Big, beautiful GOP TV ads are misleading

‘It ain’t me babe. No, no, no, it ain’t me babe.”

The refrain of a great Bob Dylan song came to me when I saw a TV ad for Republican officeholders who claim I’m going to get a $10,000 dollar tax cut from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, the BBB.

Some people will, but not me. According to the Washington Post tax calculator created in a partnership with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a stockbroker who earns about $350,000 each year might get that big a gift from the Trump tax bill. A family making half a million would get more than twice that much.

As mostly retired people, our federal taxes will go down about half the $10,000 and I bet many of you can say the same. The calculator shows a family with three kids making $110,00 gets less than $4,000 from the BBB.

According to Washington Post tax calculator, — “All told, the measure would mark a significant shift in federal benefits from low-income to high-income households, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other independent analyses.”

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — "The Senate bill retains most of the House bill’s flawed provisions, including permanently extending the highly skewed 2017 tax cuts. Under the House bill, the average family earning less than $50,000 would get under $300 in tax cuts in 2027, less than $1 a day, while the average tax filer earning $1 million or more a year would receive about $90,000 in tax breaks.”

And remember the House or Senate version of the legislation cuts Medicaid and federal food benefits to low- and moderate-income families to pay for the tax benefits that go mainly to the rich. The Washington Post’s calculator shows a single woman with two kids who depends on SNAP and Medicaid comes out worse than now by almost a thousand dollars a year. Families like them are the source of my tax reduction. Besides their loss the BBB increases the national debt by trillions of dollars.

The TV ad I saw said Iowa Rep. Miller-Meeks supports this action. I assume Sen. Joni Ernst who has argued that Medicaid cuts are OK because we are all going to die anyway, will probably be a yes vote. These politicians are hurting many families and are not helping me or you as much as the TV ad claims.

To modify the Dylan lyrics, it ain’t you or me babe. No, no, no.

David Osterberg formerly ran the Iowa Policy Project, a state budget think tank, after he retired from the Iowa Legislature where he represented Linn, Johnson and Cedar counties.