No, not true. Because the 2017 Tax Law was not anywhere near a flat tax cut.
Nor did I say it was. What I said was that the argument that website used compared absolute numbers to determine the fairness of a percentage cut, which is an unsound argument. You cannot compare absolute to relative numbers.
They cut the tax brackets from 6 to 3 - the top tax bracket got the biggest cut eliminating the 39.6 bracket
They gave enormous tax deductions to pass through income benefiting millionaire and billionaire business owners.
They limited the deduction for state and local taxes to $10,000. A deliberate attack on Blue state taxpayers. In California a basic 1500 sqft ranch home costs over I million dollars and comes with a 10,000 property tax payment. That means all your state income tax is not deductible.
The eliminated personal exemptions - that’s $4400 per person in a family. So if you have just one kid, the doubling of the standard deduction was completely wiped out by the loss of personal exemptions.
They eliminated all work related deductions including the paying of union dues
The biggest tax cut went to C corporations cutting the rate from 35 to 21%
The Tax law was a windfall for corporations and wealthy people. Modest income homes got a small tax cut. Everyone else got squat or a tax increase.
As I said, there could be an argument that the tax law benefited the rich more than the poor. You have now made such an argument. What I said was that the argument you presented in the original post was not such an argument.
Oh, Trump had a trillion dollar deficit long before anyone ever heard the word Covid. So what caused his massive deficit?
Actually he didn't. It didn't pass $1 trillion until 2020. But that's nitpicking. It was a trillion if we round up. So let's take a look at the federal budget in 2018.
$3.3 Trillion revenue from taxes.
Spending
Social Security: $982 billion
Medicare: $582 billion
Medicaid: $389 billion
Interest on debt: $325 billion
Defense: $623 billion
Nondefense: $639 billion
From CBO, nondefense is "transportation, education, veteran's benefits, health, housing, assistance, and other activities."
Other: $570 billion
Other is "unemployment compensation, federal civilian and military retirement, some veteran's benefits, the earned income tax credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and other mandatory programs."
The total deficit (from the CBO link) was $779 billion.
So the answer to your question of what caused the deficit was about 1/3 the tax cut and 2/3 overspending.
We are talking about the 2017 Tax Law and how it’s cuts for corporations and the wealthy caused the deficit to top 1 trillion.
Your answer to cutting taxes is to raise taxes. The would suggest the 2017 Tax Law was stupid.
Firstly, the tax cut did not cause the deficit to top $1 trillion. It only raised the deficit to $779 billion. For context, the deficit in 2017 was $665 billion.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53624Secondly, the idea behind a tax cut isn't that it will decrease the deficit in the following few years. The idea is that the tax cut will lead to increased economic growth so that the revenue will increase several years down the road, thereby "paying" for itself. Whether this tax cut succeeded in that depends entirely on whether you look at a left-wing source or a right-wing source. However, if one wants to decrease the deficit this year, then one has to raise taxes and cut spending.
We had a balanced budget under Clinton. It can be done.
It can, but it's a lot harder now than it was when Clinton did it. Clinton had the benefit of an economic boom driven by, among other things, the explosion of the internet. Furthermore, the US population at the time was comparatively less old, meaning that Social Security and Medicare spending was lower. Look at the budget for 2019, the year before all the Covid stimulus packages mess up all the easy numbers by adding a bunch of temporary spending.
The deficit was $984 billion. We could raise taxes to pay for it all, if we feel like guaranteeing a recession. It would be political suicide, so no one's going to do that. And if the did, it would be repealed as soon as the next election came. We could cut defense spending, but that's only $676 billion. Even if we cut it to 0, that won't pay for it. And looking at Ukraine and China's saber-rattling toward Taiwan, that doesn't seem like such a great idea. We could cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, but that would also be political suicide. We can't cut interest. Are we going to cut SNAP, veteran's benefits, retirement funds, unemployment compensation, or tax credits (the other spending)? Same story. Besides, you wouldn't throw all those poor people, old people, and veterans in front of the bus, would you? We could cut transportation, education, health, housing, or more veterans benefits (nondefense spending). Again, political suicide. You mean you don't like education? You hate health and housing? Capitalist pig!
What can you cut that wouldn't be political suicide? Or how will you explain to people that, just as inflation starts to decrease, they need to pay $1 trillion more in taxes? That won't go over well. Serious question here. What would you cut? Would you raise taxes by $1 trillion? How would you balance the budget?
