Slashes These Programs by Two-Fifths in 2026
The House Republican budget plan, which could come to the House floor in April, would prove especially harmful to low- and moderate-income families and individuals, cutting programs for such people by an unprecedented amount while taking a strikingly unbalanced approach to deficit reduction. It also would be inconsistent with statements of Republican leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan that reducing poverty is a top priority... In addition, the plan would secure 62 percent of its budget cuts from low-income programs even though they account for just 28 percent of total non-defense program spending (and just 24 percent of total program spending, including defense)... While cutting supports and services severely for Americans of lesser means, the budget would secure no deficit reduction at all from the more than $1 trillion a year in tax credits, deductions, and other preferences, collectively known as “tax expenditures” — which disproportionately benefit high-income households and which former Reagan Administration economics adviser (and Harvard professor) Martin Feldstein has called the most wasteful part of the budget... Cuts in low-income entitlement and discretionary programs likely account for about $3.7 trillion — or 62 percent — of the $6.0 trillion in non-defense cuts... Speaker Ryan used similar wording about spending on poverty programs in an interview with Katie Couric in advance of the forum.[11] The House budget plan, however, starkly contradicts these sentiments... Moreover, the House Republican plan ignores what should be one of the largest sources for deficit reduction: tax expenditures. These are the $1.2 trillion a year in deductions, credits, and other preferences that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan called “tax entitlements” and former Reagan economic adviser Martin Feldstein said are the best target for cutting wasteful government spending. Tax expenditures tilt heavily toward the affluent, with half of their benefits going to the top fifth of households.
Ryan’s Mystery Meat Budget
Paul Ryan (R-WI), who released a fiscal plan that airily promises both trillions of dollars in tax cuts and a nearly balanced budget within a decade, but never says how he’d get there.
Ryan isn’t saying that his budget implies cuts of $4.6 trillion in popular tax deductions, credits, and exclusions over 10 years, according to new estimates by the Tax Policy Center. And that ignores the $5.4 trillion in revenue lost from permanently extending the 2001/2003 tax cuts.
Ryan proposes big, specific spending reductions such as cutting Medicaid in half and slashing other federal spending (except for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) by nearly 75 percent from current levels by 2050. But his budget still can’t add up without eliminating or sharply scaling back those popular tax preferences. Which ones, it seems, remain a state secret.
.. Actually, he’s wrong. There is an emerging bipartisan consensus to embrace lower rates without ever saying how to pay for them.
Trump’s Tax (Avoidance) Plan
His clearest policy proposal is a gigantic tax cut for the wealthy, reversing the progress Obama has made against inequality. Trump would shower $1.3 million a year on the average member of the top 0.1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, wants to raise their taxes further (but still not to the levels of the post-War years).
The larger meaning of Trump’s tax avoidance seems quite clear. He’s running for president partly to help other wealthy people be like him – and avoid paying taxes. If you want to understand his economic agenda, look at his tax dodge.
Obama’s Trickle-Up Economics
.. median income rose a remarkable 5.2 percent
.. In fact, the top one percent is now paying about the same share of its income in federal taxes as it did in 1979, before Ronald Reagan began the era of big tax cuts for the rich. And some of the increased tax take is being used to subsidize health insurance for middle- and lower-income families.
Conservatives predicted disaster from these initiatives. Tax hikes on the rich, they insisted, would stall the economy. Obamacare’s combination of regulation and subsidies, they declared, would kill millions of jobs without increasing the number of Americans with insurance.
.. Any attempt to help working families directly, we’re told, will backfire by hurting the economy as a whole. So we must cut taxes on those “job creators” instead, counting on a rising tide to raise all boats.