Skip to main content

GOP tax bill is the biggest tax cut for the wealthy ever done through tax legislation in any country at any time in history

The Republicans are gathering on Capitol Hill to celebrate their great victory of robbing the middle class to enrich the ultra-wealthy through a legislation that will also screw up healthcare for tens of millions of Americans


Aaron Maté of the Real News spoke with Bill Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, about the biggest robbery against the US middle class in history, made by the Republicans and the Trump administration, to satisfy the plutocrats.

The GOP tax bill is propagated through the common, now obsolete, but biggest fairy tale that the neoliberal regime has sold to the working class: Trickle-down economics.

Key points by Black:

It is the biggest [tax cut for the wealthy] ever done through tax legislation in any country at any time in history. And it comes at a time when the United States already has record income inequality, record profits for corporations and record wealth for the top 1,000 of 100% in the world. The bill is absolutely indefensible on any of the grounds claimed and therefore, essentially all of the major claims for it have been outright lies. Of which we should highlight, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, one of the asserted adults, by the way, who is supposed to protect us from President Trump under some fairy tales.

Mnuchin said that there were good studies, study after study, that showed this bill was actually going to make money. By reducing taxes, we would actually increase tax revenue because we would spur economic growth. And then he doubled down on it and said that there were over 100 people at treasury working on those analyses. Well, of course, that was a complete lie. There was no one working on the analyses. There are no analyses that could attempt to show that.

US companies have trillions of dollars and they don't want it to be officially located in the United States because then they'd have to pay taxes on it so they keep it offshore. Now, the Republican logic of all of this is we'll have a really low rate to bring them tax money back in. We'll have more tax money and there'll be much more investment. The last part doesn't work at all and it doesn't because the money isn't actually sitting in the Cayman Islands because what would the Cayman Islands do with it? It wouldn't pay you interest and such. It's actually brought into places like New York banking system, in truth.

So, it's not going to spur the economy but what it does mean is those companies that did those special scam deals with places like the offshore islands and Ireland, they are going to get a super low tax for bringing the money back, having scammed it first. So, scamming wins. You don't even get the reduced tax rate under the statute that you were talking about. You get an extra special low tax rate to reward for being the kind of folks who spend all your money avoiding taxes.

The Republicans have also allowed to expire one of the programs that you would've thought would be absolutely, no one would go after. This is the Child Health Insurance Program, CHIP, which covers eight million American poor kids and they've allowed this to lapse. And what the Republicans are signaling is that they're going to use the excuse that there's no more money because of their tax cuts to have full Medicare and Medicaid and such. And that therefore, because of their giveaways to the wealthy, they have to slash healthcare protections for the poor, including the poorest kids.

The tax cuts for the wealthy are permanent. The tax cuts for the middle class are temporary and they're front loaded so that it looks like you're getting a reduction in your taxes if you're middle class. Most middle class folks in the early years will have small reductions. But that will reverse and most middle class folks will actually end up with higher taxes under this bill. So, it's a redistribution bill that takes mostly from the middle class, certainly from the working class as well and redistributes to the absolute wealthiest Americans.

The last poll I've shown showed that only 8% of Americans believed the Republicans that this was a tax bill primarily for the middle class. In other words, the Republicans have taken something, a massive tax cut, which intrinsically should be immensely popular with the population, and turned it into something that in the polls is one of the least popular things the Republicans are doing. And the Republicans, as we speak, are gathering on Capitol Hill to celebrate their great victory of robbing the middle class to enrich the ultra-wealthy through a legislation that will also screw up healthcare for tens of millions of Americans. And they think that is the best thing they've done during Trump's entire term.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Oct. 7 Reports Implode: Beheaded Babies, NY Times Scandal, & More

Glenn Greenwald    

Πώς ο Γκρίνμπεργκ μπορεί να θάψει το καθεστώς Μητσοτάκη

του system failure    Είναι ξεκάθαρο ότι η αναμφίβολη πρωτοκαθεδρία του καθεστώτος Μητσοτάκη οφείλεται σχεδόν αποκλειστικά σε μια άκρως επιθετική επικοινωνιακή εκστρατεία που είχε καταφέρει μέχρι στιγμής να κρύβει κάτω από το χαλί (τουλάχιστον ως ένα βαθμό) τον αυταρχισμό και τη διαφθορά του καθεστώτος, καθώς και τις καταστροφικές πολιτικές που εφαρμόζει.  Και δεν είναι πλέον μυστικό, ότι ο άνθρωπος-κλειδί πίσω από αυτή την εκστρατεία είναι ο Αμερικανός δημοσιοσχετίστας, Σταν Γκρίνμπεργκ .    Όμως καθώς το καθεστώς επαναπαύθηκε στις δάφνες της νίκης των τελευταίων βουλευτικών εκλογών, τα μεγάλα προβλήματα συνέχισαν να συσσωρεύονται και φάνηκε ότι το καθεστώς είτε δεν ήθελε, είτε δεν μπόρεσε να τα αντιμετωπίσει. Έτσι, είδαμε σε σύντομο χρονικό διάστημα να έρχονται τα πρώτα σημαντικά πλήγματα στην πρωτοκαθεδρία του, μέσα από τα αποτελέσματα των δημοτικών και περιφερειακών εκλογών. Παρόλα αυτά, η αλαζονεία των καθεστωτικών στελεχών παρέμεινε αμετάβλητη, καθώς θεώρησαν ότι η τραγωδία των Τ

Israel’s Descent Into Madness & the Holocaust Comparison

BreakThrough News   Rania Khalek was joined by Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany and associate professor at Koc University in Istanbul, to discuss Israel’s descent into genocidal fascism. Prof. Amar addresses whether it’s useful to make Holocaust and Nazi comparisons and the real reason behind the West’s unshakeable loyalty attitude when it comes to Israel’s barbarism.   

