If Republicans had bothered to think about it, they would have recognized that basing a tax cut on its benefits to the middle class was doomed to fail. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reminds us:
”(T)he vast majority of American taxpayers pay little or nothing in income taxes; they instead mostly pay payroll taxes such as Social Security and Medicare. So it really strains credulity for administration officials such as (economic adviser Gary) Cohn to say the wealthy will not get a tax cut.
“The wealthy pay most of the taxes, so unless the tax plan specifically leaves them untouched - which Trump’s plan does not - they will get big tax cuts.