A month ago, President Trump released a tax sketch that likely would redistribute wealth upward, and today he has poured salt on the wound with a proposed budget that would gut safety net programs and cut funding for other services that help move people out of poverty. Yet the PR refrain is the same Orwellian prattle we’ve been hearing for years: water isn’t wet, tax cuts for the rich will eventually trickle down to the rest of us, and balancing the federal budget must always rely on cutting programs that benefit ordinary people.
Alan Essig
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news release May 23, 2017 Trump’s Budget Proposal and Tax Plan Are the Antithesis of Populism
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blog May 22, 2017 ITEP’s Commitment to Being a Voice for Low-, Moderate- and Middle-Income People in Tax Policy Debates
A strong voice for working people in federal and state tax policy debates is absolutely critical. Sound, progressive tax policies make all the difference between high-quality educational systems or crowded classrooms with limited resources. They account for the difference between structurally sound roads and bridges or potholes and other crumbling infrastructure. At the federal level, good tax policy means raising enough revenue so the nation can adequately fund child care and early education, health care, food inspection, national parks, and a clean, safe environment among other things.
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news release May 18, 2017 Corporate Lobbyists Should Not Shape the Nation’s Tax Reform Debate
If the lineup for today’s House Ways and Means Committee hearing on tax reform is an indication of how the tax policy debate will unfold in the coming months, businesses and their lobbyists will have outsize influence in the process. This is a mistake.
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April 27, 2017 Expert Quote
“For the better part of the 20th century, the nation’s economic pie grew as did incomes for all Americans. But for the past 40 years, wages for ordinary Americans have… -
media mention April 26, 2017 New York Daily News: President Trump’s Tax Plan Ignores Campaign Promises to Help Middle Class, Reduce National Debt
Nor do they jibe with his and his presidential transition team’s guarantee that there wouldn’t be a big tax cut for wealthy people — now-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin promised on… -
news release April 26, 2017 Trump Tax Plan Revives Economic Voodoo
Following is a statement by Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the tax plan released today by the Trump Administration. The administration has…