Beware of midterm danger for important programs

The nonpartisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the 2017 Trump-GOP tax cut act will increase the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion. That’s $1,500 billion! The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that taxpayers in the top 1 percent will receive nearly 50 percent of the total tax reduction benefit. The top 5 percent will receive nearly two-thirds of the benefit.

Republicans who voted for the tax cut are bragging about their work. Unless you are in the top 5 percent, you should be outraged by this massive payout to corporations and the super-rich.

But wait. There’s more. We are now moving into the next phase of the never-ending Republican scheme to give more to the rich and take away more from everyone else.

The ink was hardly dry on the GOP tax law when Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said, “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit” (Dec. 6, 2017). Entitlement reform is the code phrase for cutting health care, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Columnist and Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman succinctly expressed the hypocrisy of Republican congressmen like Keith Rothfus who voted for the tax bill and who now will entertain Republican leadership plans to cut health care, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

In a recent Post-Gazette column (Aug. 25, “The Tax-cut Con Goes On”), Mr. Krugman said of the Republicans, “It might seem shocking that only a few months later [after the tax cut primarily for corporations and the wealthy] they’re once again posing as deficit hawks and calling for spending cuts — if it weren’t for the fact that this has been Republican budget strategy for decades. First, cut taxes. Then, bemoan the deficit created by those tax cuts and demand cuts in social spending. Lather, rinse, repeat.”

How much more of this Republican chicanery are we Americans going to take? Wake up, America, and be sure to vote in November! KARL KLINE O’Hara