GOP Tax Bills: Lumps of coal in our Christmas Stockings

By Dorothy Iman- Johnson
Special to the Outlook

Sen. Mitch McConnell was finally able to twist enough arms or bribe enough Republican senators to pass the GOP Senate Tax Cut Bill on a 51-49 vote, with Republican Senator Corker joining the 48 Democrats to vote no. The document was 500 pages, with last minute revisions hand written in the margins of several pages in order to win the support of uncommitted Republican Senators. It is rumored that about 600 big corporation lobbyists assisted in writing the bill that will give their bosses billions in tax relief by cutting their tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, eliminating the estate tax on money left to their heirs, leaving tax loopholes unchanged (that even now allow the wealthiest Americans to pay no taxes), and makes the cuts permanent for this small group. For Americans earning less than $75,000, they used smoke and mirrors to give from one hand while snatching any tax relief back with the other hand. They will double the individual deduction, taking it from $6,000 to $12,000; but will eliminate most of the other deductions middle income earners claim on their taxes. College grants will be taxed as income, and the tax cuts for the poor and middle income Americans will not be permanent. After 2019, any benefits gained by average wage earners will start to gradually disappear; and by 2027, most will be paying much more in taxes. In addition, the tax cut bill used a back door route to eliminate the mandate in the Affordable Care Act that will cause 13 million Americans to lose their healthcare, and make the cost for premiums increase for the rest of us. What a sham!

 
Adding insult to injury, McConnell made sure the lobbyists had copies to verify their language made it into the bill; but Democrats received the 500 page document with the handwritten changes just before the Bill was brought to the floor for a vote. Therefore, it is doubtful that anyone understood what was in the bill the Republicans rushed through to a vote, except the lobbyists who wrote it. At no other time in history has a Congressional body behaved as irresponsibly. They were elected to serve the public interest of the constituents that sent them to Washington, and not 1 percent of the country’s wealthiest Americans who are fully capable of hiring enough attorneys and the 600 lobbyists to ensure the rich continue to get richer on the backs of the poor; only faster.

 
It is hard to understand how the Republicans who voted for these bills can sleep at night. Even with no changes to the tax codes, Americans living on limited Social Security benefits or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for the low-income elderly and disabled are likely paying more taxes on their incomes than most wealthy Americans after they take advantage of all the tax loopholes that already exist. Likewise, these greedy, rich Americans content to take from the poor to expand their wealth must be the people referred to in the Bible verse, Matthew 19:24 (CSB), “ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God”.

 
While Trump makes public pronouncements that he will lose money and be hurt by these tax cut bills, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and most of the best known economists predict that Trump and his family will reap a billion dollar benefit from the permanent corporate and individual tax cuts, the elimination of the estate taxes, and the loopholes that will remain unchanged; while the tax landscape changes completely for low and moderate income earners, mostly for the worst. It is no wonder that the president has refused to release his last ten years of tax returns. But, then, telling the truth was never one of the president’s strong suits.

 
Now that both the GOP controlled U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have passed two different tax cut bills, they will be required to merge the bills into one that can pass muster in both bodies in a joint conference committee before it can make it to President Trump’s desk

to sign into law. So there is still the chance that they will not be successful; since both houses passed their bills by slim margins.
Though they call these tax bills “Christmas gifts” for all Americans; in truth, the GOP will be filling our Christmas stockings with lumps of coal if the bill is signed into law. And, if so, a better description for the Republicans would be “Scrooge” or the “Grinch who stole Christmas”.

 
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