It includes making permanent the annual child tax credit at a level of $2,200. House Republicans want to bump it to $2,500, and then scale it back to $2,000 after 2028. And again, the child tax credit is essentially a giveaway to people [00:00:16] who don't pay taxes in the first place, like the earned income tax credit. Very often you're giving a tax credit to people who don't pay taxes, so it's just a check. Yes. That's, you know, the big problem with, the big beautiful bill [00:00:33] that just passed, you know, the one that redistributes wealth from the bottom to the very wealthiest among us, the one that cuts Medicaid to the tune of $1 trillion. The one that also cuts funding to food assistance for the needy. All those provisions? Not much of an issue. [00:00:48] The real problem here is that the child tax credit will go from $2,000 per eligible child to $2,200 per eligible child. I mean, what an injustice. What an injustice. Do these people even pay taxes, do they? [00:01:06] I have the answer to that, by the way. In a minute. Yeah. So first of all, all my life I've heard Republicans like Ben Shapiro tell me, oh, man, do we need tax cuts, tax credits, tax subsidies, and you. And that stimulates the economy. And that's the most important thing in the whole wide world. [00:01:24] You got it. Now you're like, okay, let's child tax credit. But that's just going to non-rich people. I didn't mean that. I meant only to the super rich. But well, how about the earned income tax credit. It's earned income because it's for the working poor. [00:01:39] By definition they're working to get earned income tax credit. So they're not bums. They're not anything right. They all the nonsense demagoguing stereotypes that they put out there. So these are hard working Americans, right? They're not working hard enough. They're I mean, they're they're the poors. They're not working hard enough. [00:01:55] That's the real problem here. And so all of a sudden, when it comes to the working poor, the middle class, etc., he's like, what is he, stupid tax credits going to the poor and middle class. You should go to the rich. Okay. You know how much the rich got the top people making above $500,000? [00:02:13] I'm going to say this 200 times. They got $1.1 trillion. On average, the people in the top 1% got $65,000 a year extra from this bill every single year. So by the time Trump leaves office, they're going to have gotten [00:02:31] $195,000 at least extra. The very richest people in the country. But for Ben Shapiro, not enough. It shouldn't have been 200,000. Should have been 400,000 of the top 1%. Take more of those tax credits [00:02:47] we pretended to like away from families, away from the working poor, and give it to the rich and only the rich, Ben Shapiro says that's who. Exactly who Ben Shapiro is. I mean, he cares about protecting the rich as much as he cares about protecting Israel. And those are his only two issues. [00:03:03] Everything else is just pyrotechnics, fireworks, etc. A bag of squirrels, all of it to distract. Oh, trans this that. The other thing. All he cares about is rich, rich rich, rich rich. Plus Israel. So let's talk a little bit about the child tax credit, because what he is [00:03:21] claiming here is that the child tax credit is going to benefit individuals who contribute nothing to federal taxes. Right. That's the argument here. Now let's take a look at what the child tax credit was or has been prior to the passage of Trump's agenda. [00:03:37] So as of 2024, this is reported by Newsweek. The credit provides up to $2,000 per qualifying child under the age of 17, with up to $1,600 of that amount refundable. I'll explain what that means in just a minute. [00:03:52] This means eligible families can receive a portion of the credit as a refund, even if they owe no federal income tax. So it is true that the child tax credit would still go to benefit individuals who [00:04:08] are earning an income, but are not earning enough to have to pay federal taxes. Okay. And so that's what he's complaining about here. And he's making it seem like most of the beneficiaries of this provision are not paying federal taxes, which is hilarious to me. [00:04:24] That's not the case. Now what does how or how does the child tax credit change under Trump's agenda? Under the legislation that just passed? Well, the bill boosts the child tax credit from a current credit of $2,000 [00:04:39] up to, wow, $2,200. Oh, and added $200 and would rise every year linked to inflation. However, it does not change the refundable portion of the credit, which is set at $1,600. [00:04:56] Okay, so those are the changes. Now, most who benefit from the child tax credit actually do pay federal taxes, if you could believe it. Actually, I can't believe it. It's the easiest thing in the world to believe. So let's take a look at data that was released by the Tax Policy Center using IRS data. [00:05:15] What they found, and this was an analysis that they did in 2022, was that the majority of aggregate credit dollars were received by taxpayers with income between $50,000 and $500,000. So, Jake, I'm not like some tax expert, but if I'm not mistaken, [00:05:32] individuals earning between $50,000 and $500,000, pay federal taxes. - Is that correct? - Yeah, that is correct. And there's one other thing I want to draw attention to, and I read it to you guys, but I hope you got it. [00:05:48] So if they don't pay any taxes, the maximum they can get is $1,600. That was what it was before and after this bill. It's still $1,600. So if they don't pay any taxes, then they didn't get a single extra dollar. [00:06:06] But Ben Shapiro is still complaining about it, as if the bill did that. But the bill didn't do that at all. And so what he's actually complaining about is, why are these people even getting a child tax credit? Why would a tax credit go to anyone that isn't in the top 1%? [00:06:23] He's furious about it. He's such a joke. This goes to the middle class and they claim, oh no, no, the tax cuts. Oh no, they told the Democrats and the left says they just for the rich. No, no, no, no, they're mainly for the middle class. They're really gonna help the middle class. [00:06:38] The middle class is getting some. God damn it! I told you to cut all those middle tax ones, okay? Or make them temporary and capped and nonrefundable. All these different things that they've done? No, this is every tax cut scheme is a scheme to take your money and funnel [00:06:54] it over to the wealthiest people who bought all of our politicians. All the donors are super wealthy, and every one of them tells all of the politicians, cut my taxes and I don't give a goddamn what else you do? Yeah. [00:07:09] And by the way, about 25% of all child tax credit recipients are earning between 100,000 and $200,000. So, in other words, the vast majority of individuals who are taking the child tax credit are paying federal taxes. [00:07:25] The bill that just passed changes nothing for those who are so poor that they don't have to pay federal taxes. The fact that he would even focus on this for a second. It befuddles me, considering how much this bill again redistributes wealth from the [00:07:43] bottom to the top and more importantly, adds to our already unbelievably high federal debt of $37 trillion. It adds 3.4 trillion more in debt. But let's let's go ahead and demonize literally the poorest people in this [00:08:00] country who have no voice, who have no representation, who keep getting shafted regardless of which party is in charge. It's it's utterly ridiculous. So that's what we're dealing with here. We have trash media in this country, a useless Congress that just takes, [00:08:16] takes, takes, engages in insider trading, engages in all sorts of behavior that would be considered criminality if ordinary Americans engaged in it, and they get the best health care coverage in the world, the best, you know, retirement benefits in the world. That's that's what we're dealing with in this country. [00:08:32] It makes me absolutely sick. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.