From Moms Rising (https://www.momsrising.org/):
What are some things the moms of America need?
- Paid family and medical leave
- Quality, affordable childcare and healthcare
- Good schools and parks for our kids
Here is one thing the moms of America definitely DON’T need: Another tax scam that benefits the 1% and Wall Street and reduces federal revenues so our federal government can’t afford to pay for the things we really need.
Go to https://action.momsrising.org/sign/6MonthsofTaxScam to sign our letter now telling the U.S. Congress stop proposing harmful tax cuts that mostly benefit billionaires and mega-corporations and instead give the moms America tax policies that boost working families!
Here’s what’s going on: Despite the fact that the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in December and only supported by Republicans, is wildly unpopular, the U.S. House of Representatives’ GOP leadership and President Trump are trying to pass a second tax plan before the election—or what we like to refer to as Tax Scam 2.0. [1,2] The House GOP leadership, led by Representative Kevin Brady, claim that their newest tax plan is going to fix glitches that were in the first bill, but in reality it tilts the majority of the benefits to the 1% by making the 2017 individual tax provisions permanent. This would deliver far larger tax cuts to the top 1% than the bottom 60%. In addition, it makes permanent pass-through provisions that benefit the exact types of businesses run by the Trump family, while at the same time further ballooning our national debt. [3] There is close to nothing in there for our working families. See why we call it a scam!?
Never one to shy away from doubling down on the awfulness, President Trump and his Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are “exploring” ways to bypass Congress and grant a $100 billion capital gains tax cut to the mega-wealthy—a move that is likely not even legal and would surely end up in the courts. [4] The Wharton School of Business (Trump’s own alma mater) found that Trump’s plan to index the capital gains would overwhelmingly benefit the richest of Americans. In fact, two-thirds of the benefits would go to the super, duper wealthy—the top 0.1%. [5]
We know that the first round of the GOP-Trump tax scam hurt our working families and our economy. Only 4% of workers so far are getting a bonus or wage hike due to the December tax cuts while Congress keeps trying to raid programs that lift working families like SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid to try to offset reduced federal revenues due to the first tax scam. [6] Corporations are giving huge windfalls to their CEOs and wealthy shareholders in the form of stock buybacks instead. Companies from Harley Davidson to Kimberly-Clark (the makers of Huggies and Kleenex) have been announcing major layoffs at the same time as spending millions of dollars in stock buybacks. [7,8] And who does the stock buybacks benefit? The wealthy of course— who have already seen a windfall in tax breaks from the Trump-GOP tax plan.
President Trump and his GOP cronies promised that the benefits of the tax plan would “trickle down” to working families, but as we have learned time and time again, trickle down economics does not work. In fact, it’s almost as if the opposite of what they have promised is happening. These broken promises matter because even prior to the Trump-GOP tax plan being passed, workers were experiencing a historically low share of corporate income. [9]
We don’t need a Tax Scam 2.0. Instead we need tax policies that create fairness, don’t add to our national debt, and put working families first, not Wall Street.
The time to speak out is NOW! House Republicans plan to spend their August recess trying to sell their unpopular plan to voters, in the meantime poll after poll show that it is unpopular. When they return in September, they plan to vote on the GOP-Trump Tax Scam 2.0. We want to have our letter waiting for them on their desks when they return to Washington, D.C. to let them know that moms, dads, and concerned people don’t like their tax plan, don’t want more cuts for the 1 percent, and won’t stand for these harmful and incredibly unfair policies any longer.
After you take action, please forward this email to your friends and family and post our action link to Facebook. The more of us that speak out, the louder our message will be when Congress returns to D.C. in September.
Thank you for continuing to speak out for our working families and the economy!
[1] Eric Levitz. “The Trump Tax Cuts Are Still Unpopular. That’s a Crisis for Conservatives.” New York, April 17, 2018. [2] Laura Davison. “GOP leadership releases new tax proposal that focuses on election , not fixing glitches in last year’s law.” Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2018. [3] Brendan Duke. “House Republicans’ New Tax Plan Doubles Down on 2017 Tax Law’s Flaws.” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, July 28, 2018. [4] Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley. “Trump Administration Mulls a Unilateral Tax Cut for the Rich.” New York Times, July 30, 2018. [5] John Ricco. “Indexing Capital Gains to Inflation.” Penn Wharton, March 23, 2018. [6] Americans for Tax Fairness. “Topline Corporate Data.” [7] Emily Stewart. “Harley-Davidson took its tax cut, closed a factory, and rewarded shareholders.” Vox, May 22, 2018. [8] Charlie May. “Kimberly-Clark celebrates the Trump tax cuts with massive layoffs, share buybacks.” Salon, January 24, 2018. [9] Tax Policy Center. “Distributional Analysis of the Conference Agreement for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.” December 18, 2017.
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