Although there still are many variations of the Republican tax plans in the House and Senate that eventually will need to be worked out, they all share a common theme: Raise taxes for the middle class and cut taxes for the very wealthiest.
If ever there was a tax plan that could be devised to destroy the nation’s economy, this is it. By taking money out of the pockets of millions of hard-working American consumers and handing it over to the top 0.1 percent, the Republicans are all but ensuring that there will be a recession within a very short time.
To be sure, stock prices initially will rise (thanks also to the proposed cut in the corporate tax rate, which only will serve to increase dividends, which are earned almost exclusively by that same 0.1 percent). But as soon as consumer spending starts to decline, the stock market also will tank (as will the housing market and just about everything else in America), inasmuch as 70 percent of our economy is derived from consumer spending.
In addition, the GOP/Trump tax plan will blow a hole in the deficit of at least $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years — and if there is a recession, the deficit (and the national debt) will grow even larger than that.
The GOP/Trump tax plan also seeks to reduce the government subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, as well as eliminating the mandate that all Americans obtain insurance. Since the health care sector constitutes 1/6 of our nation’s economy, cutbacks in that sector will result in layoffs and other cost reductions that directly will impact the economy in a big way.
In the long run, as the budget deficits pile up higher and higher within the next decade, GOP/Trump strategists have declared that they will seek to cut back on Medicare, Medicaid, and other parts of the so-called social safety net, further eroding the living conditions of all but the top one percent of Americans.
In short, the Republican/Trump tax plan is nothing more than a reverse Robin Hood: Give to the very wealthy and take from everybody else. If it was not clear before, it certainly is now, that the wealthiest Americans are pulling the strings on their GOP minions in Congress.
The words of the Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis from the 1930s have never been more prophetic: “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.â€
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This editorial can't be serious. First, ObamaCare is a disaster and will collapse under the weight of it's own failure. This is a fact and everyone except the most hardened Marxist liberals know it. Second, The standard deduction will rise significantly for people that make under $300k. Which is most of us!!! The Middle Class will be getting a much larger percentage of THEIR money back from our wasteful government!! Are there cuts for the rich? Of course there are! They pay the most in taxes so naturally they will get more of THEIR money back as well. This is Common Sense. Math isn't hard!!