J.D. Vance Claims Trump’s Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Trickled Down. They Did Not.

Donald Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance claimed Tuesday that the former president’s 2017 tax cuts were different from previous tax laws passed by Republican administrations, because they substantially benefited the middle-class. It’s a bold-faced lie. 

CBS, which hosted the vice presidential debate, ignored Vance’s comment in their fact checks online. Instead, the network panned Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz for accurately noting that Trump has avoided paying federal income taxes in many years.

The tax cuts passed by Trump were a historic giveaway for the wealthy. As Rolling Stone recently reported, as a share of after-tax income, one study estimated the tax cuts for both the top one percent and five percent of households were more than triple the total value of the tax cuts received for people with incomes in the bottom 60 percent. 

A study from the Center for American Progress found that the middle quintile of Americans could expect a $910 tax reduction in 2025 thanks to the law; the lowest would see a $70 reduction. The top one percent of Americans, meanwhile, would see a $62,000 tax reduction, while the top 0.1 percent would see a $252,000 reduction.  

Despite those data points, Vance tried to bill the Trump tax cuts as a boon for the middle-class and working class. 

“When people say that Donald Trump’s economic plan doesn’t make sense, I say, look at the record he delivered rising take-home pay for American workers,” he said. “If you look at what was so different about Donald Trump’s tax cuts, even from previous Republican tax cut plans, is that a lot of those resources went to giving more take-home pay to middle-class and working-class Americans.”

CBS did not fact check the claim. It did, however, fact check Walz over an assertion that was either broadly or completely accurate, depending on how you heard his quote.

The outlet wrote that Walz falsely claimed Trump “hasn’t paid taxes in 15 years,” before noting: “A 2022 New York Times article reported that [Trump] had paid no income taxes in 10 of the 15 previous years.” 

To this reporter’s ears, it sounded like Walz said: “How is it fair that you’re paying your taxes every year, and Donald Trump hasn’t paid any federal tax 10 of the last 15 years, in the last year as president?” (Our emphasis added.)

It’s possible CBS heard this as saying Trump hadn’t “paid any federal tax in the last 15 years.” The Harris campaign, for its part, quoted Walz on X as saying: “Trump hasn’t paid any federal tax in 15 years.”

Trending

Still, given the Times report, Walz’s assertion is broadly correct: Trump managed to avoid paying income taxes for many years.

Vance’s claim, on the other hand, that “a lot” of the Trump tax cuts went to “giving more take-home pay to middle-class and working-class Americans” is not true in any sense, no matter what.