Republican Tax Plan a Con Game Against Working People

AFL-CIO ^ | September 28, 2017 | AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

[mdittmar]

Yesterday, President Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress released their new tax plan. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka responded to the proposal:

The tax plan Republicans put out [yesterday] is nothing but a con game, and working people are the ones they’re trying to con. Here we go again. First comes the promise that tax giveaways for the wealthy and big corporations will trickle down to the rest of us. Then comes the promise that tax cuts will pay for themselves. Then comes the promise that they want to stop offshoring. And finally, we find out none of these things is true, and the people responsible for wasting trillions of dollars on tax giveaways to the rich tell us we have no choice but to cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, education and infrastructure. There always seems to be plenty of money for millionaires and big corporations but never enough money to do anything for working people.

Here are some of the terrible proposals included in yesterday’s plan:

• Allowing multinational corporations to pay little to nothing on their offshore profits, which would be a giant tax break for sending jobs overseas and a giant loophole for corporations to avoid paying taxes.
• Eliminating the estate tax, which would benefit only the wealthiest 0.2% of estates, those worth more than $5.5 million.
• Eliminating the alternative minimum tax, which helps keep the wealthy from exploiting loopholes to avoid paying taxes.
• Reducing the top individual tax rate from 39.6% to 35%, which would mainly benefit the rich.
• Reducing the top individual tax rate for business owners from 39.6% to 25%, which would mainly benefit Wall Street hedge fund managers, real estate developers and law firms.
• Reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, which would overwhelmingly benefit the rich.
• Increasing the bottom tax bracket from 10% to 12%.
• Eliminating the tax deduction for state and local taxes, which would punish states that make the kind of investments that boost economic growth for the whole country.

We already know that Trump and Republican leaders in Congress want working people to pay the price for these tax giveaways to big corporations and the wealthy. We know this because the budgets they have proposed for the coming year include trillions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, education, infrastructure and other programs benefiting working people.

This is what a tax plan that actually works for working people looks like. It has three overarching principles. First, Wall Street, big corporations and the wealthy must pay their fair share of taxes. Second, tax reform must raise enough additional revenue now and in the future to create good jobs and make the public investment we need in infrastructure, education, and meeting the needs of children, families, seniors and our communities. Third, tax reform must eliminate all tax incentives for corporations to shift jobs and profits offshore.

Unfortunately, the tax plan unveiled yesterday goes in the exact opposite direction. It does not even qualify as "tax reform." It’s just tax cuts for rich people.

[Gay State Conservative]

Rumor has it that Bill Ayers is displeased as well.

[Rusty0604]

“Working people” is union speak for union members. If someone owns a business or works for a nisi less that is not unionized, they are not working people.

[Zhang Fei]

Given that corporate taxes are coming down, and the top tax bracket is coming down, deficits will skyrocket unless someone pays. Our problem is too much spending. Unless we cut spending, deficits will go through the roof. Since the odds of spending being cut are slim and none, the chances are good that lower and middle income taxpayers will be stuck with the bill. And if that happens, November 2018 will be a bloodbath for the GOP if this tax reform is retroactive to 2017. The preliminary proposals are in and not looking good for households making less than $100K per year (bottom 74%).

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

The wealthy ARE working people.

How does Trumka think they became wealthy?
By putting in long hours and working hard.

[Zhang Fei]

Because of the way the tax bill tries to limit deficits while initiating massive rate cuts, lower income households will end up with higher taxes. Politicians, including Republican ones, have finely-honed survival instincts. This tax reform bill is probably DOA. A straightforward Obamacare repeal would have funded the tax cuts. Without the repeal, the bottom 3/4 will have to foot the bill to avoid hundreds of billions of dollars in additional deficits per year, on top of the $1T we are stacking up today.

[philman_36]

Republican Tax Plan a Con Game Against Working People

Translation...the union isn't going to get any more money to support Democrats so it's a bad plan.

[Uncle Miltie]

I just got a 4x5 camera with a normal-ish 215mm and wide 90mm lens. I’m going to load up some sheet film and have fun.

Eventually, civilization will collapse around our ears. I have enough ammo to last a couple of days. Gonna be nasty the day lenders refuse to buy any more U.S. Govt. Bonds.

[GreyFriar]

Of course Commie Trumka doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like capitalism and will only be happy when we become the United Soviet Socialist States of America. The old anti-communist AFL-CIO leaders have probably been proverbially spinning in their graves since he was elected.

[wally_bert]

I always preferred the Camino over the Ranchero.

[I am Richard Brandon]

"Reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, which would overwhelmingly benefit the rich."

So overwhelmingly true. Not one centsworth of stocks is held by pension plans of unions and private people. /sarc

[hardspunned]

I’ve been paying union dues for 30 years and have been screwed on every issue the union takes a stance on. Is anyone surprised that this would be comrade trumpka’s response? Of course the union’s couldn’t have been more surprised last November 8. I think this tax plan will bring even more rank and file off the big labor reservation.

[amnestynone]

“Given that corporate taxes are coming down, and the top tax bracket is coming down, deficits will skyrocket unless someone pays. Our problem is too much spending. Unless we cut spending, deficits will go through the roof. Since the odds of spending being cut are slim and none, the chances are good that lower and middle income taxpayers will be stuck with the bill. And if that happens, November 2018 will be a bloodbath for the GOP if this tax reform is retroactive to 2017. The preliminary proposals are in and not looking good for households making less than $100K per year (bottom 74%).”

You got it! If you lower the taxes on the people who are running the country they will spend. Frankly, I would of supported anything that would lower the taxes on the rich before, but,now I believe that the only way to make conservatives out of the same is when they have a lot of taxes to pay. We give lower taxes to the same people who are destroying our borders, running up deficits, won't stand for the national anthem along with their owners who let it go, who own the liberal press. I know they are the"job creators", well that was valid until they started sending jobs abroad and bringing their cheap labor coolies.No I am done helping these free loaders lower their taxes.Let them pay them.

[mdittmar]

The later model Ranchero hood just didn’t look right to me,looked like an LTD with a truck bed.

[Wuli]

Yes, AFL-CIO we know your real complaint. You favor the blue states with their high taxes and their absence of right to work laws, and the tax changes won’t be felt as hard in the lower taxed states, many of which have right to work laws.