Letter to the editor: Tax cuts for wealthy cost us dearly

The Trib has recently published articles by George Will and Cal Thomas that raised alarms about our $34 trillion to $35 trillion national debt that is supposedly caused by our government’s reckless spending. But the Center for American Progress states “if not for the Bush and Trump tax cuts revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio (debt as a percentage of the economy) would be declining. Fighting the Great Recession and covid pushed the level of debt higher, these costs were temporary and did not change the trajectory of the debt ratio. The Bush-Trump tax cuts, for corporations and the wealthy did that.”

The U.S. does not have a high-spending problem; it has a low tax, for corporations and the wealthy, problem that severely reduces federal revenues. These tax cuts for the wealthy have cost us trillions of dollars and made our tax code significantly more regressive.

Case in point, between 2018 and 2022, Tesla made $4.4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. Elon Musk, the single largest beneficiary of the Donald Trump tax cuts, saw his fortune grow more than 1,200%.

When you vote in November, vote for lawmakers who will pledge to make our tax code more balanced with everyone paying their fair share.

Louis D. Brandeis said, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

Julia Bojalad

North Huntingdon