September, 28 2017, 02:00pm EDT
![Americans for Tax Fairness](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012609/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Chris Fleming,Email:,chris@redhorsestrategies.com
Worst Features Of The Trump-Ryan Tax Plan
WASHINGTON
This analysis is based on the tax plan framework released by Republican leaders Sept. 27, 2017. The plan is very similar to earlier ones by President Trump and House Speaker Ryan, which were analyzed by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center and form the basis of this analysis.[1]
- The Trump-Ryan tax plan is not tax "reform," but massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations that will jeopardize Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and public education. Based on earlier Trump and Ryan plans cost estimates, the plan could cut taxes by a total of $6.7 to $8.3 trillion, of which $3 to $5 trillion may not be paid for by closing tax loopholes and limiting deductions.[2] The resulting jump in the deficit would increase the likelihood of deep cuts to Social Security, healthcare, education and other services. Such cuts are in Trump's 2018 budget, which slashes $4.3 trillion from Social Security, Medicaid, education and other services. Ryan's House budget slashes $5.8 trillion from Medicare, Medicaid education, and other services.[3]
- The wealthy and corporations will get most of the tax cuts at the expense of working families who rely on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public education. Under Trump's previous tax plan, the richest 1% would get half of the tax cuts, or $175,000 each year, on average.[4] His plan required one-quarter of middle-class families to pay more in taxes.[5] Under Ryan's earlier plan, the richest 1% would get more than 99% of the tax cuts once fully enacted, with a $240,000 tax cut each year, on average.[6]
CORPORATE TAX CUTS
- Corporate tax rates are slashedby more than 40%--from 35% to 20%--losing $1.8 trillion over 10 years.[7] Corporations need to pay their fair share not get a tax cut. Corporate profits are at near record highs, while corporate tax revenues are at record lows.[8] Profitable corporations are paying a U.S. tax rate of just 14%, according to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office.[9] Many pay nothing for years.[10] Only $1 out of $9 of federal revenue now comes from corporate taxes; in the mid-20th century it was $1 out of $3.[11] Moreover, 80% of corporate tax cuts benefit wealthier Americans.[12]
- Trump-Ryan slashes the top tax rate on business income from hedge funds, law firms, real estate firms like Trump's, and other "pass-through" businesses from 39.6% to 25%, losing $390 to $660 billion.[13] Many of these big-money outfits organize as partnerships or other business entities that allow them to pay business taxes at individual rates. Claims that this is a small business tax cut is a hoax: Just 4% of pass-through business owners will get a tax cut from the new top 25% rate, as everyone else already pays that rate or less. The top one-tenth of 1% will get a tax cut of $270,000, on average.[14] As the sole or principal owner of 500 pass-through entities,[15] Trump will benefit handsomely,[16] from what's been aptly dubbed the "Trump Loophole."[17]
- Trump-Ryan temporarily (for at least five years) allows corporations to immediately write off big purchases, which could lose $900 billion to $2.2 trillion.[18] Businesses would be allowed to immediately write off--or fully "expense"--the total cost of big-ticket purchases such as vehicles, equipment, and buildings. Currently, they may deduct (or depreciate) only a portion of the expense each year over a multi-year period to reflect the progressive decline in the property's value. The wide cost range comes from uncertainty as to the tax cut's economic effect. Though this is a 10-year estimate, the bulk of the revenue loss occurs in the first five years.[19] The Tax Policy Center has questioned claims about the supposed economic boost from full expensing, suggesting expensing could retard growth.[20]
- Trump-Ryan potentially allows American corporations to dodge all U.S. taxes on foreign profits through a territorial tax system. Under such a system, U.S. corporations would no longer pay taxes on profits booked offshore (although Trump's plan suggests there may be a minimum tax on profits in tax havens). A territorial system will encourage multinationals to shift even more profits and jobs offshore than they do now.[21] Analysis of a similar plan found a territorial tax system would lose $205 billion over 10 years.[22]
- Multinational corporations with profits stashed offshore could get a $600 billion tax cut. Big American corporations hold $2.6 trillion in profits offshore on which they owe about $750 billion in U.S. taxes.[23] The new plan promises a big tax break on these profits, but it does not indicate the tax rate. Trump previously proposed cutting the rate from 35% to just 10% on cash and only 4% on non-cash assets, raising about $150 billion.[24] So, tax-dodging multinationals could get an undeserved tax break of about $600 billion. They should instead pay what they owe, just like working families and small businesses do.
