member Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) wisely got Yellen on the record:
Crapo: “Are you aware that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which Republicans passed in 2017 reduced the taxes for Americans for all income groups including those earning less than $400,000 a year?“
Yellen: “Yes.”
TCJA actually made the tax code more progressive. Data from the Congressional Budget Office also shows that high-earning Americans pay a greater share of taxes than before the Trump tax cuts.
- The top one percent of earners paid 38.6 percent of income taxes in 2017 and 41.7 percent of income taxes in 2018.
- The top 20 percent of earners paid 87.1 percent of income taxes in 2017 and 90.9 percent of income taxes in 2018.
- The top one percent of earners paid 25.5 percent of all federal taxes in 2017 and 25.9 percent of income taxes in 2018.
- The top 20 percent of earners paid 69.3 percent of all federal taxes in 2017 and 69.8 percent of federal taxes in 2018.
Stay tuned to ATR’s Kamalanomics.org for updates.