Walz, Vance spar over who benefitted most from Trump-era tax cuts
On the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate stage Tuesday night, Democratic nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz claimed that the Trump-era tax cuts "predominantly went to the top guys" and benefited America's wealthy.
However, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data shows that's not true.
"Donald Trump made a promise, and I'll give you this, he kept it. He took books to Mar-a-Lago, said: 'you're rich as hell, I'm going to give you a tax cut…' What happened? There was an $8 trillion increase in the national debt, the largest ever. Now he's proposing a 20% consumption or sales tax on everything we bring in. Everyone agrees, including businesses, it would be destabilizing. It would increase inflation and potentially lead to a recession," Walz said.
According to a September 2020 report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, middle income Americans are the ones who saw the "biggest decrease in total tax liability" between 2017 and 2018 when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect.
The data additionally notes that Americans with annual incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 saw tax liability drop twice as much as Americans who make $1 million or more.