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Trump made it worse.
The tax cuts of 2017 further turbocharged economic inequities through an act of fiscal profligacy which ballooned our deficit for the benefit of corporations and the wealthy—justified, yet again, by resuscitating the discredited notion that under-taxing “wealth creators” stimulated the economy while paying for itself.
The bill distributed more than 80 percent of its individual benefits to the top 1 percent of households; the bulk of the $150 billion rebated to corporations in 2018 funded shareholder dividends and stock buy-backs—which amounted to little more than a gift to the 10 percent of Americans who own 84 percent of all stocks. This lopsided largesse was possible only through creating a $1.5 trillion deficit over the next 10 years, generating a brief economic sugar high, which is already dissipating.
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