Trump's Big Ugly Law Steals from the Poor to Give to the Ultra-Rich

The Big Ugly Law leaves working families worse off

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CBO analyzed the combined effects of the tax policies and spending reductions and found that working families will experience a net loss in household resources, while the ultra-rich will get richer. Specifically:

• Families already struggling to make ends meet lose the most. Households in the lowest income decile, making $24,000 a year or less, lose about $1,200 every year, mostly due to deep cuts to Medicaid and food assistance. That amounts to over 3 percent of their total income, a devastating hit for people who can afford it the least.
• Everyone in the bottom twenty percent of the income distribution, or those making less than $43,000 a year, will see a net decline in household resources.
• Middle-class families get next to nothing. For those in the 5th and 6th decile, or the middle of the distribution, they will experience a resource gain of only 0.8 to 1 percent. That is barely enough to keep up with rising costs due to President Trump's reckless actions.
• The ultra-rich get a windfall. Families making over $700,000 a year will see a $13,600 boost, almost entirely from tax cuts. That figure does not even count the massive estate tax giveaways for the ultra-rich.

The Big Ugly Law gives the ultra-rich a massive tax cut 

JCT separately estimated the distributional effects of only the tax provisions in the bill. They found that working-class people get no tax cut, and in some cases a tax increase, while the ultra-rich get tens of thousands in tax cuts a year. Specifically: 

• An average household making less than $15,000 a year will see a tax increase of over 9 percent in 2027. By 2033, when many temporary provisions in the tax portion of the law expire, this group will experience a 56 percent tax increase.
• While people earning $40,000 a year will see an average tax decrease of only $393, worth a few weeks of groceries, people making over $1 million a year will see their taxes go down by $97,000 in 2027.  

The Big Ugly Law sets a new precedent for wealth transfers to the ultra-rich 

In 2017, Trump and Republicans passed the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), a historically bad bill which increased the deficit by $1.9 trillion. That bill gave massive handouts to the ultra-rich, but the Big Ugly Law makes the 2017 tax breaks for the richest few look small by comparison, while exploding the deficit by more than twice as much. 

• The TCJA gave people making over $500,000 a year an average tax cut of $35,000 the first year after enactment. By comparison, the Big Ugly Law will give people making over $500,000 a tax cut of $47,000 in the first year alone.
• The TCJA transferred a total of $36.9 billion dollars to people making over $1 million a year in just the first year after the bill was enacted. The new bill will more than double that number, giving people making over $1 million a year $114 billion in tax cuts for 2027 alone.
• While the TCJA worsened inequality, it gave very modest tax cuts (around $20 dollars a year) to the lowest income earners. The Big Ugly Law will ask the lowest earners to pay higher taxes every year.
• Because this bill is coupled with draconian spending cuts that intentionally target working Americans, on net, the bill is even crueler and more unequal than TCJA.

Local Impact: 

See the impacts of the Big Ugly Law using the House Budget Committee’s microsite, which contains information about health care and food assistance specific to your community: democrats-budget.house.gov/legislation/biguglylaw