It's official! The rich get richer, the poor get poorer
And the upper middle class gets a tiny tax break under the One Big (Ugly) Bill.
The Congressional Budget Office released its distribution analysis of the “Gut Social Services to Give More Money to the Rich” bill now before the Senate.
Here’s the CBO chart mapping the distribution effects by population deciles (tenths of the population):
The dark green portions of the bars represent declines to income through cuts to federal and state programs like Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps. The light green bars represent increased income from tax breaks and other cash transfers.
As you can plainly see, the bottom 30% of the population are total losers under the GOP-backed bill. People in the fourth decile break even. There are minor increases for the next three deciles. The middle class — sixth through ninth deciles — will get on average a $2-3,000 tax break.
“Resources for households in the lowest decile of the income distribution would decrease by about $1,600 per year in 2025 dollars compared with their projected income,” CBO director Phillip Swagel wrote to Brendan F. Boyle (D-PA), ranking member of the House Budget Committee, and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the House minority leader, who had requested the analysis. “That amounts to 3.9 percent of their income.”
The big winner — drum roll please — is the top 10%, who on average will gain over $12,000 over ten years. While the CBO did not report it, independent analyses show their tax breaks are heavily skewed to benefit the top 1%, who will get on average a $70,000 reduction in income taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center.
More than a third of the tax breaks would go to those earning more than $460,000 a year, according to the TPC’s Howard Gleckman. “This bill tilts heavily in favor of higher-income households.”
It’s not a tax bill — it’s a heist. The name should come with a ski mask and a getaway car. Gut Medicaid, slash food stamps, toss a few bucks at the upper middle class so they’ll shut up, and then shovel the real loot to the top 1%.
The bottom 30%? Sacrificed like ballast off a sinking ideology. And the GOP calls this “fiscal responsibility.” No, this is what rot looks like when it's dressed in legislative language and backed by billionaires.
If you’re still wondering which side your government is on, the answer just got printed in bar graph form by the CBO.
You may like my stack: JosephZeigler.substack.com
Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Billionaire Tax Relief Bill” is a reverse Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to enrich the rich! Instead, why not just increase the top three tax brackets by two percent and use the added tax revenue to offset much of the Medicaid and food stamp cuts? It would only affect those earning more than $400,000 a year.
John Dalton