In 2017, during his first term, President Donald Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a historic economic achievement and long-overdue reform of the U.S. tax code. The TCJA — also known as the Trump Tax Cuts — had numerous benefits, with families, farmers, workers, and businesses receiving much-needed tax relief. 

However, absent congressional action, those financial benefits will soon expire on Dec. 31, 2025. If the TCJA is allowed to sunset, virtually every American would face a tax hike, a consequence that Republicans are not willing to accept.

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Despite lies from Democrats, the TCJA did not exclusively support the wealthy. In fact, the reverse occurred. Workers who earned less than $100,000 annually, on average, saw a 16% tax cut. Workers in the lowest 10% of income brackets experienced 50% higher wage growth than those in the top 10% of the income bracket. Real median household income increased by $5,000, a larger increase in just two years than in the prior eight combined, and wages increased by 4.9%, the fastest pace of two-year growth in real wages in two decades. As intended, workers and families saw the benefits of tax reform, letting Americans keep more of their hard-earned money.

On a separate note, the TCJA’s enactment proved economic projections wrong. Before it became law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that GDP growth would be 2.2% in 2018 and 1.7% in 2019. But those predictions turned out to be just that. 

After the law took effect, real GDP grew by 3% in 2018 and 2.5% in 2019. These significant corrections in real economic growth underscore the power of thoughtful tax relief. Even after reducing corporate income tax rates from 35%, the highest rate in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the third-highest in the world, to 21%, corporate income tax revenues increased in 2021, 2022, and 2023. These effects disprove the liberal talking points that the TCJA only benefited the highest earners and the biggest corporations. These results prove that American workers can outcompete anybody, and the American economy can reach even greater heights when the right pro-growth policies are implemented.

Now, eight years later, the consequences of inaction are dire. Twenty-six million small businesses would lose their 199A deduction on qualified business income, resulting in a top tax rate of 43.4%. Forty million families would see their child tax credit cut in half. A staggering 91% of U.S. taxpayers would have their standard deduction slashed by 50%, and family farms would experience a devastating slash to their exemption from the death tax. Moreover, the average U.S. taxpayer would face a 22% tax increase, and roughly 6 million jobs would be lost, slowing our economy and forcing consumers to pull back on spending.

That’s why my Republican colleagues on the House Ways and Means Committee are working with the president to extend the TCJA and protect these tax cuts for our families, farmers, workers, and businesses. 

We must maintain the 20% tax cut for small businesses so that entrepreneurs and job creators can hire new employees, expand their operations, and make investments up and down Main Street. We need to protect the doubled standard deduction and the increased child tax credit so that our families can keep more of their paycheck, put money away for a rainy day, save for college, or put a down payment on a house. We need to keep provisions such as immediate expensing and bonus depreciation to encourage our farmers and businesses to invest, grow, buy, and innovate in the United States. But the longer we wait to extend and strengthen the TCJA, the more our families, farmers, and businesses will face uncertainty and delay planned and spontaneous purchases and investments.

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We have an important and highly consequential task ahead of us. More than 77 million Americans elected Trump and Republican majorities to Congress to protect these tax cuts and make our economy the strongest in the world.

With Americans’ trust and mandate, Republicans will extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and unleash American economic prosperity now and well into the future.

Randy Feenstra is a U.S. House of Representatives member from Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District.