Alyssa Milano Crashes and Burns, Mangles the Truth in Attempt To Blast Trump over Taxes
I suppose I would normally count it as a good April 15 when a liberal was complaining Republicans were too tax-happy.
Then again, when the liberal in question is Hollywood actress/noted tax expert Alyssa Milano and the complaint — more an airing of grievances, really — was either erroneous and/or misleading, it wasn’t exactly the watershed moment I was hoping for. (You know, like Cher’s recent moment of clarity.)
“Now that Tax Day is almost here, and Americans are seeing for themselves who the Republican Party really cares about,” Milano wrote in a Twitter rant posted on April 14.
“Here are some things to remember ahead of Tax Day: Already this April, we’ve learned that tax refunds are down this year by $6 BILLION,” Milano wrote.
1/ Now that Tax Day is almost here, and Americans are seeing for themselves who the Republican Party really cares about. Here are some things to remember ahead of Tax Day: (Thread)
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 14, 2019
2/ Already this April, we’ve learned that tax refunds are down this year by $6 BILLION.
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 14, 2019
This is true, but misleading.
“Lower refunds don’t mean Americans paid more taxes — quite the opposite,” CBS News reported.
“Most workers paid less in taxes last year and saw higher take-home pay week in and week out. But for many Americans, a slightly higher paycheck doesn’t quite have the same visibility as a single $3,000 check in March or April.”
In other words, Milano’s complaint — and the left’s — is that they didn’t pay as much in taxes and took home more, but didn’t get the Pavlovian hit of a big refund check. This isn’t an argument, this is willful ignorance.
So what else, Ms. Milano?
3/ According to a recent NBC/WSJ poll, only 17 percent of Americans think their taxes went down, and a majority don’t think they got any tax cut at all. And this isn’t partisan. Only 33 percent of Republicans think they got a tax cut.
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 14, 2019
Well.
Whether you think you got a tax cut and whether you actually did is another issue entirely. Even The New York Times found that while 64.8 percent of Americans actually got a tax cut, only 39.6 percent thought they did.
Furthermore, the trend of fewer people thinking they got a tax cut than actually did held true across all income groups — including those earning under $30,000.
And then, according to Milano, some entities got their taxes cut a little too much:
4/ And we just learned from the Center for Public Integrity that the number of big companies that pay zero taxes—that’s right, zero—have gone from 30 to 60.
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 14, 2019
This is actually based on a report from the partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It includes some heavyweights in the list — Amazon, Delta Air Lines and Netflix — but some of what the report identifies as “big companies” may not fit your idea of big business.
These companies include publisher Gannett ($7 million in U.S. income, according to the report), retail and wholesale trade company SpartanNash ($40 million in income, according to the report), and industrial machinery company SPX ($66 million income, according to the report).
Those might be big numbers for individual taxpaying Americans, but not exactly in a league with, say, Apple ($59.53 billion in 2018 income).
And again, we go to public perception:
5/ But here’s the thing—Americans aren’t dumb. We knew from the beginning what Republicans were doing. As of March, the GOP tax scam only had a 36 percent approval rating. That’s worse than Trump’s.
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 14, 2019
According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, however, that’s against 41 percent disapproval, which is about a five-point spread. That gap has also gone up in recent weeks, in part because of overheated rhetoric like this and it included an outlier poll from the reliably liberal Public Policy Polling that showed the tax cuts were only popular with 25 percent of voters.
A January-February poll from CNN, on the other hand, showed 49 percent of voters in favor of the tax cuts compared to 41 percent opposed.
Furthermore, the tax cuts are invariably associated with President Donald Trump, and anything connected with Trump always polls worse. I’m convinced that even “Trump free ponies” would poll well below 50 percent. (To be fair, that whole subsidized pony thing hasn’t been a winning campaign issue for Vermin Supreme so far.)
We’ll see what Americans do when they get into the voting booth, however.
When they do, they’re going to be reminded that these are the tax cuts that gave them back more money in their paychecks and kept the economy strong. The facts on this beat the rhetoric and the misdirection, no matter how histrionic Alyssa Milano and her friends may get.
Of course, if they want taxes even lower to put more money in American pockets, I’m sure we could work something out.
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