Parents, educators, and students know that the tax code and public education are deeply linked. Trillions of dollars are at stake as most of the  2017 Trump Tax Scam is set to expire at the end of 2025. When Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans enacted  nearly $2 trillion of tax cuts mostly for the wealthy and corporations in 2017, they simultaneously argued for and tried to execute funding cuts for Title I education, Head Start, and countless other education programs that provide opportunities to those who would otherwise not have them.

Permanently extending the Trump Tax Scam will overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, while the next generation of students and children will lose trillions of dollars in revenue we could instead invest in our schools and other public services. In order to make sure the next generation of parents and students can have new opportunities and the best education in the world, we must let the Trump Tax Scams for the wealthy expire and enact a proactive tax agenda that will make the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

Republicans Are Already Starting to Cut Education to Fund Their High-End Tax Cuts

The GOP-controlled House Budget Committee has already voted this year to cut several education-related investments to help pay for extension of the Trump law. They include tighter restrictions on which students are eligible for the free and reduced-price school-based meals; and hundreds of billions of dollars in unspecified cuts to higher education, that based on previous Republican proposals, could include repealing former President Biden’s student loan forgiveness and repayment plans and making college more expensive for current students. 

This Is Part of a Pattern of Republicans Trying to Pay for Tax Cuts With Cuts to Education

In 2023, Republicans voted to cut vital government programs rather than raise taxes on the rich to avert an unprecedented and devastating default by the federal government on its obligations. 

Among the impacts of the proposed education-related cuts: 

• 200,000 kids denied Head Start;
• 100,000 children denied childcare;
• 80,000 potential college students denied adequate financial assistance.

The $5 Trillion Math Problem

When President Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress pushed through their 2017 tax law on a straight party-line vote, they made the parts for individuals and families temporary while making most of the provisions that benefit big businesses and large corporations permanent–all to disguise its full cost from Congressional scorekeepers. Those temporary provisions expire at the end of 2025; permanently extending them all (along with related tax changes) would add $5.5 trillion to the national debt while mostly benefiting the rich and big businesses. 

The Trump-GOP Tax Scam has been an expensive failure. It has already cost us nearly $2 trillion in lost revenue; primarily aided the wealthy; and provided none of the economic payoffs that were promised – such as higher wages and faster economic growth.

Trump Wants to Abolish the Department of Education

President Trump has issued an executive order calling for the elimination of the Education Department. Dismantling the department would risk resources for vital services like Title I, which provides federal funding for low-income students; federal support for students with disabilities; anti-discrimination enforcement; and college loans. Billionaire wrestling impresario Linda McMahon was made Secretary of Education–after she and her husband contributed $25 million to the election of Republican candidates in 2024–with the explicit understanding that her mandate was to disassemble the department she is meant to lead. 

Raising Revenues to Lift Up the Next Generation of Parents, Students, and Educators

In order to build a future where every student–no matter what zip code they live in, what they look like, or where they come from–can get a quality education to thrive, we must go beyond blocking extension of the Trump Tax Scam for the wealthy and other parts of his anti-education agenda. We need to enact progressive tax reforms that could raise trillions of dollars to better fund education at all levels: raising teacher salaries, reducing class sizes, and otherwise investing in our schools. Some examples of what raising revenue by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share could fund: 

• Raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% would raise $135 billion a year, enough to hire almost 2 million teachers. 
• Closing two loopholes in how we tax the investment income of wealthy households would raise almost $30 billion a year, enough to offer tuition-free community college, lower the cost of attending four-year colleges and support HBCUs. Those loopholes are the nearly half-off capital-gains tax-rate discount on annual  incomes over $1 million (annually adjusted for inflation); and the step-up in basis for transfers of assets with gains over $10 million (annually adjusted for inflation). The stepped-up basis loophole makes inherited gains disappear for tax purposes. 

Creating special taxes on the handful of wealthiest households would raise around $50 billion a year, more than enough to provide free pre-K for all four-year-olds. The Biden administration proposed a Billionaire Minimum Income Tax (BMIT), which would ensure households worth at least $100 million pay an income-tax rate no lower than 25% on all their income, including unrealized capital gains. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, proposed a Billionaires Income Tax (BIT) that would require the nation’s billionaire households and those with $100 million of income in three consecutive years to pay the capital-gains tax (currently 23.8% at these income levels) on their annual investment gains, whether or not the underlying asset is sold.