Ramming bills through Congress along strict party lines hasn’t proven to be good policy. The ACA or Obamacare at least invited Republicans to contribute, but Republicans had already decided that they were going to oppose anything Obama wanted to do despite the fact that the ACA was originally a Republican idea. That leads us to the Republican failure to repeal and replace the ACA. Is it any wonder that they had no better ideas after 8 years, especially since the ACA was their idea? That brings us to their obsessive need to pass something big. I wish they had tackled infrastructure and not taxes.I thought we learned the lesson from the Reagan era that trickle down economics doesn’t actually work. When you give the wealthy and big business huge tax cuts, they simply keep it and further enrich themselves. Very little actually trickles down. That was a painful lesson. Remember the high interest rates and the recession of the 80s? Reagan had to raise taxes.
But here we go again. In this tax bill, Corporations and the very wealthy will get the biggest tax cuts and they will be permanent. The middle and lower middle class will get a temporary small tax cut that is supposed to make this more palatable. Merry Christmas! People like me will actually see my taxes go up a bit, especially if you live in states with high state taxes like California and New York. Is it coincidental that coastal blue states that already pay more to the federal government than they get back in benefits will have to pay even more? Much poorer red states already benefit from our tax dollars and now we will subsidize them to an even greater extent.
The real losers are our children. They be accountable for the additional trillion dollars in national debt this will cause. To explain this, every economist acknowledges that the 1.4 trillion dollars this tax cut will loose in revenue will only be offset by .4 trillion at best by the boost to the economy from the tax cuts. And there is no guarantee that corporations will in fact bring jobs back or raise wages. Some have already stated that they have no intention of doing these things.
The other losers will be the American people. The next thing on the Republican agenda will be to reduce spending because we are in so much debt. In jeopardy will be Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants, Trio Programs, and any programs that help the poor. We’ll have to wave good-bye to improved infrastructure, education, scientific, social, and medical research.
The time to stop this madness is now. Call or email your senators and congressmen, especially if your legislators are Republican. Call or email the President and remind him that this is not the tax bill he promised because he and the very wealthy benefit the most. And make sure to vote in 2018 to retake the House and Senate.
Taxes pay for the collective good and if we collect too little in taxes, there is no collective and we are all left to fin for ourselves. If the Republicans have their way, we’ll have to find a horse and buggy to take us to work on gravel roads.
A governing body getting theirs BECAUSE they can. Insurance (CHIP) for 900 million children – has ended. How many children will die so rich people can hand more money to easily bought elected officials? Infrastructure? How many corporate trucks will hurricane damaged roads in TX & FL claim? It will take an endless supply of healthy, cooperative 99% class people to support 1% rich & corporate Americans. When the GOP realize these tax cuts are doomed to epic fail, it will be too late.