Zionist and US imperialist criminals are about to grab the natural gas off shore Gaza

globinfo freexchange   As the genocide against Palestinians of Gaza is about to be completed with an act of unprecedented brutality by the Zionists and butcher Netanyahu through the bombardment of about 1.4 million civilians in Rafah, it seems that they have already set their next primary goal. Which, in short, is to grab the natural gas resources off shore Gaza, together with their US imperialist buddies whose contribution to the genocide has been undoubtedly critical.     As already reported , in 2007, Hamas came to power and Israel launched an offensive on Gaza Strip, leaving behind 1,400 dead Palestinians, but taking with it the gas fields. Within a year, Israel announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field, which did include Gaza's riches, valued at 453 billion dollars. But Gazans have been denied around 47 billion dollars in revenue. As for Tel Aviv, it's gunning to become a new hub. At that moment in time, that is 2022, Russian oil and gas were sanctioned.

Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland Ends Her Reign: Exposing a Catastrophic Career

Glenn Greenwald    

The Shadowy, Intelligence-Linked Group Driving the US Towards War With Iran

"United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship."   by Alan Macleod   Part 7 - A Lesson From History   The history of Iran has been intimately intertwined with the United States since at least 1953 when Washington orchestrated a successful coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had refused U.S. demands to stamp out Communist influences in his country and had nationalized the nation’s oil. The U.S. installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a puppet ruler. An unpopular and authoritarian ruler, the Shah was overthrown in the Revolution of 1979. Since then, it has become a target for regime change, and its nuclear program is something of an obsession in the West. Often orchestrated by UANI officials while they were in government, the U.S. has carried

Το σκάσιμο της φούσκας Μητσοτάκη με νέα επίσημη χρεοκοπία και οριστικό τέλος της μεταπολίτευσης

του system failure   Τα αποτελέσματα των εκλογών της 25ης Ιουνίου ήταν λίγο-πολύ αναμενόμενα όσον αφορά τις πρώτες θέσεις με βάση και τα αποτελέσματα της πρώτης κάλπης του Μαίου. Αν συμπεριλάβουμε και το ποσοστό της αναμενόμενης αποχής, δεν μας έδωσαν κάποια ιδιαίτερη έκπληξη. Αυτό όμως που φαίνεται να αιφνιδίασε ακόμα και το συστημικό κατεστημένο, είναι η είσοδος των δύο υπερσυντηρητικών, ακροδεξιών κομμάτων Νίκη και Σπαρτιάτες, με το τελευταίο να έχει ξεκάθαρες διασυνδέσεις με τον πρώην Χρυσαυγίτη, Ηλία Κασιδιάρη. Παρά τη μεγάλη νίκη Μητσοτάκη, οι μιντιακοί ινστρούχτορες της καθεστωτικής προπαγάνδας εμφανίστηκαν σε γενικές γραμμές "μουδιασμένοι" και αυτό οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι το συστημικό κατεστημένο (δηλαδή τα μεγάλα οικονομικά συμφέροντα που ελέγχουν και το σύνολο των μεγάλων ΜΜΕ πανελλαδικής εμβέλειας), πέτυχε μόνο έναν από τους τέσσερις μεγάλους στόχους που είχε θέσει εξ'αρχής. Μιλώντας με ποδοσφαιρικούς όρους, ουσιαστικά έχασε με σκορ 3-1.   Ο μεγάλος στόχος πο

Study Finds Media Giants New York Times, CNN, and Fox News Pushing for US War in Yemen

by Alan Macleod  Part 2 - Biased Reporting MintPress conducted a study of four leading American outlets: The New York Times , CNN, Fox News and NBC News. Together, these outlets often set the agenda for the rest of the media system and could be said to be a reasonable representation of the corporate media spectrum as a whole. Using the search term “Yemen” in the Dow Jones Factiva global news database, the fifteen most recent relevant articles from each outlet were read and studied, giving a total sample of 60 articles. All articles were published in January 2024 or December 2023. The study found the media wildly distorted reality, presenting a skewed picture that aided U.S. imperial ambitions. For one, every article in the study (60 out of 60) used the word “Houthis” rather than “Ansar Allah” to describe the movement which took part in the Yemeni Revolution of 2011 and rose up against the government in 2014, taking control of the capital Sanaa, becoming the new de facto government. Ma

The truth about Alexei Navalny

Glenn Greenwald / Dangerous Ideas with Lee Camp / The Hill /  

Israel Carries Out Most Sadistic Massacre, Opens Fire On Gaza Aid Convoy

Richard Medhurst