A gift to GOP wealthy sponsors
Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California:
I just voted NO on the Republican tax plan. Here’s why:
Since their failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump and Republicans in Congress have desperately sought a legislative accomplishment — a “win” to show voters that with control of both the House and Senate and the Presidency, they could get something done.
Today, in the headlong pursuit of something, anything that they could point to as a legislative success, they passed a massive tax cut for the wealthy that they would like to portray as “tax reform.” But this “win” comes as a terrible loss for the country. It is, in fact, a gift to GOP wealthy sponsors and lives up to none of the GOP promises about helping the middle class or simplifying the tax code. Instead, it is a highly partisan bill that was rushed through both chambers and benefits few families more than the President’s own.
I voted no on this bill because, simply put, it overwhelmingly benefits large corporations and families with large incomes and estates, while doing little for most families, especially those in California. This bill particularly hurts middle class families in states like mine, millions of which will get a whopping tax increase since their ability to deduct state and local taxes is reduced, along with the mortgage interest deduction.
The bill also repeals a key provision in the Affordable Care Act, which will lead to 13 million Americans losing insurance and millions more paying higher premiums. In other words, for any family or individual that may see a tax break, they’ll most likely be using that money to pay for higher healthcare costs.
To make matters worse, the $1.46 trillion cost to this bill will trigger massive automatic program cuts to social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security. There is little doubt that having increased the deficit by trillions with this bill, Republicans will seek to pay back that money through such cuts to Medicare and Social Security. That is the other shoe which is now set to fall on middle class and working families.
President Trump promised a “giant tax cut for Christmas,” and there’s no question he delivered that – for himself and other real estate developers who can now use pass through income to great personal advantage and reward.
The great shame in all of this is that none of it is necessary. There was nothing precluding bipartisan legislation that would simplify the tax code, assist the middle class and small businesses and diminish our national debt. Nothing except a decision by the majority to railroad through a deceptive measure for their wealthy patrons instead.
So it’s allllllll worth it, no doubt – the lies, the insults, the encouragement of racism, the pussygrabbing, the dirty water, the destruction of national monuments, the right-wing federal judges, the alienatiion of allies, all of it – because rich people get to be even richer.
As with so many things, today’s GOP has really cranked up the extremism.
They used to be content with providing tax breaks for the upper 1%. Now, they’re going straight for the upper 0.01%. They’re targeting tax breaks at real estate holding companies and families with more than the $10 million that was already exempt from the estate tax, and so on.
They’re not even pretending that this is about rewarding “work” by highly educated professionals. The beneficiaries of these cuts are primarily the idle rich living off their family’s accumulated wealth. (Oh, they may nominally have a job that pays them a salary and benefits — Vice President of something or other at Daddy’s Real Estate Holding Company, Inc. — but it’s purely a sinecure.)
It’s a rare occasion where I discover that I wasn’t cynical enough.
Ah, but you see, the Trump voters don’t perceive any of this hurting them, only hurting those “damn libruls” and “foreigners” they hate so much (and foreigners means anybody non-white, no matter where they were born).