Here is another Trumpian tax analysis from Michael Busler, based on purely partisan ideology, bereft of facts. How is this wrong? Let me count the ways.
To start, let's grant that the description of taxes is reasonably accurate. He fails to describe other "taxes" that hit mostly lower incomes - fees like car registration, fishing licenses, entrance fees to parks. Or penalties, like having to pay for your incarceration if you are forced behind bars, or dramatically increased penalties for tickets. All of these have increased substantially in the last decades as income taxes on the rich have declined, and these are highly regressive, affecting lower incomes heavily and higher incomes almost not at all. Other than these oversights, fairly accurate.
But let's start picking this nonsense apart
"In total, adding the payroll taxes, the federal income tax, state income taxes, sales taxes and local taxes, the average income tax-paying American pays nearly 30% in total taxes." This is true on average, but the highest-earning Americans have multiple loopholes that allow them to reduce their income taxes, so that rich Americans often pay less income taxes than the middle class. In addition, the other taxes are much smaller than income taxes, but are regressive, and impact middle class and poor Americans greatly, rich Americans hardly at all. So the average total tax burden, as a percentage of income, is almost entirely higher for lower income workers than for the very rich.
As an insight into the author's authenticity, examine this quote: "Reducing payroll taxes would tend to increase economic growth." He provides a link, to an article by the very conservative Broookings Institute, and the only time mentioned in that article it says: "A cut in payroll taxes could bring some workers into the labor market or encourage those already working to put in more hours." So for Busler, "could" becomes "would". Note the followup from Brookings: "Such supply changes have little effect on output if the economy is operating well below potential. Under those conditions, people have difficulty finding more work even if they want it."
Next, Busler wants to convince you that the Trump/GOP tax cuts in 2018, the vast majority of which went to the very rich, was because the poor don't pay taxes (because they have little income). This is a crock, and is the typical retort by those defending tax cuts for the rich. Here is an analysis by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tax-plan-consequences/. The truth is that Trump's cuts were designed to benefit the richest of the rich.
Busler ends this essay by stumping for Trump's payroll tax cut. Which is both ill informed and disingenuous. First, it affects only working Americans, which doesn't help the people who need help. And Trump has only proposed a suspension, meaning the cuts would have to be paid back anyway, so the average worker gains almost nothing. And if Trump follows through with his threat to make the cuts permanent, it is nothing more than a sneaky back-door defunding of Social Security.
Busler is a Trump/GOP economist. Take his analyses with a grain of dirty salt.
