Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on Ways and Means Tax Hearing: “There is nothing here for the working class”

Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on Ways and Means Tax Hearing: “There is nothing here for the working class”

Today, the House Ways & Means Committee hosted its first hearing this Congress on President-elect Trump’s expiring tax law. Groundwork Collaborative Executive Director Lindsay Owens reacted with the following statement:

“Today, conservative lawmakers tried to rewrite the history of Trump’s 2017 tax law. Let’s set the record straight. Extending these tax breaks will put less than a dollar a day in the pockets of 75 million families, while the top 0.1% will take $314,000 to their wealth planners. There is nothing here for the working class, and Congress should let these tax breaks expire as planned.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about the tax debate.

BACKGROUND

• A recent analysis from the Treasury Department found that on average, a full extension of Trump’s tax law would give the top 0.1% of people an extra $314,000. Meanwhile, the 75 million families at the bottom would get less than $1 a day.
• Extending the individual provisions of Trump’s tax scam will actually cause the economy to shrink over the long term according to a December 2024 analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.
• The 2017 tax law had no real impact on corporate investment, and job and wage growth actually slowed after enactment, according to a paper by the Institute for Macroeconomic Policy Analysis (IMPA).
• Median wage growth actually slowed in 2018 and 2019 after the 2017 tax cuts became law. CBO concluded in 2019, “ordinary workers had very little growth in wage rates.” Over one-third of taxpayers (35%) saw no changes in their taxes or faced a tax increase under the law. 90% of workers did not see a raise as a result of corporate tax cuts.