GOP’s midterm fix for voter anxiety is tax cuts — for the wealthy: report

Republicans are reaching back into their old playbook to try to attract voters to support them in the midterms: tax cuts.

But their efforts are tied to lowering taxes on capital gains — such as stocks and homes — which could disproportionately favor wealthy Americans.

Bloomberg News reports that some Republicans want to tie capital gains taxes to inflation, which could reduce the tax burden.

“It would be the biggest step we could do to counteract the massive inflation under Joe Biden and the Democrats and have a positive impact on affordability, particularly affordability of housing, between now and the midterms,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Bloomberg.

Cruz argued that the proposal would encourage homeowners to sell existing homes, which could free up the housing supply. He also said it would encourage Americans to sell stocks.

“Despite enthusiasm among key Republicans, the proposal faces challenges. For starters, another big tax and spending bill would require near unanimous support in the fractured GOP,” Bloomberg reported. “Republicans have discussed compiling a fresh tax-cut package this year to serve as a follow-up to Trump’s 2025 ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ to demonstrate to voters that they are taking steps to address unease about the economy.”

Bloomberg reported that the “disproportionate benefit for the wealthy would hand Democrats another attack line heading into a midterms where the party has already painted Republicans’ recent sweeping budget law as a give-away to the rich.”

Brendan Duke, Senior Director for Federal Budget Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted: “Only 1% of the benefits would go to the bottom 80%–after raising taxes on them thru tariffs, cutting Medicaid & SNAP, and letting ACA enhancements expire.”

Critics slammed the GOP proposal.

“I can’t think of a better indictment of the Republican party and the con they’ve played on working class people than their go-to idea for addressing affordability is a capital gains tax cut,” wrote Neera Tanden, who served as the Director of the Domestic Policy Council under President Joe Biden.

“Not for nothing, but this is another broken trickle-down hack idea,” declared Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galen.