Davids, Dems fail to stop “Big Beautiful Bill,” ignore massive tax hike they would have slapped on JOCO earners

Once again voting in partisan lockstep with her side of the aisle in the U.S. Congress, Kansas 3rd District Congresswoman Sharice Davids joined with all other house Democrats in a final failed attempt to thwart President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” – a move which would have set in motion the largest income tax increase on American taxpayers since the beginning of the federal income tax.

The bill passed 218 to 214 with each House Democrat voting against. Trump signed the bill into law while celebrating the July 4 holiday with military families at the White House on Saturday.

 Hardest hit among Davids’ district would have been higher earners in Johnson County, where the sole Democrat in the Kansas congressional delegation enjoys winning margins that have won four back-to-back elections for her since 2018.

As the highest income county in Kansas, Johnson County taxpayers would have felt massive impacts from the expiration of the Trump tax exemptions they’ve enjoyed for the past eight years and which would have expired six months from now.

🔴 1. Higher Individual Income Tax Rates

• The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced tax rates across brackets. Expiration would revert rates to pre-2017 levels, meaning:
  
  • The 12% bracket would jump to 15%
    
  • The 22% bracket would rise to 25%
    
  • The 24% bracket would rise to 28%
    
  • Higher brackets would also revert upwards
    

As an affluent county with median household income ~$99,000 (2022 ACS), many JOCO earners fall in the 22%-24% brackets, so their federal tax bills would increase materially.

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🔴 2. Reduced Standard Deduction

• The TCJA nearly doubled the standard deduction:
  
  • Single: $12,000 → $6,350 (pre-TCJA)
    
  • Married filing jointly: $24,000 → $12,700 (pre-TCJA)
    

Many who used the standard deduction would have to choose between itemizing again or accepting a far smaller deduction, which would increase their taxable income.

Two facets of the pre-2017 tax code had their advantages however. The return of personal exemptions and removal of the cap on state and local tax exemptions (SALT) would have provided benefits, though not enough to make up for the accompanying tax hikes.

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🔴 3. Return of Personal Exemptions

• TCJA eliminated personal exemptions but offset it with a higher standard deduction.
  
• The repeal would have reinstated exemptions (~$4,050 per taxpayer and dependent in 2017), partially offsetting tax increases for families with dependents. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City says 34.6 percent of JOCO households have children under 18 living at home.
  

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🔴 4. State and Local Tax (SALT) Deduction Cap

• TCJA capped SALT deductions at $10,000.
  
• Expiration would remove this cap, allowing full deduction of Kansas income taxes and high Johnson County property taxes for itemizers.
  

This would have been beneficial for high-income homeowners paying large property taxes in Overland Park, Leawood, Prairie Village, etc.

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🔴 5. Child Tax Credit Reduction

• The TCJA doubled the Child Tax Credit ($1,000 → $2,000) and raised phaseout thresholds.
  
• Expiration would cut the credit in half and reduce eligibility for many upper-middle-income households in Johnson County
  

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🔴 6. Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) Changes

• TCJA reduced AMT exposure significantly.
  
• Expiration would revert AMT exemption amounts, potentially impacting higher earners in the county.
  

For most upper-middle to high earners in Johnson County, total federal tax liability would have increased, despite SALT cap removal, due to higher marginal rates and lower standard deduction. But

 Davids statement in response to her party’s failure ignored the financial ramifications for taxpayers in the golden egg of her district, falling back onto the same unsubstantiated Democrat talking points they pressed when the House originally passed the bill on to the Senate in May.

“Simply put, President Trump’s extreme budget hurts everyone who isn’t already a billionaire,” she said. The congresswoman also said she remained committed to “a commonsense, bipartisan path forward” for Americans.

Touted as the single bill that wraps up president Trump’s policy agenda for his entire second term, tax policy – including tax deductions for overtime wages and tips, auto loans and others was the central facet of the bill, and of the President’s plan for reinvigorating the economy in order to pay off the nation’s staggering $36 trillion debt. Critics say it will add $5 trillion to the debt over 10 years, but proponents say those figures don’t include the economic paybacks.

The bill also commits $300 billion to national defense and border security. It attacks waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and Medicare while preserving benefits for the needy, adds work requirements to SNAP benefits, does away with green energy credits which are widely viewed as costly giveaways which have pock-marked rural areas in Kansas with industrial wind farms.