“Hypocrisy rules in Washington.”
So said Frank Clemente, executive director for Americans for Tax Fairness, in the wake of the release by the Republican conference committee of the party’s final tax plan on Friday and news that both Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Mark Rubio (R-Fl.) had ended their so-called “principled” opposition to the bill and would vote ‘Yes.’
“The myth of the deficit hawk is now dead. Next year when Republicans propose deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid under the guise of deficit reduction, we will all remember that they increased the deficit by $1.5 trillion in order to give tax cuts to millionaires and big corporations. If this bill becomes law, it will be a travesty for working families, and a slap in the face to principles.”
Click Here: All Blacks Rugby Jersey—Frank Clemente, Americans for Tax FairnessAmong other details, the final bill will drop the nation’s corporate rate a full 14 percentage points, from it’s current 35% down to 21%, while also giving the nation’s richest a massive and permanent Christmas present by cutting the individual income rate from 39.6% down to 37%—a bigger giveaway, in fact, than earlier versions.
The final bill will also abolish individual mandate provision from the Affordable Care Act, which as New York Magazine‘s Eric Levitz notes, “will decrease participation in Obamacare — and thus, decrease the amount the government spends on health insurance subsidies by roughly $300 billion over the next decade. Republicans need that money to pass giant tax cuts for the rich without violating their budget resolution (which forbids them from adding more than $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years).”
Corker—the only GOP senator to vote against the Senate versions repeatedly said he would not support a bill if it would blow a gaping hole in the national deficit—as every credible analysis performed on the various versions showed.
But in the end, paving the way for a vote on the package early next week, he dropped his previous with little explanation.
“With Bob Corker’s reversal,” said Clemente, “the myth of the deficit hawk is now dead. Next year when Republicans propose deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid under the guise of deficit reduction, we will all remember that they increased the deficit by $1.5 trillion in order to give tax cuts to millionaires and big corporations. If this bill becomes law, it will be a travesty for working families, and a slap in the face to principles.”
On a conference call with Republican Party members on Friday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan indicated the votes are now there to pass the conference bill in both chambers. “This is happening,” Ryan said. “Tax reform under Republican control of Washington is happening. Most critics out there didn’t think it could happen…. Now we’re on the doorstep of something truly historic.”
But what Ryan describes as “historic,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called “a moral and economic obscenity.” The final plan, Sanders said late Friday night, “is a gift to wealthy Republican campaign contributors and an insult to the working families of our country. No member of Congress should vote for this disastrous legislation.”
In an interview with the Guardian published Saturday, Sanders explained that “what this is all about is nothing more than the Republican party very generously rewarding their wealthy campaign contributors.”
Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said, “This is not governing, it’s hijacking our tax code.” What is also clear now, he added, is that corporations and the rich will be served mightily if the final bill passes, but working people: “not so much.”
When the story is told about “the tax catastrophe of 2017” in the future, Essig said, “it will be the middle-class families with children who now pay higher taxes so that wealthy business owners can pay less. It will be the working people who pay more so that corporate shareholders, including foreign investors, can benefit from corporate tax cuts.”
Though Corker was only the last Republican to cave when it came to “standing on principles” about the deficit, his support for the bill opened the floodgates for critics pointing out the obvious and far-reaching hypocrisy of the entire GOP project when it comes to government and the economy.
“This tax bill is a moral and economic obscenity. It is a gift to wealthy Republican campaign contributors and an insult to the working families of our country. No member of Congress should vote for this disastrous legislation.”
—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
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