Trump’s historic tax reform is a strong step toward greater prosperity

The good news keeps coming. Since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, announcements about increased investment in the U.S. and various companies offering employees bonuses haven’t stopped. 

The vast majority of Americans will prosper from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. As an economist and policy analyst, we’ve been skeptical of the Trump administration’s direction on some issues, like NAFTA renegotiations, but we’re encouraged by the results of regulatory and tax reforms because they let people prosper, the flipside of what’s been stifling us.

This first major rewrite of the federal tax code in a generation is a historic moment for our republic. The institutional framework that stifled Americans can again work for We the People instead of for bloated governments.

{mosads}We admit that the bill isn’t perfect and encourage Congress to follow this massive $5.5 trillion gross tax cut with spending restraint. That’s especially important because without spending reductions roughly $500 billion could be added to the national debt in the next decade. Also, doing so will help keep the roughly $112 trillion in federal IOUs from requiring government to further infiltrate our lives.

We’ve experienced government’s overreach during the worst recovery since WWII of about two percent annual growth while the national debt almost doubled under the Obama administration’s high tax and spend policies. This reshaping of institutions increased barriers to prosperity through excessive regulations, like ObamaCare, and higher taxes that redistributed resources among people.

America voted for a new institutional direction in 2016.

Regarding regulations, the Trump administration has already repealed 67 of them while creating only three. Entrepreneurs can now budget lower costs longer which contributes to more investments in workers and capital. The result is faster economic growth with a three percent average annualized growth the last three quarters of 2017 matching GDP’s long-term average, which has lifted consumer sentiment. 

The tax bill’s most sweeping changes include cutting the corporate tax rate and individual income tax rates for most Americans. Sixty percent of the gross tax cuts go to families while the rest goes to businesses.

As expected, critics claim these changes benefit the rich. Interestingly, the corporate tax rate cut once had bipartisan support, as President Obama proposed cutting it to 28 percent, and progressives passed and extended much of President Bush’s personal income tax cuts.

Regardless, permanently cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent, the highest in the developed world, to 21 percent, slightly below the worldwide average, drastically improves employment prospects.

Often missed in the discussion is that corporations simply submit taxes to the government because people pay them through higher prices, lower wages, and fewer jobs available. Cutting the corporate tax rate means corporations can pass those savings along to people.

Businesses are reporting they will pay bonuses and higher wages, immediate pay increases to let people freely prosper.

On the individual income tax side, most taxpayers will pay less tax until at least 2026. According to good tax policy, the tax bill doesn’t flatten as it leaves seven income tax brackets, but it broadens the base by eliminating many exemptions and deductions and simplifies the code by doubling the standard deduction.

Critics claim that these changes could increase income inequality. But history shows that the tax code is not the place to deal with supposed income inequality as it fluctuates whether taxes are high or low. By changing the institutional incentives through this tax bill, more people can move up the income ladder.

But, do only the rich get a tax cut? No. The Tax Foundation calculated the changes in tax liability for multiple households and found that each of them would pay less tax. 

An individual earning $30,000 with no kids could pay $379 less in taxes. An individual earning $50,000 with two kids could pay $1,892 less in taxes. A married couple filing jointly earning $165,000 with two kids could pay $2,224 less in taxes. And a married couple filing jointly earning $2 million could pay $18,904 less in taxes.

All income groups receive a tax cut.

Higher income people pay fewer dollars than those with lower income, but that’s because they pay more in income taxes. For example, the top 10 percent of income earners pay 70 percent of federal income taxes collected. However, the share of income taxes paid could become more progressive under these tax changes.

It’s not just more money in people’s pocket, but doubling the standard deduction lets many people spend less time on their taxes and more time with their families. This is great news for working Americans.

Icing on the cake would be for Congress to restrain government spending, the ultimate burden of government.

Bipartisan welfare reform in the 1990s helped cut spending but more importantly improved the lives of many Americans as they returned to work or received better assistance. The amount of waste, fraud, and abuse in these programs along with too many dollars to bureaucracy and not to people make welfare a good place to start.

Reforms to the major drivers of Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security must be on the table to restrain spending growth while improving them for the truly needy.

Until then, let’s celebrate the Trump administration’s new institutional direction that has long supported prosperity. Skepticism is healthy to provide proper checks and balances on government. But when pro-growth policies like regulatory and tax reforms improve human flourishing, we’re much more optimistic about the future.

Vance Ginn, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Economic Prosperity and senior economist and Drew White is senior federal policy analyst, both at the nonprofit Texas Public Policy Foundation.