Americans are OK with tax cuts when it benefits them, but not other citizens
Credit: TNS
Americans like their country, but they love their money.
This truism was on full display for the world to see during the recent federal budgeting process. A majority of Americans, via congressional proxy, were willing to go another $3-plus trillion in debt as long as they got a big enough personal tax break somewhere in the process.
Trading trillions in DOGE cuts for trillions in tax cuts was one of President Donald Trump’s hypnotic secret sauces in his stump speech down the stretch in 2024. On a two-dimensional piece of paper, it made a lot of sense.
An argument could be made it was one of the few bipartisan ideas Trump offered out on the campaign trail. By the time Trump won the election he had promised to a broad majority of Americans tax cuts including seniors, blue-collar workers and once again above average income earners. If I didn’t call your name, please raise your hand.
Most Americans say they oppose ‘big, beautiful bill’
When DOGE self-destructed, the debt neutral calculus no longer made sense to trade spending cuts for tax cuts. But the genie was already out of the bottle on the wide-sprawling tax cuts, so once again, the next generation will finance another multi-trillion-dollar loan so their parents can get a tax break.
According to the Tax Policy Center, 84% of households will see some form of lower taxes because of the new tax structures signed into law by the president. So why do only 29% of voters support the “one big, beautiful bill” according to a recent Quinnipiac poll? My best guess is most taxpayers are grateful for their own tax break but not somebody else’s, especially when they consider how much it adds to the national debt.
Credit: Geoff Duncan
Adding to the intense fiscal heartburn is the disproportionate sliding scale that grants the top 20% of income earners with 60% of the $4 trillion tax cuts. Apparently, the only tax breaks Americans don’t like are the ones they don’t get.
According to the Cato Institute’s 2025 Fiscal Policy National Survey of 2,000 Americans, 76% of Americans believe the federal government “spends too much money.” So why does this country have such a hard time controlling government spending? I’m freestyling with my opinion again, but I’m guessing a majority of Americans want a leaner meaner government, as long as it doesn’t affect their little sliver of government services they or their family benefit from.
If you’re a teacher, you probably don’t want spending cuts to education. If you have a special needs kid at home, you don’t want cuts to Medicaid services your family counts on. If you’re proudly retired, you don’t want cuts to Medicare or Social Security. If you work for a defense contractor, I’m guessing you don’t want to cut the military budget. And the list goes on.
Fixing the problem means taking a multifaceted approach
An important reminder, just because you defend your portion of the pie chart doesn’t make you un-American, but it does help explain the debt riddled conundrum we find ourselves in. This “death by a thousand cuts” scenario is what continues to lead our country down the path of eventual insolvency every time we pass a budget with a deficit. For every ragingly expensive government program there’s both fierce defenders and agitated naysayers, on both sides of the aisle.
So, what’s the fix?
Like all complex problems, the solution is rarely simple and will require us to play 3D chess instead of partisan checkers. Much like a Fortune 500 restructuring process, we will need a multifaceted approach that involves both cutting costs and streamlining services in a customer-friendly way. All the while avoiding the temptation of using the political process to pick and choose where the cuts are made and simply use bipartisan common sense to tame a $6.37 trillion annual budget.
One more thing, “We the People” will have to rise to the occasion in the short-term and not hold our Election Day votes hostage for another unaffordable round of tax breaks that further indebts the next generation. Hopefully, one day soon our country will be able to afford massive tax breaks again, but that day is a few trillion dollars away.
We will also have to find it in ourselves to lean fractionally less into the slices of government we individually utilize the most, for the good of the country. Maybe the mailman only comes to our house four days a week instead of six or we let the efficiencies of telehealth play a bigger part in Medicare and Medicaid. The list of potential cuts becomes endless when we look through an unselfish lens.
Former President John F. Kennedy’s words still ring true today, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”
