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For decades, Republicans have extolled the virtues of removing loopholes and carveouts from the tax code, arguing it would make the system fairer and more efficient, while allowing for lower overall tax rates.
“The tax code is littered with hundreds of preferences and subsidies that pick winners and losers and create complexity,” House Republicans led by then-Speaker Paul Ryan and then-Rep. Kevin Brady, said in their 2016 tax plan. “Instead of free-market competition that rewards success, our tax code directs resources to politically favored interests, creating a drag on economic growth and job creation.”
Fast forward to the present day, and one thing is for sure: President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is not an exercise in tax simplification.
Instead, it began with a push to extend the party’s 2017 tax cuts — which despite some streamlining also introduced some complexity — and piled more on top, in line with a slew of presidential campaign promises. Add in a heavy dose of congressional politics, and the result was a sprawling and quirky piece of legislation that is distinctively Trumpy: lower taxes and a bigger pile of tax breaks.