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Taxes Explained Series Wrap-Up: Trump’s Tax Plan Is Bad Policy and Bad Politics
Our Taxes Explained series aims to make tax policy clear and accessible. We want people to know what’s on the line and understand how Trump’s tax cuts are designed specifically to benefit the ultra-rich and corporations.
Last week, the U.S. House advanced a budget framework that would enable the U.S. Congress to raise the debt ceiling significantly to make massive tax cuts that will be a major windfall for the country’s wealthiest households. While congressional conservatives play party politics and jockey for position as Trump loyalists, the average American is feeling the harm and consequences of lawmakers’ decisions to cut trillions from federal programs to pay for more tax cuts for the rich.
Republicans’ proposals may be even more costly than previously estimated, perhaps upward of $7 trillion over 10 years.
A new update from the Joint Committee on Taxation and an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office project that Republicans’ proposals may be even more costly than previously estimated, perhaps upward of $7 trillion over 10 years. Let’s be clear: Public spending is not a bad thing. However, ballooning the national debt to pay for blanket tax cuts for the wealthy is bad economic policy and will have costs far beyond the monetary price tag. Congress should heed the alarm and turn back from this bad policy proposal or risk political fallout by proceeding as they face a very frustrated and angry public.
An adequately funded public sector of government services is important to our quality of life. From clean water to public safety, from public institutions of learning to health care access, these functions and programs are essential for the millions of families who face economic hardship.
The Room Where It Happens
Tax policy is one of the most complex, opaque, and inaccessible topics for everyday people. It is easy to get lost in the labyrinth of tax rules and treatments for single individuals versus married households, childless adults versus parents, wealth versus income, businesses versus corporations. And that’s just the tax reporting process. The process of actually writing the laws is even more obscure. Not everyone gets to participate in tax policy debates, be in the room where it happens, or have a real say in the policies that will impact their financial futures.
For more than two decades of my career, I watched where tax policy was written. It happens in small, crowded basement committee rooms or behind closed doors in state capitol buildings. I worked with my team at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute and a handful of policy advocates to make our case in the state capitol building for a fairer tax code. We brought data and stories from Georgia taxpayers to implore policymakers to make the tax code more progressive and use the revenues to make meaningful investments in health care, education, the workforce, and human services.
But we weren’t the only ones in the state capitol. Also present in larger numbers were paid corporate lobbyists. The kind of lobbyists with deep expense accounts, advocating for tax policies to support their bottom line. And when lawmakers yielded to corporate interests, the government chose to forgo revenues that support the public good. Everyday people would bear the brunt. It is a vicious cycle that happens at the local, state, and federal levels and deprives our communities of resources.
Making tax policy clear and accessible was the goal of our Taxes Explained series. We wanted people to know what’s on the line, engage on the issues, and understand how Trump’s tax cuts are designed specifically to benefit the ultra-rich and corporations. Our series illuminates the current tax policy debate that could have devastating effects on the public good and further economic inequality.
Make no mistake: These tax cuts will harm all families—especially Black and brown communities
Make no mistake: These tax cuts will harm all families—especially Black and brown communities—by deepening economic inequality, helping the rich get richer, and eliminating critical infrastructure and government programs that help all families maintain economic stability and security.
Our Taxes Explained Series
At Dēmos, we believe that tax justice is racial justice. And in a fair tax system, everyone pays their fair share, no one pays more than they can afford, and the government raises enough money to fund public goods that benefit us all, like education, housing, and health care. This series explains how the tax code reinforces economic inequality and benefits the wealthiest individuals and corporations at the expense of everyday people. We must create a more progressive tax code where the wealthiest contribute more; otherwise, economic disparities will widen.
For more information on our values and how the tax code can build economic power, read Taxes Explained: A Fair and Just Tax Code
To learn more about the cost of congressional conservatives’ tax proposals and how they would likely widen the racial wealth gap and slow economic growth, read Taxes Explained: 2025 Tax Fight
For more on corporate taxation and its impact on equity and the racial wealth divide, read Taxes Explained: Corporate Taxes.
Learn more on how the tax code is skewed toward the wealthy and why we need to tax wealth like income in Taxes Explained: Taxing Income versus Wealth.
For more information on tax credits and deductions and how lawmakers can use them to help families access economic opportunities, read Taxes Explained: Tax Credits and Deductions.
What’s Comes Next
Building Economic and Political Power
Ultimately, what we must remember is that creating a more fair and just tax system is critical to economic justice. Tax policies have historically been written to benefit white male property owners, but we can recenter.
What gives me hope that the people will have their final say is what I remember about my time in Georgia, watching my budget and tax policy colleagues around the country. Revenue campaigns and tax education efforts make a difference.
While corporations were maximizing their lobbying dollars and their proximity to political power, we were still able to win battles by rallying the public to show support for raising revenue for the public good. Winning on tax policy is happening in states across the country, most recently in Louisiana, where they rejected ballot measures to cap state revenues. The most important work is ensuring the public is informed with facts about the impact of these policies and that people understand how and the process by which change happens.
Today, we’re wholesale rejecting the $7 trillion Republican tax plan, and demanding justice for our families and communities.
We may not have access to all the closed rooms, backdoor deals, and complicated paperwork, but what we have is far more important: people power. Today, we’re wholesale rejecting the $7 trillion Republican tax plan, and demanding justice for our families and communities. Join us.
The Taxes Explained Series
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