Republicans’ tax plans so unfair, they are practically cartoonish
The Republican tax proposals were bad from the get-go. But they have become steadily worse as they have been turned into bills which seem so cartoonishly evil they could have been dreamed up by Mr. Burns from “The Simpsons.”
Consider the latest changes to the Senate tax-cut bill being championed by the majority leader, Mitch Mcconnell, and his merry band. It lavishes generous permanent tax breaks on corporations, while modest tax cuts for the middle class would vanish into thin air after 2025. Millionaires would enjoy average tax cuts of $5,580 in 2027, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, at which point families earning less than $75,000 a year would pay more taxes.
Let that sink in. This tax bill would take money from working families and give it to the world’s wealthiest people.
The hardest hit would be in high-cost states like California, New Jersey and New York because the bill gets rid of key deductions and the credit for state and local taxes.
Further, it calls for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for most people to have health insurance. This would leave 13 million people without insurance and drive up premiums for others who are struggling to afford coverage, all in the interest of reducing spending by $338 billion so Republican lawmakers can cut taxes for big businesses, despite Democratic opposition.
And if that weren’t bad enough, this bill, along with a similar measure that the House passed with lightning speed, would, because of a 2010 budget law, trigger automatic cuts to Medicare and other important programs that low-income and middle-class Americans depend on. All told, the bills would add more than $1 trillion to the federal debt for future generations to pay off.
What is this in service of? Republicans claim their big corporate tax cut will turbocharge the economy by encouraging businesses to invest, create jobs and give raises. Not even business chieftains believe this trickle-down argument. When an editor at The Wall Street Journal asked a gathering of chief executives last week if they would invest more if Congress enacted the Republican tax cut, few hands went up. Gary Cohn, President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, who was a featured guest on stage at the time, seemed befuddled. “Why aren’t the other hands up?” he said.
The administration’s cluelessness about how working people might see this cynical play for the rich was confirmed a day later when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife, Louise Linton, were photographed with a sheet of freshly printed one-dollar bills with his signature, smirking like a couple of Disney villains.
Few voters seem fooled. Just 25 percent approved of the tax plan in a recent Quinnipiac poll, while 52 percent said they disapproved of it. Even some Republican lawmakers are beginning to catch on that this tax-cut plan is politically radioactive. Rep. Peter King of Long Island says that if the tax plan becomes law, all Republican members of Congress from the Northeast could lose their seats. Sen. Ron Johnson, a conservative from Wisconsin, says he can’t vote for the bill because it treats big corporations so much better than small businesses. And Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, is worried that repealing the ACA’S individual mandate could leave many middle-class families worse off by increasing insurance premiums despite any relief they get from a tax cut.
Republicans are pushing ahead to show their donors they can accomplish something, particularly letting them keep more of their money. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina captured this spirit when he said “the financial contributions will stop” if Congress fails to pass a tax cut. The party has made clear where its values lie. Well-heeled campaign funders matter. Middle-class families don’t.
The opposition of Johnson, Collins and others has raised hopes that a handful of Republican senators can be persuaded to torpedo this tax-cut bill in the same way that three of them sent the effort to repeal the ACA down to defeat a few months ago.
It still boggles the mind that any lawmaker could support a proposal that would do so much damage to working people and the fiscal health of the government.