ITEP Issues Statement on President Trump’s Missouri Visit

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 -- The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy issued the following statement by Executive Director Alan Essig regarding President Trump's visit to Springfield:

"Much like the GOP health plan was a tax cut for the wealthy masquerading as health reform, the GOP's plan for overhauling the tax code is a tax cut for corporations and the wealthy masquerading as strategy for jobs creation and economic growth.

"In April, the White House released a bare bones tax sketch, which my ITEP colleagues analyzed. Our 50-state analysis found that nearly half (48.4 percent) of Trump's proposed tax cuts would go to millionaires, a group that only makes up 0.5 percent of the population. In Missouri, where the president today is expected to make an appeal for overhauling the tax code, millionaires make up a tiny fraction of the population but would receive 45 percent of the tax cuts going to that state, while taxpayers earning $45,000 per year or less would receive just 5.7 percent of Missouri's share of tax cuts, though they make up nearly half of the state's population.

"The case for corporate tax cuts is just as weak. GOP leaders claim the corporate tax rate is too high, yet most profitable corporations pay an average effective rate of 21.4 percent, which is substantially less than the 35 percent statutory rate. All this is a very wonky way of saying President Trump's tax proposals would largely benefit corporations and the wealthy even though the White House claims their tax plan would benefit the middle-class.

"Supply-side economic theories are old hat and disproven. For the last 40 years, the gap between the rich and the rest of us has continued to widen, yet GOP leaders are pushing policies that literally will make working people pay a larger share of the nation's tax bill. Must every single cent of the nation's wealth concentrate at the top before our elected officials admit that trickle-down policies are code for giveaways to corporations and the already wealthy?

"If lawmakers truly wanted to create good jobs and look out for the middle class, they would not peddle policies that would redistribute wealth upward via the tax code."