Claim: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said during Wednesday evening’s Democrat debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, that President Trump’s tax cuts benefited the wealthy while implying it did not significantly help middle class Americans such as “the hard-working people in Nevada.”
Verdict: False. The GOP tax cuts helped Americans — and small businesses — across the board.
Klobuchar, who reportedly finished the night with the second-most speaking time, suggested during the debate that the tax cut legislation President Trump signed in 2017 mainly benefited his wealthy friends.
Klobuchar said:
And we have not been talking enough about Donald Trump and — let’s just talk about Donald Trump, because he signed that tax bill that helped the wealthy, and he went down to Mar-a-Lago and he said to all his friends, “You just got a lot richer.” That is Exhibit A.
“And I can tell you, the hard-working people in Nevada were not in that room. So the key to me is to not limit what people can make, but make sure that we have a government that is fair for everyone,” she said, attempting to distance herself from her more radical opponents.
However, the GOP tax cuts benefited small business and the middle class — not just the wealthy, as several Democrat candidates have suggested.
As Breitbart News has explicitly detailed, the majority of American middle class households, 82 percent, “received a tax cut and received an average tax cut of $1,260.” An even greater majority, 90 percent, have experienced an increase in take-home pay, and the repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate also brought additional relief to many middle class Americans across the board.
Additionally, as Trump’s campaign pointed out, the tax cuts law also “doubled the child tax credit for parents while expanding its eligibility, putting more money in families’ pockets.”
Small businesses have also reaped great benefits. A Gallup poll released this month showed that the majority of small businesses, 69 percent, said they have benefited from the tax cuts the president signed into law in 2017. Americans for Tax Reform has documented hundreds of examples of businesses hiring more employees and issuing “pay raises, benefit increases, facility expansions, bonuses, and utility rate reductions where the GOP-enacted Tax Cuts & Jobs Act was cited as a key factor.”
While Democrat presidential hopefuls aim to weaponize the tax cuts, Elaine Parker, chief communications officer of Job Creators Network (JCN), told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview in January that it is precisely what will assist Trump in making his case to the American people.
As Breitbart News reported:
“We played a pivotal role in helping it get across the finish line in a previous campaign called Tax Cuts Now. We really highlighted and helped amplify small business owners at the front and get their voice out there so that Washington heard that small business owners really needed tax cuts, and we got their stories out there,” she explained, pointing to the success that those business owners have since experienced.
“They said if they had tax cuts and they were able to keep more of their money, that they would reinvest that money into jobs, expand their businesses, and grow the economy, and it’s exactly what they’ve done,” she explained. “I mean we have members all over the country share their stories about how many people they’ve hired.”
When asked how to address the critics, particularly the younger voters who are captivated by Sanders’ socialist rhetoric, Parker emphasized the importance of highlighting the successes of small business owners.
In one instance, Parker mentioned a small business owner in Pennsylvania who was able to hire 29 people. He also doubled the size of his facility and for the first time ever, offered a 401k to his employees.
That was a “direct result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” she said.
This is far from the first time Klobuchar has dismissed Trump’s tax cuts.
“My message is, ‘What’s been happening to you since this guy’s gotten in office?” Klobuchar said during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last year. “Has that tax bill really helped you that much? No. Most of it went to help the wealthiest.”
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