GOP tax bill talking points are lies — and they know it

Nearly every claim Republicans are using to market their tax plan is at best a distortion, at worst a deliberate falsehood.

Which raises the question: If their plan is really so great, why not sell it on the merits? Consider just a few of the Republicans’ key talking points:

1. The tax cuts will pay for themselves.

“If we pass this tax reform package in something like its current form, we will reduce the size of the deficits,” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, R-Pa., erstwhile budget hawk, said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

However, Republicans have been unable to locate any credible tax outfit that thinks their proposals will do anything other than lose money.

Republicans’ solution: Just lie about what the experts say! In that same interview, Toomey cited a Tax Foundation report he claimed showed that the Senate bill would reduce deficits once you accounted for growth.

The Tax Foundation, a center-right think tank, uses relatively optimistic assumptions about the economic effects of tax cuts. But even its ana- lysts determined the bill would increase deficits by a half-trillion dollars over the next decade.

2. The tax plan primarily helps the middle class.

Nope. The biggest benefits go to higher-income Americans, as New York University School of Law tax professor David C. Kamin has illustrated.

Lots of lower- and middle-income families won’t benefit at all.

Under both the Senate and House bills, nearly half of households making less than $100,000 will see either a negligible tax change or even a tax hike in 2019, according to Martin Sullivan, chief economist at Tax Analysts.

3.The bill will hurt President Trump.

We don’t know precisely what either bill would do to his taxes because Trump won’t release his returns. But based on what we do know, it’s safe to say he and his family stand to benefit yooge-ly.

For example, both the Senate and House tax bills would repeal the alternative minimum tax, which cost Trump tens of millions in the most recent (leaked) tax return we have, from 2005. Both bills offer big cuts for income from “passthrough” corporations — such as the Trump Organization. And both bills would either kill or scale back estate taxes, allowing Trump’s kids to inherit his fortune tax-free.

4. This will be the biggest tax cut in history.

Arguably, the biggest tax cut ever was in 1872, according to Tax History Project Director Joseph Thorndike. That’s when Congress decided to get rid of income taxes entirely.

If you think going back 145 years is unfair, note that it’s also not the biggest tax cut in the past 100 years. Or the past 50.

In fact, it’s not even the biggest tax cut in the past five years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

5. The economy desperately needs a big tax cut.

The time for deficit-financed stimulus is when the economy is in recession, not one of the longest expansions on record. Otherwise, we’ll have no powder left in the keg when the economy actually needs it.

So, why all the falsehoods? Why not just sell their tax agenda on the merits?

Presumably because Trump and Republican lawmakers know they’re offering a plan the public doesn’t want. Ergo, they need to promise things the tax plan doesn’t do.