October Educate Congress
On Thursday, Oct. 5, the House of Representatives passed the FY2018 Budget Resolution. This budget will fast-track trillions of dollars in tax cuts that will overwhelmingly go to the wealthy and corporations. The budget pays for these tax cuts by cutting $5.7 trillion over ten years from essential services - everything from Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP/food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for poor elderly and people with disabilities, tax credits for low-income workers, K-12 and college education assistance, housing aid, public health services, medical research, environmental and consumer protections, and most other domestic programs. From babies to elders, and everyone in the middle who isn't rich - we all will feel the brunt of these cuts.
Not one penny for billionaires and corporations. Every dollar in new tax breaks for the rich is a dollar cut from education, health care or retirement security. We need to invest in our workers and the people who have built and will build our country. With the nation facing a looming retirement income crisis, expanding Social Security will help ensure that every American can retire with security and dignity. Right now, Social Security benefits average just around $16,080 a year for retired workers.
Where is the investment in our 21st century infrastructure, investment in renewable energy transitioning us away from fossil fuels, education, healthcare for everyone? According to the House budget, Republicans plan to give it to the rich in the form of tax cuts while making it easier for big corporations to send American jobs overseas. We have said it in town halls, in your phone that is ringing off the hook and in the thousands of emails that have come into your inbox, “Not one penny for millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations at the expense of healthcare, education, social safety net programs and the climate!”
The budget is being used as a vehicle for reconciliation rules to not only provide tax breaks for the rich but also to create reconciliation rules so that the Senate can give our tax dollars to the rich with only 50 votes.
Bruce Bartlett was a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and helped create the GOP tax myth. Even Bruce Bartlett says Trump is wrong: Tax cuts don’t equal growth. “The best growth in recent memory came after President Bill Clinton raised taxes in the ’90s. There’s no evidence that a tax cut now would spur growth.
Rushing through a half-baked tax plan, in the same manner Republicans tried (and failed) to do with health-care reform, should be rejected out of hand. As Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has repeatedly and correctly said, successful legislating requires a return to the “regular order.” That means a detailed proposal with proper revenue estimates and distribution tables from the Joint Committee on Taxation, hearings and analysis by the nation’s best tax experts, markups and amendments in the tax-writing committees, and an open process in the House of Representatives and Senate.”
The last thing America needs is for the tax code to be even more rigged in favor of billionaires and corporate insiders. Instead we need a budget and a tax plan that makes the economy work better for working families.