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So-called “conservative” special interest group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) spent big bucks last year trying to defeat former U.S. president Donald Trump. In fact, in an especially Quixotic last-ditch bid to cut Trump off at the knees, the organization endorsed and shelled out millions on the “Republican” presidential candidacy of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley – who wound up getting trounced in her home state by the former president before losing to “none of the above” in Nevada.
Haley belatedly bowed out of the race… but not before AFP had done everything within its power to make her the GOP nominee. And sink Trump in the process.
With Trump now on the precipice of returning to the White House, AFP is suddenly singing a different tune – opening its apparently limitless saddlebags in support of a “shared agenda” with the incoming administration.
This week, AFP announced its intention to launch a $20 million nationwide campaign in support of renewing Trump’s 2017 tax cuts – which are poised to expire this year. Failure to do so would create a “countdown to crisis that threatens the family budgets of virtually every American,” the group insisted.
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According to AFP, its campaign in support of extending the tax cuts represents “the largest effort by a conservative organization to support President Trump’s second-term legislative agenda.”
“Americans must unite and tell Washington now is not the time for higher taxes,” one of the ads accompanying the campaign noted. “By extending and improving the Trump tax cuts, we can make America more affordable, create greater opportunity, and reignite the American dream.”
News of the ad campaign was leaked to Fox News, which quoted the group’s leader Emily Seidel as saying her organization “worked alongside Trump to pass the tax cuts last decade.”
Maybe so… but AFP spent the better part of 2023 and 2024 trying to take Trump out, something Fox reporter Paul Steinhauser barely mentioned in his story touting the latest machinations of this “influential and deep-pocketed grassroots network.”
Actually, Steinhauser’s article made no mention of the blitzkrieg of negative ads AFP ran against Trump – noting only that “the group’s political wing, which has long backed fiscally conservative causes and candidates, endorsed and supported Trump rival Nikki Haley in late 2023 as the 2024 GOP presidential nomination race got started.”
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“After she ended her White House bid, AFP Action… concentrated its political efforts on down-ballot races,” Steinhauser continued.
As AFP seeks to reverse course and ingratiate itself with Trump just one week ahead of his impending presidency, it’s worth pointing out Trump came up well short on taxes during the 2024 campaign. Other than eliminating taxes on tips, his only proposal was to extend the current “cuts” – which have frankly been a mixed bag.
During Trump’s first term in office, I consistently argued the relief package he signed failed to cut deeply enough, failed to cut in the right places (i.e. relief for middle income earners and small businesses) and failed to make corresponding cuts to government.
It was, as I repeatedly said, a “missed opportunity” – although AFP’s corporate bosses certainly made out well enough.
Curiously, AFP contends its advocacy is about “extending and building on tax relief for American families and businesses.”
While I’m glad Trump is pushing to extend this package, let’s be clear: None of this is new tax relief. Simply extending the poorly targeted 2017 tax cuts isn’t going to do anything to stimulate the economy – although it’s safe to say allowing them to expire would have deleterious impacts on an already tenuous economic situation.
Either way, as it relates to AFP’s sudden pro-Trump advocacy it’s like Bob Dylan once sang “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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4 comments
Trump’s 2017 “greatest tax cuts ever” were a damn joke. I know only one person who claimed to realize any appreciable relief from them. Why do they need renewing? Was this some stunt that Trump and/or the RIN….er “Republicans” came up with to generate a perceived need for them?
In addition to removing taxes on tips, in 2024 Trump also made political hay at his rallies by talking about eliminating Federal taxes on Social Security and on overtime hours worked. Will he actually push any of these things? Well, if his “promises made, promises kept” bullshit from his first term as President is an example, then no.
Cutting taxes for Social Security, overtime, and tips, would help a lot of struggling people. Trump (and any of his friends who are important) are all billionaires, or at least filthy rich. Being that once the polls close, these are the only people who really matter to him, I do not expect him to push any of these cuts.
Many small business owners that are taxed on their individual returns for business income (Schedule C sole proprietors, S-corp shareholders, partners, etc) benefitted significantly from the Qualified Business Income deduction. Do you only know one of those, or are the others lying? This one change really helped level the playing field for those small businesses compared to larger C-corporations.
Social Security is only taxed when there is significant income from other sources. The percentage of Social Security that is subject to taxation goes up only as that other income increases. The retirees that depend solely on their Social Security to scrape by do not pay taxes on the Social Security. And SC does not tax Social Security, at all, at the state level.
Taxation of tips is kind of interesting. My gut tells me that the majority of tip income doesn’t even get reported, so removing its taxability really would just serve to bring it out of the shadows and legitimize what’s already being done. It would really be interesting to see how many people in service industries would try lowering their fees for services and add mandatory gratuities.
I have to agree with the Observer. The tax cuts were a joke for anyone except the wealthy. I am a small business owner and received a small benefit. But I have never understood why someone who owns a small local business should get a tax cut, but someone who works for that business, or in a local factory should not.
Being an employee is a business. You sell a product (your services) to someone. That is no different than a local accountant, attorney, stockbroker, insurance agency, restaurant owner, etc. etc. It seems to me it was just another way to target people with more wealth, who are likely to give money to Republicans.
It is not unusual to know few if any people who benefited significantly from those tax cuts. 95% of the value of Trump’s tax cuts went to the wealthiest 5% of Americans, and the vast majority of that to the top 1.00%. It would be far more beneficial to the maximum number of Americans to make sure we have the money to protect ourselves, protect social sec and Medicare, and pay down debt. But if we did that Trump would not be able to brag to billionaires how much money he gave them when he holds out his hand and asks them for money.
“Americans must unite and tell Washington now is not the time for higher taxes,”
Translation: Now is not the right time for higher taxes for the top 1% of the top 1% and corporations who have been greedily raising prices for the past 4 years.
Sayonara, suckers.