Do tax cuts work? Are they good for workers, families, and businesses? Are they good for the economy?

The right says yes, as long as the government can fund its core functions. The left says sometimes,

but only if they're targeted toward low and middle income earners. Tax cuts for the wealthy, they say,

are always bad. This gets to the heart of the

dilemma. What is the right level of taxation? Tax too little, and there won't be enough money

for the basics, like the military, police, fire, courts, roads. Tax too much, and nobody is motivated

to work. If nobody works, there's nothing to tax. Like Goldilocks's

porridge, a good government tries to get it just right. So, can tax cuts create more prosperity

and give the government the revenue it needs? If only we could study a real-life example.

Oh, wait, we can. The 2017 tax cuts and Jobs Act, also known as the Trump tax cuts.

What exactly did they do? They reduced the income tax rate for virtually everyone by two to four percentage points.

So, if your income tax rate was 15%, it is now 12%. Before 25%, now 22%, before 28, now 24. Before 40, now 37. If you were a salaried employee,

you got a tax cut. Small business owner, tax cut. Corporations, tax cut. From 35%, one of the highest in the world, to 21%. That led to another

benefit. Billions of dollars corporations held overseas in countries with lower tax rates came

back to the United States. The bill also increased the child tax credit, further lowering

household tax liability.

Did these tax cuts work? Let's examine the numbers. The average tax cut for working and middle

income taxpayers ranged from $1,500 to $3,000. The bottom half of earners saw the largest reduction

in the amount of taxes they paid, over 16%.

Conclusion, virtually everyone's taxes went down. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, men, women,

people with a college degree, and people without one. So why do critics of tax cuts claim

they only help the rich? Here, we have to apply some common sense.

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