I'm angry. I just got back from witnessing one of the biggest legislative heists in American history. For days, Republicans were huddled behind closed doors, surrounded by lobbyists for the rich and powerful. And now, under the cover of darkness, Senate Republicans voted to ram this tax scam through the Senate. Do you know why they don't want to wait to read the bill? Because the more the public sees their plan, the more they hate it. The faster they rush it, the easier it is for them to score a political win with their donors—which a Republican Congressman conceded was the goal of their bill.And despite what Republicans have promised, this legislation will not spur economic growth—it will cause our national debt to explode and slow economic growth as time goes on. The claim that workers will get a $4,000 pay raise will soon be shown for the farce that it is. Meanwhile, millions of middle-class families will pay more. And for those middle-class families who do get tax cuts, they will be puny compared to the $70,000 a year average tax cut for millionaires. Moreover, the tax cuts for families will be temporary while the giant tax cuts for corporations are forever. Don’t just take it from me, the facts have been clearly laid out by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation: This bill increases the debt by more than $1 trillion and the biggest beneficiaries are millionaires and big corporations. And when this bill is fully phased in, the small tax cuts for families expire while the big tax cuts for corporations are forever. In fact, ten years from now American families who make less than $75,000 will be paying higher taxes, on average, in order to pay for a permanent tax cut for multinational corporations—including a huge tax cut for foreign stockholders.It’s shameful that the greatest deliberative body in the world just prioritized a windfall giveaway to multinational corporations and billionaires while real priorities like CHIP, community health centers, disaster relief, the Dream Act, TPS, pension security, and funding our government remain unresolved.
Posted by Chris Van Hollen on Tuesday, December 19, 2017
I’m angry. I just got back from witnessing one of the biggest legislative heists in American history. For days, Republicans were huddled behind closed doors, surrounded by lobbyists for the rich and powerful. And now, under the cover of darkness, Senate Republicans voted to ram this tax scam through the Senate. Do you know why they don’t want to wait to read the bill? Because the more the public sees their plan, the more they hate it. The faster they rush it, the easier it is for them to score a political win with their donors—which a Republican Congressman conceded was the goal of their bill.
And despite what Republicans have promised, this legislation will not spur economic growth—it will cause our national debt to explode and slow economic growth as time goes on. The claim that workers will get a $4,000 pay raise will soon be shown for the farce that it is. Meanwhile, millions of middle-class families will pay more. And for those middle-class families who do get tax cuts, they will be puny compared to the $70,000 a year average tax cut for millionaires. Moreover, the tax cuts for families will be temporary while the giant tax cuts for corporations are forever. Don’t just take it from me, the facts have been clearly laid out by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation: This bill increases the debt by more than $1 trillion and the biggest beneficiaries are millionaires and big corporations. And when this bill is fully phased in, the small tax cuts for families expire while the big tax cuts for corporations are forever. In fact, ten years from now American families who make less than $75,000 will be paying higher taxes, on average, in order to pay for a permanent tax cut for multinational corporations—including a huge tax cut for foreign stockholders.
It’s shameful that the greatest deliberative body in the world just prioritized a windfall giveaway to multinational corporations and billionaires while real priorities like CHIP, community health centers, disaster relief, the Dream Act, TPS, pension security, and funding our government remain unresolved.