Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

by Kurt Andersen

As Republicans rewrote the tax code in 2017—cutting the tax rate on all income above half a million dollars significantly, cutting the effective tax rate on corporations by half—they insisted, just as they had all the previous times, that despite appearances, the rewrite was really all about helping ordinary people, creating jobs, and raising the incomes of the majority of Americans who, as even the Republican Speaker of the House admitted then, “live paycheck to paycheck” with “a lot of economic anxiety.” The Trump administration claimed that the new tax law would generate such explosive growth that the average family would soon earn $4,000 or maybe $7,000 more per year. While average people would all get that “pay raise,” “the rich will not be gaining at all,” the president lied. What’s more, the $2 trillion tax cut over this next decade, his treasury secretary promised, would “not only pay for itself, but it will pay down [government] debt” because…supply side, all the extra tax revenue from all the extra income that rich people and businesses will be earning.