Midterm Fight Turns to Tax Law

Candidates in the 2026 midterm races are talking about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and voters are split on whether its tax cuts help them. President Donald Trump told a rally in Corpus Christi on Tuesday that he signed a great, big, beautiful bill delivering the largest tax cuts in American history. Rep. Derrick Van Order, R-Wis., said at the GOP's midterm convention in September that Americans do not know that there is no tax on tips and no tax on overtime.

The law arrived in July 2025. It put tax breaks in place for Americans and cut some social service programs. Democrats have pointed to another part of the law: how much of the tax breaks go to high-income earners. In an August interview, U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico of Texas proposed reversing the tax breaks for the top 1% of earners.

Talarico said he would give that $1 trillion to the middle class in the form of a cost-of-living tax adjustment. He said, 'these are policies that actually benefit Texans.'

Dr. Todd Belt, a professor at George Washington University, said the law is not making much of a difference for voters right now because of affordability concerns. He said, 'That's why affordability is the number one watchword.' Belt listed gasoline prices, grocery prices, health care and child care as things he hears from voters who say they cannot make ends meet, whether they got a little bit of a tax cut or not. He said that is not making a dent in it.

The law also includes cuts and policy changes to Medicaid. Amber Mader, a voter in Arkansas who relies on Medicaid and Social Security Disability, said she is disabled and paralyzed, and that programs providing home health care nursing and transportation to appointments have been reduced after the law's passage. She said she will not see a single cent in benefit from these tax cuts, and that she is dealing daily with severe difficulties and disruptions to basic services because of this bill. She said the changes are getting her to look much closer at candidates that are running.

Elena Patel, co-director of the Urban Brookings Tax Policy Center, said tax policy is hard to use to directly tackle immediate affordability issues. Patel said some of the changes early on benefited middle and lower class families, and that the longer people are into this bill, the more they will notice that it is benefiting high income tax people.

The 2026 midterm elections are set for Tuesday, November 3.