Final Tax Analysis: Good for the Rich, Bad for the Middle Class

I know it’s totally unfair to point out what happens under the Republican tax bill in 2027 after the individual cuts expire. After all, Republicans say they don’t want them to expire, and we should all pay attention to what Republicans say rather than what they actually do. But I’m just an old dinosaur who thinks actions are more important than words. And regardless of what they may want in the secret recesses of their hearts, the bill they’re about to pass does this:

As the top chart shows, within a decade tax rates will go up for everyone making less than $55,000 and stay about the same up to $225,000. They’ll go down for everyone above that level, and they’ll go down the most for millionaires. This one is from the Tax Policy Center.

On the bottom, you can see how this affects households. Up to $75,000, households will pay several hundred dollars more each year in taxes. Those making over a million dollars per year will pay about $14,000 less. This is from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

But it doesn’t matter. These are the same numbers we’ve seen all along, and the fact that the middle class is getting screwed in service to tax cuts for the rich isn’t going to stop anyone. I sure hope Republicans pay a price for this almost unfathomable act of political cynicism.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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