DAVID MARCUS: Tax-free overtime could be midterm magic for GOP

Fox News

24-05-2025

As the GOP's "big beautiful bill" heads to the Senate next month, one provision legislators from both parties should keep their sights squarely set on is no tax on overtime, because in my travels talking to working Americans, no policy comes up more often.
It is not hyperbole to suggest that, if successfully implemented, vastly reducing overtime tax on America's workers would be the most politically significant measure in the bill, and could easily help Republicans sweep the midterms.
It is very rare, when I'm out talking to people on the road, for person after person to keep mentioning something I never even brought up. A clear example in the last election was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services, who I couldn't get people to shut up about, even when the media wasn't focused on him.
In the end, RFK Jr. played a vital role in putting President Donald Trump over the top.
For the past couple of months, the thing I have heard over and over again from workers and employers is how much they desperately want no tax on overtime.
Regular readers of this column will recall the coal miner in Columbiana, Ohio who told me, "taxes are killing the working man," or Doug and Danny in Jeffersonville, Indiana, a steel cleaning plant owner and his foreman who also weighed in.
Doug told me it will "encourage [younger workers] to give up their time, away from loved ones and produce for customers that we have, that need steel, that they want that we did not produce Monday through Friday and get it done."
From Ohio, to Texas, to West Virginia, no tax on overtime has created excitement for the people the news media never seem to get around to talking to.
A major reason that no tax on overtime has been largely ignored compared to its more popular cousin, no tax on tips, is that almost nobody who produces news has ever held a job that includes traditional overtime, while many likely had tipping jobs in college.
This also explains exactly why the overtime provision is a much bigger deal. There are a handful of tipped jobs that one can raise a family on, but most are stepping stones. There are millions of jobs you can raise a family on that involve overtime.
For the men and women who work these jobs in plants, mines and forges, a reduction in overtime tax is far more meaningful than any stimulus check could be. A stimulus check is like a winning scratch-off lottery ticket. No tax on tips is a raise. You can plan on it, build around it.
This brings us around to the midterms. If by the fall of 2026, American workers have been keeping more of their money, not receiving largesse from the state, but keeping more money they worked for, then every GOP candidate will point at every Democrat incumbent in Congress and say, "they voted against it."
One of Donald Trump's political superpowers is to find the issues American voters deeply care about that the media largely ignores. He did it by fighting wokeness, he did it opposing foreign interventionism, he did it by focusing on our kids' health.
I don't know how he does it. I know how I do it. I spend hours and hours traveling and talking to people. Maybe Trump talks to the working-class people he employs, maybe he just judges based on crowd reactions at rallies, but however he does it, finger meets pulse.
With no tax on overtime, Trump has done it again. Every Republican who is running for Congress outside of Silicon Valley and the Upper East Side would be wise to lead their campaign with, "President Trump and I promised no tax on overtime and we delivered."
There seems to be some surprise that Trump's poll numbers are recovering after a brief dip occasioned by universal freakouts over his tariff policy. But there is a very good reason for it: On almost every policy the president is doing exactly what he told voters he would do.
Once workers start seeing that bump in their weekly check they can start saving for a better vacation, put more money away for their kids, or even buy their girl an engagement ring. These are the riches of the working class.
Senate Democrats should tread cautiously as the big beautiful bill lands in the upper chamber. They should decide if they really want to look their constituents in the eye and say, "You know that raise my opponent's party and President Trump gave you? I want to take it away."
No tax on overtime may be Donald Trump's baby, but come the midterms, it could be a big bundle of joy for the Republican Party.