How GOP tax ‘cuts’ will ravage the middle class
“You have been the single greatest threat to my family in the entire world. You are the reason I stay up at night. You are the reason I can’t sleep.”
– constituent Geoff Ginter to U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur, R. N.J., after MacArthur voted to gut the Affordable Care Act earlier this year.
Google “Tom MacArthur” or “Geoff Ginter” to see Ginter’s entire rant on video, which I promise you, is well worth the five minutes. You’ll all be going, “Yeah, what he said!”
His sentiment applies equally to Congress’ current efforts to hand a huge tax cut to the wealthy and to giant corporations while throwing some crumbs our way … maybe.
My congressman, Patrick Meehan, (R-Goofy Kicking Donald) has voted for the House version of the tax cut plan. If your congressman is Democrat Bob Brady, he didn’t vote for it.
The details of the tax cut are yet to be worked out, but here’s what will likely happen:
An all-Republican majority of Congress is going to pass a huge corporate tax cut, which it will say is going to stimulate growth, increase wages and provide relief for small businesses.
It will not do that. It will simply stuff money into the pockets of the wealthiest Americans and giant corporations so they, in turn, can stuff money into those politicians’ pockets.
Did you know that 400 millionaires and billionaires wrote to Congress last week to tell it they don’t need a tax cut? But don’t worry, politicians’ pockets will continue to get stuffed.
As the bills are formulated now, middle-income earners will get double the standard deduction and a bump-up in the child tax credit (good things) that are going to net us savings of anywhere from $60 for those with incomes of $25,000, to $800 for those with incomes of $48,000 to $86,000 in 2019, according to the Tax Policy Center.
The tradeoff for this magnificent largesse will be the elimination of medical cost deductions, often worth thousands of dollars to our sickest, oldest citizens.
This is after President Donald Trump has already effectively cut the Affordable Care Act subsidies for lowerincome earners by jerking around the health insurance companies on the subsidies until they were forced to raise premiums.
I know one Delaware County family – two hardworking people with four kids – whose premiums will increase by $400 a month in January for the same highdeductible policies. That $800-a-year tax cut is not wowing them right now.
Congress is also messing with a lot of other deductions – mortgage interest, state and local taxes, tuition and student loan credits and deductions to name a few – that are going to really hurt people.
Those proposals to eliminate or reduce deductions will gradually be traded away until enough Republicans with consciences can bring themselves to vote for a kinder, gentler savaging of the middle class.
And don’t be fooled that the individual tax cuts will last. The corporate cuts will be permanent, but individual tax cuts will phase out over the next 10 years, so the $800 in 2019 will gradually diminish until middle-income taxpayers will receive a zero tax break or begin paying a tax increase.
The non-partisan Tax Policy Center’s analysis says 50 percent of taxpayers (the lowest 50 percent, of course) will see a tax hike by 2027 even as the deficit skyrockets by $1.4 trillion.
When the deficit does rise, Plan B kicks in – automatic “pay as you go” provisions in current laws will cut Medicare by more than $300 billion over the next 10 years.
Medicaid and Social Security will be slashed by amounts yet to be determined by dead-eyed House Speaker Paul Ryan so he can realize his keg partyAyn Rand dreams of making sure they are not there for future generations.
That’s what the deficit is for, to give Republicans an excuse to hack away at the social safety net that they have hated since FDR was in short pants.
Exhibit 1: Our current Congress has yet to restore the CHIPS program that provides health care for 9 million poor children and expired two months ago, and the states are running out of money to continue the program, but pshaw, poor children? Who cares?
The truth is, we don’t need a huge tax cut for the wealthy right now to stimulate growth or wages.
The world is awash in profits made by ostensibly American companies, much of it stashed in the Channel Islands or the Caymans.
The stock market is at a historic high, unemployment is at a historic low, borrowing interest rates are practically zero and banks are overflowing with money to lend, if only they would lend it and someone would borrow it.
All of that should be enough to stimulate economic growth, infrastructure rebuilding and wage increases, but it never will happen as long as the one and only goal of corporations is to increase stockholders’ quarterly dividends.
It’s true the wealthy pay the most taxes, about 70 percent. But they also own 85 percent of the wealth (see Willie Sutton and banks).
The rest of us pay payroll taxes for our own Medicare and Social Security (earned benefits, not “entitlements”) and maybe a bit more into the general fund.
Congress could increase the standard deduction, the earned income credit and the child care credit for the middle class and poor without giving the rest of the candy store away to the wealthy in a country now experiencing the greatest disparity between rich and poor since the Gilded Age.
What a joke that the tax cut plan raises the tax bracket for those earning $10,000 a year from 10 to 12 percent.
Nobody earning only $10,000 a year should be paying any taxes; they should get an earned income tax credit instead.
Congress really is the greatest threat to our families in the entire world, as Geoff Ginter said.