Trump still wants tax reform this year, but he needs Congress to make it happen
Americans are getting clobbered by their tax bills
If you still wonder why President Trump won the election last November, take a look at some stunning new data on taxes.
Turns out that US households last year paid more, on average, in personal taxes (mostly federal, state and local income taxes) than for food and clothing combined, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show.
According to BLS’s Consumer Expenditure Survey, the average household’s 2016 tax bite was $10,489, a whopping 41 percent more than just three years earlier. Yet Americans shelled out just $7,203 for food and $1,803 for clothing on average, a total of just $9,006. That’s 14 percent less than they paid in taxes.
True, the higher tax bill partly reflects higher incomes: The data show that the average “consumer unit,” as the BLS calls it, saw earnings grow from $63,784 in 2013 to $74,664 in 2016, a 17 percent jump.
But another big reason is that Americans started handing over a greater share of their income — nearly 20 percent greater from 2013 to 2016 — to the taxman.
Americans have felt the pinch as their wallets have grown lighter. But higher taxes also discourage investment, which means weaker growth and fewer jobs. And the message taxpayers were getting from Hillary Clinton and the Democrats was: We don’t care about any of that.
Trump still wants tax reform this year, but he needs Congress to make it happen. If lawmakers want the kind of support he got last November, they might want to heed his call.
