Nonprofit group Patriotic Millionaires says Trump’s tax plans would hurt Wisconsin | The Wisconsin Independent
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Entrepreneur Sage Weil in a screenshot from Delighted Robot’s YouTube channel. (Delighted Robot/YouTube)

President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress in 2017 passed a law that slashed tax rates for large corporations and the wealthiest individuals. Now, as they push to extend and expand the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and to slash government programs to pay for it, many of those wealthy individuals who benefited most are urging Congress to raise their own taxes.

Sage Weil, a Madison entrepreneur who has created a number of tech companies, is the CEO of Civic Media, a statewide network of Wisconsin radio stations focused on coverage of local news and democracy. Weil is a member of a nonprofit coalition called Patriotic Millionaires, which advocates for liveable wages, a progressive tax system, and campaign finance reform. 

In a phone interview with the Wisconsin Independent, Weil recalled that when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act became law, he got a tax cut that he did not need. 

I’m rich enough that I don’t have to think about taxes that much, but my financial advisors tell me that it was great,” he said. “It was designed to benefit people like me, both as just somebody who has a lot of existing wealth that they had already accumulated, and also business leaders and business owners who are extracting value out of the companies that they run to enrich themselves. So, yeah, it was a windfall for the 0.1%” of top earners.

Trump’s law permanently lowered corporate tax rates and temporarily reduced tax rates for individuals, mostly for those earning $500,000 or more annually through 2025. As Congress passed the plan in December 2017, Trump called it “one of the great Christmas gifts to middle-income people” and claimed it would give “MASSIVE tax cuts for working families across America.” In reality, low-income individuals saved just about $60 a year, middle-income earners saved less than $1,000 on average annually, and the top 0.1% of earners saved an annual average of more than $190,000.

An October 2024 analysis by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economy Policy showed Trump’s proposals to extend the 2017 law, make additional tax cuts, and impose tariffs on international goods would actually increase taxes for everyone but the top 5% of wage earners. 

“The bottom line is that the tax cuts are benefiting the rich and, to the extent that they’re benefiting the working class, it’s usually just enough to sell the policy to the public, but not having a meaningful impact,” Weil said. “And regardless of that, more importantly, it’s dramatically increasing the level of inequality that we’re seeing, in terms of both where the wealth is held and what the income levels look like. That is putting us on a very dangerous trajectory. We have the highest levels of wealth inequality in this country today than we’ve ever had in our history, more so than during the end of the 19th century, with the robber barons and the Gilded Age.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), and other congressional Republicans all back Trump’s proposals. They claim doing so will help spur economic growth and are considering an array of cuts to government programs to help pay for the tax cuts, including possibly slashing funding for clean energy infrastructure, Medicaid, Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Weil said such cuts would harm the economy: “The impact on working people will be dramatic. I think the U.S. sort of stands alone as being one of the only developed countries that doesn’t have a meaningful safety net and take care of its poor citizens. We have some of the highest levels of wealth inequality in the world while we call ourselves the richest nation on Earth.”

A September assessment by economists at Goldman Sachs, reviewed by several news outlets, predicted that Trump’s economic and immigration policies would reduce net gross domestic product, increase inflation, and result in 30,000 fewer new jobs each month. A December analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that extending Trump’s 2017 tax law would add $4.6 trillion to the national debt and shrink the economy in the long term.

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The Wisconsin Independent is a project of American Independent Media, a 501(c)(4) organization whose mission is to use journalism to educate the public, giving them the information they need about local and federal issues.