Pence group launches $10 million effort to preserve Trump tax cuts

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s political advocacy group is launching a $10 million campaign to push for an extension of the Trump-era tax cuts, which are set to expire next year and will likely play a key role in the 2024 election.

Advancing American Freedom on Thursday announced plans for a “nationwide grassroots education campaign” to preserve the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was signed into law in 2017 when Pence was vice president. 

The effort will include direct engagement with Capitol Hill using seminars, policy memos and grassroots advocacy, the group said. The campaign will extend into 2025, when lawmakers will have to take action to extend the Trump-era tax cuts or allow them to lapse.

“Advancing American Freedom is launching a campaign to defend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the largest tax cuts and tax reform in American history that let the American people keep more of their hard-earned money and returned jobs to America,” Pence said in a statement. 

“The past few years of the Biden administration have shown us that you cannot spend your way out of inflation, and you will not be able to tax your way out of a spending problem,” he added. “Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Our national debt is out of control, and taxing the American people more is not the solution.” 

Former President Trump signed his signature legislative accomplishment on Dec. 22, 2017. The law cut individual income tax rates, increased the standard deduction and child tax credit, slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, and overhauled how the U.S. taxes corporations’ foreign earnings, among other things.

President Biden frequently criticized the Trump tax cuts while he was running for president in 2020, at times saying he wanted to “eliminate” them because they benefited wealthy people and corporations. But Biden and Democrats did not undo the Trump-era law while they had control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2021 and 2022.

The tax provisions affecting individuals in the law largely expire at the end of 2025, including provisions that have provided tax cuts to low- and middle-income households. Proposals over how to handle those expiring provisions are likely to play a key role in the presidential campaign, as well as in key Senate races in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated the 2017 tax law would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit between 2018 and 2027. Legislation scorers have estimated that extending all provisions that are set to expire or to be downgraded will cost $3.8 trillion through 2033.

Pence’s group issued a 13-page memo Thursday laying out the policy steps it argued would best protect American taxpayers. The memo cited preserving the individual tax cuts from 2017, maintaining a low business tax rate and addressing government debt through comprehensive spending reform rather than raising taxes to try and balance the budget.

During his brief presidential campaign last year, Pence spoke publicly about the need to reform entitlement programs to rein in the national debt and criticized Trump and others who ignored the issue.