The Last Americans Really Paying Taxes
The Last Americans Really Paying Taxes
Annie Lowrey's article, 'The Last Americans Really Paying Taxes,' critiques the evolving U.S. tax code under the Trump administration, highlighting how new legislation like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) introduce carve-outs and loopholes. While these changes benefit the ultrarich and some working-class individuals through mechanisms like pass-through deductions, tip exclusions, and overtime tax breaks, they also complicate the system, reduce horizontal equity, and shrink the tax base. Lowrey argues that the professional-managerial class, who pay more predictable taxes, might become the sole group reliably contributing, leading to a less fair and potentially unstable fiscal future. The piece also touches on property tax revolts, regressive tariffs, and the IRS's struggles to enforce rapidly changing laws.
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the pessimism focus more on following the trajectory to the end than it does on discussing the challenge of tackling the problem head on.
a healthy society run on money needs to collectively obtain and use money. there is no fair system. even in peace, many times someone has likely lost or is being oppressed.
what is missing today is a bold, clear and simple vision of how we pay for collective things (and if they should be collective at all). should billionaires have a cap? should everyone chip-in a little, even if what they chip-in has drastically different impacts on their lives? should it be complicated or simple or somewhere in between?
there are no easy answers, but the previous status quo isn't it and neither is the OBBBA.
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