Today is Tax Day, the deadline for filing taxes. But it’s just like every other day to Democrats, who wake up each morning wanting to raise taxes. This year, their rhetoric has evolved slightly. They no longer try, as they used to, to convince voters they should be prepared to pay higher taxes to get more government services. Instead, they say their trillion-dollar spending plans can be financed by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. That is a whopping falsehood.
Stung by the popularity of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, especially his no-tax-on-tips policy, Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) have introduced tax plans that would cut taxes more for households making less than $75,000 a year in Booker’s case and less than $80,500 in Van Hollen’s. To offset lost revenue, they promise higher taxes on high-income earners and corporations.
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Their arguments are feeble. U.S. corporate tax rates are already higher than average corporate tax rates in European countries. Just as Democrats argue correctly that Trump’s tariffs are paid by consumers with higher retail prices, so also consumers pay more when corporate taxes are raised. Corporations do not absorb higher taxes out of goodwill. Research shows that they pass them on to consumers through higher prices and to workers with lower wages. Higher prices and lower wages are hardly the campaign message Democrats should want to take into a presidential election, but that’s what their policies mean.
The United States also already has one of the most steeply progressive income tax systems in the world. The top 1% of earners pay 40% of all income taxes, the top 10% pay 72%, and the top 50% pay 97%. Many households pay no income taxes at all, and the bottom 20% actually receive benefits from the tax system, such as the earned income tax credit.
Democrats cannot escape the fact that the federal government spends far more than it takes in, and voters know they are not getting their money’s worth.
The federal government spent just over $7 trillion in 2025 and collected $5.3 trillion in taxes. Half that came from income taxes, 35% from payroll taxes, 5% from corporate taxes, and about 5% from tariffs. The post-World War II average for federal taxes as a share of gross domestic product is 17.5%, just a shade above the 17% the federal government collected last year. Federal spending, by contrast, reached 22.8% of GDP in 2025, nearly 3 points above the 20% post-World War II average, and it is projected to rise further as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid consume larger shares of the budget.
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At the same time, more of the public believes they are paying more than their fair share. As recently as 2021, 49% of the public, including 41% of Democrats, said they were paying too much. Today, 60% say they are paying too much, including 56% of Democrats. Overall, 66% of voters say the value of government services they receive does not match what they pay in taxes. It is no wonder Democratic elected officials are suddenly promising tax cuts instead of asking voters to pay more for supposedly better services.
Democrats have learned that voters of all political stripes reject the idea that more government services are worth higher taxes. So now the party of the Left promises that only other people will have to pay to fund their ambitions. It’s worth remembering on this Tax Day, the old wisdom that sooner or later, they will run out of other people’s money. In truth, they have already done so. And when they run out of other people‘s money, they come for yours.
