Getting on the same page of the hymnal
Republicans need to pre-sell the coming tax fight, and the discipline to all fight it the same way
The elephant has a fever.
It may be temporary, but Republican poll numbers are slipping lower and midterm anxieties are inching higher. To fix what ails us, we need some old-time religion, the thing that always heals us and gets us back on the right path. We need a tax fight.
The smartest Republicans on Capitol Hill are spending most of their waking hours these days getting ready for this, even if the dumbest ones are making it harder. The media narrative talks about the “one big beautiful bill” that President Trump has asked the Hill GOP to produce, but we’re not talking enough about what will be in that bill.
This is a bill to stop the Democrats’ tax increase.
Say it again with me: this is a bill to stop the Democrats’ tax increase.
It’s not a DOGE bill, a border bill, a jobs bill, a culture war bill, a tariff bill, a bill to eliminate unnecessary departments, a defense bill, a bill to rename geographic features or military bases – it’s not about any of that. It’s a bill to stop the Democrats’ tax increase.
There’s been something for everyone to like in Donald Trump’s first 100-plus days, no matter what kind of Republican you are – a Marco-ista, a Vance-r, a protectionist, or a de-regulating Wall Street Journal reader. But there’s one thing that unites everyone in the Trump/Republican coalition: taxes.
If you cannot pull together a Republican coalition on taxes, you are not trying hard enough.
The blessing and the curse of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – better known as the Trump Tax Cut – is that Congress must deal with it again this year. Green-eye-shade conservatives back in 2017 insisted on following the stupid rules of the Congressional parliamentary board game and stuck us with lower personal income tax rates that expire after nine years.
Democrats, if left to their own devices, will let those tax rates spike on December 31. They want taxes to go up, and there’s roughly zero chance any of them will vote for whatever “big beautiful bill” has Trump’s name on it.
To date, the Democrats are getting away with murder on this issue, and Republicans, distracted by tariffs and DOGE are letting them. Whatever pejoratives a Democrat hurls at the right on cable TV these days, the sentence ends with the clause “…to give tax cuts to billionaires.” And it goes unchecked.
The fact is, Democrats do not only object to tax cuts for the 800 or so billionaires in our country. They object to billionaires – and small businesses, and everyone else - paying the same tax rate they’re paying right now.
Joe Biden and Democrats controlled Congress in 2021-2022. If they really believed in keeping any existing tax rates, they could have taken care of it. They didn’t, because they really want all rates to go up. Here’s what’s at stake:
· 1040 EZ Form Filers pay more. If you’re not itemizing deductions, you’re relying on a standard deduction that nearly doubled under Trump. This means higher taxes on young people, lower income earners, and retirees.
· Small business taxes go up. They lose a 20% deduction.
· Families Who Itemize. If you’re using the $2,000 Child Tax Credit, it drops to $1,000 per child. Because it’s a credit and not a deduction, this is a real dollar increase.
· Income Tax Rate Hikes for almost everyone. A worker earning $60,000 a year would see their tax liability increase by $2,200. If you’re making $95,376 to $182,100, your top rate goes from 24% to 28%.
Democrats on TV argue it’s only the wealthy they want to target. But when pressed, they don’t want to tell you what “wealthy” is.
On CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip last Friday, I challenged liberal radio host John Fugelsang to tell me who else, besides billionaires, he’d gouge. He said: “I am encouraging Democrats to tax the hell out of the wealthy.” I asked “who’s that?” Democrats at the table came back with “the 1%.” That means American households who make at least $650,000 – the group that’s already paying 40% of the income taxes collected by the Internal Revenue Service. Go a little deeper to the top 5% of earners? They are paying 61% of the taxes.
When you say “who else” one more time on live TV, the liberals stammer.
Why? They know the math. There’s not a chance Democrats will be content with only taxing the rich. Liberal think tanks fault the US for its relative low share of gross domestic product consumed by taxes; it’s just half the share of GDP choked down by Scandinavian governments.
Democrats want more from government than they can milk out of just the uber-rich. They know their appetite for government-run health care, electric vehicles and public transit for all, massive public sector union give-aways, and cradle-to-grave social programs requires a radically transformed tax burden that squeezes the upper middle class – managers, professionals and small business owners - at a minimum.
Some Republicans – including Vice President J.D. Vance, Budget Director Russ Vought and provocateur Steve Bannon have flirted with acceding to the Democratic demand to raise taxes on those in the highest bracket. Bannon is quoted by the Washington Post as saying “this guts the AOC-Bernie oligarchy tour.” That’s hogwash, and Republicans, even those of the well-motivated populist variety, should not fall into this foolish trap.
Political battles are usually won by the setting of the over-arching binary prism through which the public comes to view them. The way to win this fight is to draw one big fat bright line: Should taxes go up or should they stay where they are?
Don’t let it devolve into “who” should pay more taxes, or whether we need “tax cuts.” Make every Democrat defend tax rates going up on everyone - period.
And make it the centerpiece of what we talk about and fight about every day.
An American public already disenchanted with Washington is not going to be keen on sending it more money. Republicans need that old-time religion and it means getting everyone in the party singing on the same page of the hymnal.
