What is the end game for the GOP’s tax cut?
was really looking forward to filing my taxes on a postcard the way the president promised during the campaign. I appreciated his repeated promises that the tax cuts he was planning would benefit the middle class and hurt people with high incomes like his. That didn’t happen, though. The tax forms will remain a stomach ache. Instead of helping the middle class, over 80 percent of the tax cuts go to the top 1 percent who already own 40 percent of our nation’s wealth. And Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, is saying that if this new tax cut doesn’t pay for itself (no economist worth their salt is saying it will), then Congress will balance the budget by slashing Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. All those years I paid into Medicare and Social Security, all that money will go to pay down the debt created by giving the wealthy a tax cut and that tax break for private jets.
I don’t understand the end game here.
Corporations, already afloat in money, have begun taking their projected permanent tax cuts to buy back stock, pay out dividends and give huge bonuses to their top management. A few corporations, most of which have major business deals waiting for government approval, have given bonuses to their employees. We all know what those employees will do with that bit of extra money. They, unlike the wealthy, will go out and buy things they need. That’s what those of us who work for a paycheck do: We buy groceries and clothes and repair our homes. We replace those worn out appliances, buy a newer car, replace that couch the cat destroyed with anything extra. We are the ones who — through our purchases — create a demand for more products which in turn means businesses have to hire more people to satisfy that bigger demand. For the last 40 years, pay levels for the middle class have been stagnant in this country. This tax bill will not help that. When tax cuts expire in a few years, it will even make it worse.
Funneling all the money to the folks at the top, starving out the middle class — what is the end game here? M.L. McCorkle
Rome