Today is April 15, tax day, and it should be a day of celebration for nearly all taxpayers because of President Trump’s one, big, beautiful bill that was signed last July 4.
It not only avoided a $4.5 trillion tax hike proposed by Democrats, but it also provided substantial pro-growth tax cuts for the vast majority of American taxpayers. And 53 million people claimed one of Mr. Trump’s new deductions.
And some 51 million seniors will pay no tax on their Social Security under the law. No taxes on tips and overtime will boost take-home pay by about $1,400 per person.
And here are some more factoids: more than 6 million people have filed for no tax on tips. The average deduction is higher than $7,100. More than 25 million people have filed for no tax on overtime. The average deduction is more than $3,100.
And more than 30 million senior citizens have filed for no tax on Social Security. The average deduction there is more than $7,500.
Small business tax deductions remain in place. 100 percent immediate cost expensing for business and factory building is financing millions of new jobs at higher wages to boost kitchen table middle class family incomes.
It’s all there. But for some reason, most Americans don’t seem to know about it.
The highly regarded accurate TIPP poll shows that 40 percent of Americans think their taxes are going up, and only about 10 percent think they’re going down. Thirty-seven percent think there’s been no change.
So the Republican party has itself a marketing problem. When I sat down with Mr. Trump last February and raised this issue, he acknowledged that he and his team had to do a better job of getting the message out. The TIPP poll, just completed, shows that the message is still not getting out. And other polls may agree with that one.
I know the president is a busy guy, obliterating Iran and winning the war, which is terribly important, but he and his team and congressional leaders have just got to do a better selling job on tax cuts.
Republicans should put together another economic growth plan. There’s plenty of time to do it through reconciliation which requires 50 votes plus the vice president. And I’m not interested in a small plan.
I’m not interested in an anorexic plan, I’m advocating a wide-bodied plan with tax cuts, especially inflation-adjusted capital gains.
Huge savings from waste, fraud, and abuse, we need funding for real voter ID, and the Pentagon’s wartime supplemental. It should all be in there.
And I am hopeful this growth plan can come to pass. I had a colloquy about this with the majority leader, Senator John Thune, yesterday.
“You’re talking about a very skinny anorexic, I love that, anorexic, very skinny, anorexic reconciliation bill,” I said, but “Mr. Thune, you’re not an anorexic kind of leader.”
Mr. Thune replied: “If we want to do a budget resolution and do a more comprehensive approach and use reconciliation in the way that you described, there will be an opportunity to do that.”
I asked: “This year?”
Mr. Thune replied: “Obviously, it depends.”
I repeated: “This year, sir? Big, beautiful.”
“Big and beautiful,” Mr. Thune responded.
“Big, Beautiful 2.0 bill,” I said.
“It depends on getting the votes,” Mr. Thune said.
When I asked if he was open to such a measure, Mr. Thune replied: “Yeah, absolutely. I’m for doing more, not less.”
Hopefully Speaker Mike Johnson will be as open to a wide-bodied growth plan as Mr. Thune appears to be.
And hopefully the whole Republican Party will just get behind it.
Yes, today is tax day. Let’s make it a pro-growth tax cut day. Mr. Trump will win the war in Iran.
Yet he and the GOP have to win the domestic economic war, in other words, the midterm elections.
Lawrence Kudlow is a Fox News Media contributor and host of the weekday television program “Kudlow” and the nationally syndicated radio “Larry Kudlow Show” on weekends. This column is adapted from his “Kudlow” monologues.
Japan Eases Arms Export Controls
Japan is to ease its stringent arms export regulations, igniting interest from countries around the world anxious to lower their dependence on already-strained U.S. production – and the whims of the president.
Since 2014, Japan has gradually dismantled a near-total ban on arms exports that remained in place since 1976, as its security policy has evolved from the pacifism of the post-war era.
Until April, arms exports have been restricted to five sectors: transport, relief and rescue, early warning systems, surveillance, and mine clearance. The government of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is set to remove these limits while maintaining a ban on exports to conflict zones except in extraordinary cases.
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