INDIVIDUAL TAX CHANGES
- The top tax rate on individuals would be lowered from 39.6% to 35%, and six other tax brackets would shrink to just two, losing $2 trillion.[25] The new brackets are 12%--an increase on lower income Americans from the current 10% rate--25%, and 35%. The reduction in the top rate will help give a $270,000 average tax cut to the Top 1%, which was estimated under Trump's earlier tax plan.[26] The top 0.1% would get a $1.4 million tax cut, on average.
- The alternative minimum tax (AMT) would be repealed allowing wealthy taxpayers like Trump to use excessive deductions and other loopholes to sharply reduce or eliminate their tax bill, losing $445 billion.[27] Trump could benefit massively: In 2005, the one year for which his tax returns have been made public, he made $153 million and paid $38 million in federal income taxes for a tax rate of 25%.[28] Without the AMT, he would have paid just $5 million in federal income taxes, a tax rate of less than 4%.[29] That rate is less than the lowest-income Americans often pay.[30]
- Trump-Ryan eliminates estate and gift taxes, losing $239 billion and boosting the inheritances of millionaires and billionaires.[31] The federal estate tax is paid only by estates worth at least $5.5 million, just 1 in 500 estates,[32] or only 5,500 estates in all of 2017.[33] Assuming Trump is worth the $10 billion he claims, his heirs could gain billions if his plan is adopted.[34]
- Trump-Ryan repeals the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT), raising taxes on the middle class and undermining local public services. Taxpayers can deduct state and local property taxes, and either income or sales taxes, from their federal taxable income. Over a third of taxpayers making $50-75,000 use the SALT deduction, and over half of those making $75-100,000.[35] An average family in this last group would see their federal taxes jump by $1,800 if SALT is repealed.[36] Repealing SALT would increase federal revenue by $1.3 trillion over 10 years.[37] In addition to boosting taxes on the middle class, repeal of the SALT deduction will make local taxation more expensive, putting pressure on localities to cut budgets for services like roads and schools.
- Trump-Ryan pulls a bait-and-switch with tax provisions working families rely on, increasing the standard deduction while eliminating the personal exemption, ultimately leaving many families worse off. Taxpayers who don't itemize their deductions (which under this plan may be limited to charitable contributions and mortgage interest) this year can deduct from their reportable income $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a married couple.[38] The plan would roughly double those amounts to $12,000 and $24,000, losing $708 billion.[39] At the same time, the plan repeals the personal exemption, which reduces reportable income by $4,050 this year for each member of a household. Even with the increased standard deduction, without the personal exemption many large families, and especially those headed by a single parent, would pay more.[40] A Tax Policy Center analysis found that Trump's earlier tax plan would increase taxes for about 8.7 million families--20% of households and more than half of all single-parents.[41] That analysis assumed a much higher standard deduction, which means even more families will experience a tax increase under the Trump-Ryan plan.
ENDNOTES
[1] Tax Policy Center (TPC), "The Implications of What We Know and Don't Know About President Trump's Tax Plan" (July 12, 2017). https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/142616/implications_of_what_we_know_and_dont_know_about_president_trumps_plan_1.pdf. TPC, "Dynamic Analysis of the House GOP Tax Plan: An Update" (June 30, 2017). https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/142556/2001397-dynamic-scoring-of-tax-plans-and-analysis-of-the-house-gop-plan.pdf
[2] Americans for Tax Fairness, "Updated Analysis: Trump's Unpaid-For Tax Cuts May Total $5 Trillion in New Tax Plan" (Sept. 27, 2017). https://americansfortaxfairness.org/new-analysis-trumps-unpaid-tax-cuts-may-total-5-trillion-new-tax-plan/
[3] Center on Budget & Policy Priorities (CBPP), "Trump Budget Gets Three-Fifths of Its Cuts from Programs for Low- and Moderate-Income People" (May 30, 2017). https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/trump-budget-gets-three-fifths-of-its-cuts-from-programs-for-low-and#_ftn1. CBPP, "House GOP Budget Cuts Programs Aiding Low- and Moderate-Income People by $2.9 Trillion Over Decade" (Sept. 5, 2017). https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/house-gop-budget-cuts-programs-aiding-low-and-moderate-income-people-by-29
[4] TPC, "The Implications of...Trump's Tax Plan," Table 4 and p. 9.
