Ron Johnson Raising Taxes on the Middle Class to Give Permanent Tax Cuts to Corporations

Ron Johnson, the Republican Senator from Wisconsin who is up for re-election, voted for the 2017 Trump Tax Law, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which gave permanent tax cuts to corporations. Zero Democrats voted for the bill in the House and Senate.

But when Ron Johnson and Republicans wanted low taxes for corporations, the Congressional Budget Office scored the law and reported it would cost nearly $3 trillion. So Republicans decided to make the middle class pay for it by giving working taxpayers a temporary cut and then increasing their taxes after 2025.

After 2025, the middle class will hand over more money to the IRS while corporations continue to make record profits and pay historically low tax rates.

The testimony of Chye-Ching Huang, Director of Federal Fiscal Policy, before the House Budget Committee summed up the negative effects of the TCJA. He stated that, “it ignores the stagnation of working-class wages and exacerbates inequality; 2) it weakens revenues when the nation needs to raise more; and 3) it encourages rampant tax avoidance and gaming that will undermine the integrity of tax code. 

Instead of focusing on the challenges of low- and moderate-income people, the 2017 tax law bolsters the after-tax incomes of households in the top 1 percent by 2.9 percent by 2025. This benefit for the wealthy increases racial inequities and barriers to economic success for people of color, while white households are overrepresented at the top. 

True tax reform simplifies the tax code and narrows the gaps between how different types of income are taxed. The 2017 tax law does the opposite. The creation and widespread abuse of tax shelters could cause the bill to lose even more revenue than current estimates show and will likely increase income inequality. This law creates a powerful incentive for wealthy Americans to shelter large amounts of income in corporations by slashing the corporate rate to 21 percent, far below the top individual tax rate of 37 percent.

Tax cuts that are advertised as help for the middle class should be labeled for what they are: welfare for the wealthy.

During Ron Johnson’s debate with Mandela Barnes he stated that “Social Security and Medicare funding should no longer be guaranteed and should instead compete with other government programs.” This would likely impact lower income and middle class populations significantly. 

Lastly, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit organization that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying, based on their 2019 data, Ron Johnson was listed as the 15th wealthiest Senator.

Ron Johnson voted for his own tax break and decided you could pay for it.

Sources

Senate.gov: Tax law vote roll call in the Senate

Brookings: “The middle class needs a tax cut: Trump didn’t give it to them”

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “Fundamentally Flawed 2017 Tax Law Largely Leaves Low- and Moderate-Income Americans Behind”

OpenSecrets: “Current members of congress by wealth”

PBS Wisconsin: “Mandela Barnes, Ron Johnson lob attacks, get personal in second debate”