Happy Tax Day! The new Paul Ryan-Mitch McConnell-Donald Trump-pushed Republican tax law is still hugely unpopular, even now that most Americans have submitted their taxes and gotten a look at their supposed "savings." It's almost as if everyone knows full well the bill was an effort to slash taxes on the superwealthy while doing not a damn thing for anyone else!
A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that just 17 percent of Americans believe their own taxes will go down as a result of the bill. A CBS News poll found that 40 percent said they saw no change from the tax bill. And more said it drove their taxes up (32 percent) than lowered their tax bill (25 percent.)
Part of what's happening is that even for those that did see a boost in take-home pay, it was in many cases inconsequential, paycheck to paycheck, and much of that boost came from changing withholding rates to withhold less from most taxpayers—meaning that even those who saw a tax "cut" had it manifested as a smaller, not larger, refund check. That's human nature. Others, mostly in high-tax states like California, New York, and New Jersey, saw a significant tax hike as result of the Republican scheme to cap state and local tax deductions, a move that surgically targeted taxpayers in those Democratic-leaning states. (And all of it is the window dressing around the primary focus of the new law: slashing corporate taxes to the tune of hundreds of billions.)
So yes, the Republican Party is the group able to screw up even a supposed "tax cut." That takes doing. Happy Tax Day, indeed.