[5]Ibid. Table 4 showing that 23.8% of tax units in the middle quintile would experience increased taxes.
[6] TPC "An Analysis of the House GOP Tax Plan" (Sept. 16, 2016), Table 5. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000923-An-Analysis-of-the-House-GOP-Tax-Plan.pdf
[7] TPC, "Dynamic Analysis of the House GOP Tax Plan," Table 5. Amount includes repealing the corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).
[8] Estimates are measured as a share of the economy/GDP. Americans for Tax Fairness and Economic Policy Institute, "Corporate Tax Chartbook: How Corporations Rig the Rules to Dodge the Taxes They Owe" (Sept. 2016), Figure 2. https://www.epi.org/publication/corporate-tax-chartbook-how-corporations-rig-the-rules-to-dodge-the-taxes-they-owe/
[9] Government Accountability Office, "Corporate Income Tax" (March 2016). Https://Www.Gao.Gov/Products/Gao-16-363
[10] Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), "The 35 Percent Corporate Tax Myth" (March 2017), p. 4. https://itep.org/wp-content/uploads/35percentfullreport.pdf
[11] Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Historical Tables, "Table 2.2: Percentage Composition of Receipts by Source." https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
[12] TPC, "Would Workers Benefit from A Corporate Tax Cut? Not Much" (Sept. 8, 2017). https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/would-workers-benefit-corporate-tax-cut-not-much
[13] TPC, "Options to Reduce the Taxation of Pass-through Income" (May 15, 2017), p. 6. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/141541/options-to-reduce-the-taxation-of-pass-through-income.pdf
[14] TPC, "Options to Reduce the Taxation of Pass-through Income," p. 8.
[15] Letter to Donald Trump from tax attorneys Morgan, Lewis & Bockius (Mar. 7, 2016). https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Tax_Doc.pdf
[16]The Washington Post, "Donald Trump's New Tax Plan Could Have a Big Winner: Donald Trump's Companies" (Aug. 10, 2016). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/10/donald-trumps-new-tax-plan-could-have-a-big-winner-donald-trumps-companies/
[17] CNN, "Hillary Clinton Slams 'Trump Loophole'" (Aug. 11, 2016). https://money.cnn.com/2016/08/11/pf/taxes/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-loophole/
[18] The Tax Foundation, "Full Expensing Costs Less than You'd Think" (June 13, 2017). https://taxfoundation.org/full-expensing-costs-less-than-youd-think/ These cost estimates are based on current tax rates. If corporate tax rates are reduced, the cost of this tax break would decline.
[19]Ibid.
[20] TPC, "A Business Cash Flow Tax Could Reduce Investment, Contrary to What Some Economists Think" (Jan. 24, 2017). https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/business-cash-flow-tax-could-reduce-investment-contrary-what-some-economists-think
[21] ITEP, "Turning Loopholes into Black Holes: Trump's Territorial Tax Proposal Would Increase Corporate Tax Avoidance" (Sept. 6, 2016). https://itep.org/turning-loopholes-into-black-holes-trumps-territorial-tax-proposal-would-increase-corporate-tax-avoidance/
[22] TPC, "An Analysis of Marco Rubio's Tax Plan" (Feb. 11, 2016), p. 10. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000606-an-analysis-of-marco-rubios-tax-plan.pdf
[23] ITEP, "Fortune 500 Companies Hold a Record $2.6 Trillion Offshore" (March 2017), p. 1. https://www.itep.org/pdf/pre0327.pdf
[24] TPC, ""The Implications of...Trump's Tax Plan," Table 2. See "Deemed repatriation rate on accumulated offshore earnings."
