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Fun: Conservatives Dunk on NYT Column Claiming Opposition to Taxes Is GOP's 'Rotten Core'

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  October 25, 2021 1:15 PM

This is quite a take from a New York Times writer, who claims that resistance to taxation is a central bug of the Republican Party. Actually, it's one of the central features of the Republican Party, which believes that people are entitled to keep more of the money they earn – and rejects the framing that wealth fundamentally belongs to the State, which is simply munificent enough to permit people keep various percentages of it. 

Here's the author's tweet to his column, which attracted a flurry of amusing responses: 


Over to you, internet: 


Other responses were a bit more substantive: 

Remember when Democrats lied aggressively about the GOP tax reforms and cuts in 2017? They called it a legislative "armageddon" that would starve the government and kill thousands of people. In reality, tax revenues increased after the tax reductions were implemented, thanks to economic growth. Democrats are currently talking about raising the business tax rate higher than China's (it's a real galaxy brain move to raise the cost of creating jobs amid soft employment and GDP numbers) and constantly claim that reducing corporate taxes means that Uncle Sam will struggle to pay its bills. Well, guess what? 

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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now estimates that the federal government received $370 billion in corporate tax revenue over the past year (fiscal year 2021), matching the record high level from 2007. This is a 75 percent increase over the previous year’s total, reflecting a rebound in corporate profits and the broader economy. This year’s robust corporate tax collections calls into question efforts by the administration and congressional Democrats to increase the corporate tax rate and raise other corporate taxes based on claims of relatively low tax collections following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2017. In fact, corporate tax collections this year are about 25 percent higher than the $297 billion collected in 2017, prior to passage of TCJA. Likewise, as a share of GDP, corporate tax collections are higher this year (1.63 percent) than in 2017 (1.52 percent). In addition, the rebounding economy has boosted individual income tax collections to an all-time high of $2.052 trillion for the fiscal year. Payroll tax revenue came in at $1.308 trillion, close to last year’s total, and other receipts came in at $317 billion. In total, federal tax collections reached $4.047 trillion in fiscal year 2021, an all-time high in nominal terms.

Revenues have risen to all time highs after taxes were cut across the board. Democrats said the opposite would happen. They were dead wrong. Our enormous deficits are not driven by the government confiscating too little of our money. They're driven, per usual, by the government spending far too much. In a piece titled, "CBO Blows Up Democrats’ Spin on Taxes," Philip Klein writes, "The numbers make it clear that the underlying driver of deficits is abnormally high spending rather than abnormally low levels of taxation...In the most recent fiscal year, the government raised $36 billion more than was expected before the Trump tax cuts were passed." I'd also recommend this thread from a GOP aide who addressed the meat of Appelbaum's argument in a thorough and compelling way: 


Read the whole thing. Since we're discussing the GOP 'valorizing' tax avoidance, or whatever, I'll leave you with these reminders about a certain sitting president who famously once boasted that paying higher taxes is a "patriotic" act: 

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden used a tax loophole that the Obama administration tried and failed to close, substantially lowering his tax bill. Mr. Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, routed their book and speech income through S corporations, according to tax returns the couple released this week. They paid income taxes on those profits, but the strategy let the couple avoid the 3.8% self-employment tax they would have paid had they been compensated directly instead of through the S corporations. The tax savings were as much as $500,000, compared to what the Bidens would have owed if paid directly or if the Obama proposal had become law.


Why so 'unpatriotic,' Joe?