Democratic responses to the President’s newly proposed tax reform framework:

“Voodoo economics on steroids.” A “wish list for millionaires.” A “benefit (for) the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.” And my personal favorite: “It gives huge tax cuts to the wealthiest and the biggest corporations, and socks it to the middle-class.”

The last is from Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. I love it because it does not even try for originality. His remarks are so down-at-the-heels trite, one imagines Senator Schumer nodding off to sleep saying them.

And one more, from everyone’s favorite source of fair, honest news, The New York Times: “Trump Tax Plan Benefits the Wealthy, Including Trump.” Ah, but I forgot to mention this article is titled a “news analysis.” That makes the headline OK, right? As my Dad, late of Hoboken, New Jersey, would have said, “Bushwah.”

These predictable and silly criticisms of the President’s tax plan come, of course, from congressional Democrats. The ink is not yet dried on Mr. Trump’s proposal, but his partisan critics already have trotted out their traditional attacks on all GOP tax reduction plans. Offered by every Republican. Ever.

The language the Left uses to fight the streamlining of the tax code and lowering of taxes for just about everyone lacks any verve because it is reflexive. Like a doctor’s rubber mallet tapping a knee, Democrats strike out thoughtlessly whenever the GOP suggests that tax rates should be lowered.

Pay More Taxes, Benefit More From a Tax Cut

First, as to the standard line that the wealthy benefit the most from the Trump plan: Of course, they do. Why? Because they pay the lion’s share of personal income taxes.  According to Pew Research, “In 2014, people with adjusted gross income, or AGI, above $250,000 paid just over half (51.6%) of all individual income taxes, though they accounted for only 2.7% of all returns filed, according to our analysis of preliminary IRS data.”

Any comprehensive plan to modernize and reduce federal taxes will benefit people who pay the most in taxes. Any Democratic tax cut. Any Republican tax cut. 

Here’s what’s even more startling: According to the Congressional Budget Office, “when it comes to individual income taxes, the top 40 percent of wage earners in America pay 106 percent of the taxes. The bottom 40 percent … pay negative 9 percent.”

As reported by Jane Wells of CNBC, “The CBO’s formula offsets whatever taxes are paid with ‘refundable tax credits.’ Some of these are due to ‘government transfers’ of money back to the taxpayer in the form of social security and food stamps.”

“In raw numbers,” reports the Cato Institute using Tax Policy Center data, “94 million households will pay some income tax in 2015, while 78 million will pay none.”  Speaking of fairness: Is it fair — just — for nearly 80 million of our fellow citizens not to pay at least a pittance in federal income taxes? Not to feel at least a bit of the pain as do the rest of us? Yes, all pay into Social Security and Medicare, etc. But only the income tax forces all of us to look at the numbers coldly in the face. Giving 78 million earners a pass on doing this makes no sense under a system of representative self-governance. Put simply, everyone should have a conscious stake in the game.

No one disputes that people in the top one percent or, for that matter, the top 10 percent, are doing pretty well. But to suggest that they are will benefit unfairly by the President’s tax plan is also to suggest that because they are doing well, they should be penalized disproportionate to other Americans. Is that fair, Senator Schumer?

And, who creates jobs? Those on the lowest end of advantage? No: people with the means and/or credit standing to take risks, hire new employees, and start new businesses. They are not the greedy handful letting the masses eat cake while they tan on their yachts. But this is the stereotype the Left loves and that the media too often portrays.

There’s Good News for Middle Class Families

Second, how do people in the middle-income brackets fare under the Trump tax proposal? The President’s blueprint “calls for roughly doubling taxpayers’ standard deduction (an individual’s first $12,000 of income would become tax free, and the first $24,000 for married couples).” 

Furthermore, the Trump plan would reduce tax brackets from seven to two. As noted by the Tax Foundation, American taxpayers “spend a combined $99 billion each year complying with the individual income tax.” Simplifying the tax code would put a healthy chunk of this money back in the pockets of middle income families and the companies where they work. That’s called a “middle class tax cut,” something the Left says it is for.

And “The (Trump) Tax Reform Framework increases the Child Tax Credit to an unspecified amount. It increases the income level so more middle-income families can take advantage of the credit. It eliminate(s) the marriage penalty as it relates to the Child Tax Credit. The penalty means two single parents can get the full credit if they earn $150,000 combined. If they are married, the credit shrinks after they earn $110,000.”

Most middle-income families I know think these things would be a pretty good deal. 

Even many in the mainstream media aren’t buying Democrats’ automatic opposition. “The Trump-GOP tax plan just announced has the potential to affect retirement savers in fundamental, long-term ways that could be positive for many Americans,” writes Mitch Tuchman of CBS’s Marketwatch.

Much more can and should be said. It’s enough for now to watch Democrats, almost all of whom now identify with an ever more extreme Leftist vision of American life, squirm as they deal with genuine tax reduction and a more streamlined tax code. 

Tax complexity and “soaking the rich” are instruments through which the Left fosters the growth of big government, creates social division, and holds-down people who want to move up. That liberals are responding with such hostility to the Trump plan is a good sign.