[25]Ibid. See "Individual income tax rates of 10, 25, and 35%."
[26]Ibid., Table 3.
[27] TPC, "The Implications of...Trump's Tax Plan," Table 2.
[28]The New York Times (NYT), "Trump Wrote Off $100 Million in Losses in 2005, Leaked Form Shows" (March 14, 2017). https://nyti.ms/2pmUkEH
[29]NYT, "A.M.T., Which Hit Trump in 2005, Is No One's Favorite" (March 15, 2017). https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/business/economy/trump-alternative-minimum-tax.html
[30] TPC, "Historical Average Federal Tax Rates for All Households." https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-average-federal-tax-rates-all-households
[31] TPC, "The Implications of...Trump's Tax Plan," Table 2. See "Repeal the estate, gift and GST taxes."
[32] CBPP, "Ten Facts You Should Know About the Federal Estate Tax" (Sept. 8, 2016). https://www.cbpp.org/research/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax
[33] TPC, "Briefing Book: Who pays the estate tax?" https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-pays-estate-tax
[34]The Detroit News, "Clinton: Trump Plan to Ax Estate Tax Saves His Family $4B" (Aug. 11, 2016). https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/08/10/clinton-warren-economy/88546136/
[35] Government Finance Officers Association, "The Impact of Eliminating the State and Local Tax Deduction" (Using 2015 IRS data), p. 6. https://www.gfoa.org/sites/default/files/GFOA_SALT_09202017.pdf
[36]Ibid., p. 8.
[37] TPC, "Revisiting The State and Local Tax Deduction" (Mar. 31, 2016), p. 2. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000693-Revisiting-the-State-and-Local-Tax-Deduction.pdf
[38] IRS.gov, "In 2017, Some Tax Benefits Increase Slightly Due to Inflation Adjustments, Others Are Unchanged." https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/in-2017-some-tax-benefits-increase-slightly-due-to-inflation-adjustments-others-are-unchanged
[39] TPC, "The Implications of...Trump's Tax Plan," Table 2. See "Double standard deduction."
[40] Center for American Progress, "How Middle-Class and Working Families Could Lose Under the Trump Tax Plan" (June 13, 2017). https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2017/06/13/434054/middle-class-working-families-lose-trump-tax-plan/
[41] TPC, "Families Facing Tax Increases Under Trump's Tax Plan" (Oct. 28, 2016). https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/135696/2000983-Families-Facing-Tax-Increases-Under-Trumps-Plan.pdf
Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is a diverse campaign of more than 420 national, state and local endorsing organizations united in support of a fair tax system that works for all Americans. It has come together based on the belief that the country needs comprehensive, progressive tax reform that results in greater revenue to meet our growing needs. This requires big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, not to live by their own set of rules.
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Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that one campaigner linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
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"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
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However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
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Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
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Vance "meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
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After days of condemnation from critics including actress Jennifer Aniston and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. JD Vance was given the opportunity on Thursday to clarify his remarks from 2021 in which he said the Democratic Party was run by "childless cat ladies."
Instead, the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that while he has "nothing against cats," he meant what he said in terms of "the substance" of his argument.
Vance made it clear, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), "that he meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
In separate remarks that same year, Vance said parents should "have more power" at the voting booth and that "if you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice."
He also specifically categorized people who don't have children as "bad" in an interview in 2021, saying the government should "reward the things that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are bad," with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.
While a spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the senator's taxation proposal was "basically no different" than the child tax credit supported by the Democratic Party, Democrats who have pushed for the credit have heralded its proven ability to slash child poverty rates and help families afford groceries, childcare, and other essentials, rather than viewing the tax savings as a way to reward people for procreating.
In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
"I'm proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I'm a guy who wants to fight for you," said Vance. "The Democrats, in the past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It's built into their policy, it's built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don't think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the problem."
Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.
In recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in blocking the extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can have meals at school, regardless of their family's income.
Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.
As with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest."
University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.
"But I haven't heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my kids," she said, "like reducing childcare and tuition costs."
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