Phil Gramm and Mike Solon explain why President Biden and his allies are wrong about Trump-era tax cuts.
In his call for Congress to repeal the 2017 tax cuts and increase corporate tax rates, President Biden asked: “Are we going to continue with an economy where the overwhelming share of the benefits go to big corporations and the very wealthy?” …
… But as John Adams once said, facts are stubborn things. Seven years into the weakest recovery in postwar history, as the economy slumped toward a recession, the 2017 tax cuts and the Trump administration’s regulatory relief sent real median household income soaring by $5,220 in 2019. That’s 49% higher than the previous highest annual gain in 2015 and 11 times the average percentage gain over the previous 50 years. Real median income rose more in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2019 alone than during the entire Obama recovery from 2009-16. The poverty level plunged at the fastest rate since 1966, to the lowest level since the Census Bureau started collecting the data in 1959.
The lowest income quintile saw its average real income rise by 9.4% in 2019, the year after the tax cut took effect. The second quintile (7.4%), middle quintile (6.9%) and fourth quintile (7.8%) all experienced the largest annual income growth in more than a half-century, and the top quintile (7.2%) had its second-highest income growth. The poverty rate in 2019 was the lowest ever recorded for every category, including individuals, families, unmarried women, blacks, Hispanics and children. …
… No federal spending or tax policy change in the past 50 years was followed by as large an increase in real median household income or as big a drop in the poverty rate as the Trump tax cuts.
Everyone expected that the owners of American public companies would benefit—and they did. The stock market surged in 2017 in anticipation of the tax cuts and, in 2018 and 2019, in response to them. Who owns American corporations? According to Tax Notes, 72% of the value of all domestically held stocks is owned by pension plans, 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts and charitable organizations, or held by life insurance companies to fund annuities and death benefits.