The following article by S. V. Date was posted on the Huffington Post website December 24, 2017:
The president’s near daily falsehoods appear to be tripping up Republicans on their victory lap.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s falsehood-rich style appears to have come back to bite him as he brags about his only major legislative accomplishment.
Having passed tax cuts that provide modest help to most Americans, Trump and GOP leaders are finding that most Americans just don’t believe it.
A CNN poll earlier this month found that only 21 percent of respondents believed they would be better off under the tax plan, while 37 percent believed they would be worse off. Another 36 percent thought they would not be affected much either way.
In reality – at least until the individual tax cuts expire at the end of 2025 – the vast majority of families will benefit from the cuts, although not necessarily that much for the typical middle-income family. While the overall benefits skew toward the wealthy because of the dramatic 40-percent reduction in the corporate income tax rate, some 80 percent of taxpayers will see a tax reduction next year, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, while 5 percent will get a tax increase and the remainder will see little difference.
That disconnect is not surprising to Neil Newhouse, a prominent Republican pollster. “The data you’re seeing is measuring voter reaction to the Trump-GOP tax plan, and neither of those brands is scoring particularly well right now,” Newhouse said. “Voters are responding less to what’s actually in the tax plan and more to who’s taking credit for it.”
Trump ― as he has done regularly whenever confronted with news he does not like ― blamed the media for the plan’s unpopularity. “The Massive Tax Cuts, which the Fake News Media is desperate to write badly about so as to please their Democrat bosses, will soon be kicking in and will speak for themselves,” the president tweeted on Thursday. “Companies are already making big payments to workers. Dems want to raise taxes, hate these big Cuts!”
Many Republicans agree with Trump that the news media have emphasized how much the tax plan will benefit the wealthy – including Trump himself – but failed to point out that the typical middle-class family would also benefit by about $78 per month.