When you hear someone say “tax cuts,” you’d be forgiven for thinking it means you’ll pay less in taxes. But the reality is that under Trump’s proposed tax policies, millions of workers will see their taxes increase by hundreds, or even thousands of dollars per year.
A report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy predicts that the top 1% of income earners—those making $914,900 or more—will see their taxes cut by an average of $36,320 a year if Trump’s plan goes through. Meanwhile, workers earning less than $28,600 will get a tax hike of nearly 5%. On average, those making between $28,600 and $55,100 will pay almost $1,500 a year more in federal taxes.
Billions for war and corporate handouts
What will all this money be used for? The capitalist state spends workers’ hard-earned dollars engorging imperialism’s war chest. They also give plenty of handouts to the ultrarich—for banks to use on speculation and profit-driven monopolies to buy back their own stock. None of this helps the working class.
With Trump and other billionaires like Elon Musk and Linda McMahon at the helm, we can be sure that public spending will not go toward socially useful and necessary services for workers, continuing the decades-long decline in our living standards.
Tax the rich?
Soft-left reformists claim we can fix the system by “taxing the rich,” while leaving private ownership untouched. As long as the economy is in private hands, with capitalists competing against each other for profit, economic anarchy is inevitable. Attempts to tax the billionaires while allowing them to own the key levers of the economy will lead to capital flight—further divestment from production at home and an increase in investment and speculation abroad.
The billionaires must be made to pay for their system’s crisis. But taxation is not the way to do it. Communists demand the expropriation and nationalization of the top 500 companies under democratic workers’ control. The capitalist state can’t “stabilize” the economy. Only a workers’ government can.