How Trump’s tax bill undermines democracy

It is not just an economic disaster; it is a political disaster, the kind of blow to constitutional democracy that presidents from Adams to Obama worried about.

In his farewell address on Jan. 10, 2017, President Barack Obama tried to rally the nation to the defense of democracy and the rule of law. He reminded his listeners that “Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift” and called on them to be “anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy.”

Obama noted that the maintenance of the American political system is always an exacting and delicate task. It requires constant attention and effort to nurture the social conditions necessary for democracy to prosper. Public officials and citizens must think not just about what is good for each of them but also about what is good for all of us.

Long before Obama’s warnings, in 1814, former President John Adams expressed similar concerns. More than a decade removed from his service as America’s second president, Adams wrote, “Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as Aristocracy or Monarchy…. Remember, Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself.”

“There never was a Democracy yet,” Adams said, “that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and nowhere appears in history.”

I couldn’t help but think of Obama and Adams, two men of very different temperaments and political convictions, as I watched the debate about President Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” That act is not just an economic disaster; it is a political disaster, the kind of blow to constitutional democracy about which Obama and Adams worried.

It is not just cruel, though it is that. In addition, it helps pave the way for authoritarianism by self-consciously contributing to the store of human misery, which history shows fuels the desire for an autocratic strong man.

To get a sense of the damage that Trump’s tax cut bill does, let’s first look back at what Obama identified as the things that America had to do to preserve the gift of constitutional government.

Obama began by characterizing the Constitution as “just a piece of parchment.” He noted that “We, the people, give it power … (and) give it meaning.”

What matters is “the choices … that we make.” Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress have made a choice that they know will weaken, not strengthen, the public’s already frayed attachment to democratic institutions.

Obama noted that “our democracy won't work without a sense that everyone has economic opportunity.” Here, he echoed the findings of a generation of political scientists who studied the social and economic prerequisites of democracy.

Democracy, they observed, is built on a foundation of relative economic prosperity and a vibrant middle class. It thrives when the economic pie is expanding such that one group’s gain does not come at the expense of other groups in society.

That is why at the end of his term, Obama linked his arguments about democracy with “the good news … that today the economy is growing again. Wages, incomes, home values, and retirement accounts are all rising again. Poverty is falling again…. The unemployment rate is near a 10-year low.”

When all boats rise together, political conflict is moderated. People who lose in democratic competition don’t feel that their losses are “existential” and that their way of life is at stake.

Obama flagged this when he said, “stark inequality is also corrosive to our democratic ideal.” He worried that “While the top one percent has amassed a bigger share of wealth and income, too many families, in inner cities and in rural counties, have been left behind—the laid-off factory worker; the waitress or health care worker who's just barely getting by and struggling to pay the bills—convinced that the game is fixed against them, that their government only serves the interests of the powerful.”

If he is right, the Trump tax bill is a time bomb set to do great damage to the ideal about which Obama spoke. As Vox’s Eric Levitz reports, Trump’s “tax cut package would exacerbate inequality, taking health care and food assistance away from poor people in order to shower tax breaks on the wealthy.”

The bill will “reduce income by 2.9% (about $700) per year for the bottom 20% of households…. These households have an income of less than $13,350…. The massive bill would raise income by 2.2% ($5,700) per year for the top 20%, who have incomes of more than roughly $120,000, the study found.”

And, if that were not enough, the bill locks in these distributional effects by protecting intergenerational wealth gaps through its generous estate tax provisions.

Eight years ago, Obama called on Americans to “Understand, democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders argued. They quarreled. Eventually, they compromised. They expected us to do the same. But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity—the idea that for all our outward differences, we're all in this together; that we rise or fall as one.”

He claimed that “the long sweep of America has been defined by forward motion, a constant widening of our founding creed to embrace all and not just some.” Embracing all has hardly been on the minds of the president and the people who voted for what will almost certainly be Trump’s only significant legislative accomplishment.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) captured the spirit of that rejection of Obama’s wisdom when he said, “I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid…. But they’ll get over it.” Embracing all was certainly not what drove Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to vote for the bill after she’d made back-door deals to spare her state some of the brunt of the tax bill’s devastating cuts in the social safety net.

Some commentators have expressed surprise and wonder that Trump would embrace an approach to governance that injures many of the people who were attracted to the MAGA cause by its populist fervor. But I think that inflicting such injuries is part of the point.

Suffering and disillusionment are the breeding ground of anti-democratic fervor. But they have to be properly directed.

Trump is a master at misdirection and scapegoating. By the time the reductions in Medicaid and other benefits hit, you can bet Trump will be blaming them on the Democrats and open-borders policies.

And Vice President JD Vance is sure to take up that banner and give it his own distinctive, hillbilly flavor.

The tax bill continues the longstanding Republican desire to kill the government by starving it of the resources it needs to provide necessary public services and public investments. It provides added funds for the military and Immigration and Customs Enforcement while repealing the Biden administration’s investments in a green energy future.

While our public education system flounders, our health care system teeters on the brink of imploding, and roads and bridges crumble, Trump’s tax bill puts public money into private pockets.

Obama understood that such a policy sucks the life out of democratic institutions and breeds cynicism as citizens see the conditions of their lives worsening. He used climate change to highlight that effect.

“Without bold … action, our children won't have time to debate the existence of climate change. They'll be busy dealing with its effects: more environmental disasters, more economic disruptions, waves of climate refugees seeking sanctuary. Now, we can and should argue about the best approach to solve the problem,” he continued, “But to simply deny the problem not only betrays future generations, it betrays the essential spirit of this country — the essential spirit of innovation and practical problem-solving that guided our Founders.”

The “Betraying the Essential Spirit of This Country Act” is an apt, if awkward, title for the president’s tax cut and slash benefits bill. That is because it inflicts another serious blow to American democracy.

It pushes our political system one step closer to the suicide that Adams foresaw.

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

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