Republicans Score A Victory For The Rich In The Class War

Friday night, the Republicans passed their onerous tax plan. Fifty-one of the fifty-two Republicans (with Corker as the exception) in the Senate voted for the plan. All Democrats and both Independents voted against the plan. While the plan is very similar to the one passed by Republicans in the House, there are differences that will have to be worked out. It looks like that will happen though.

The Republicans are celebrating. They are still telling voters that the plan is for the benefit of the middle class. That is laughable. The few tiny tax cuts given to the middle class will disappear by 2027, and then everyone making less than $75,000 a year will actually owe more in taxes than they currently do.

But its different for the rich. They will continue to enjoy the tax cut benefits after 2017, and so will the corporations -- because their tax cut benefits are permanent.

This is NOT a middle class tax cut. It is really a massive redistribution of income/wealth from the bottom 80%-90% of Americans to the richest 1%. We already have the biggest gap in wealth and income between the rich and the rest of us that has existed since the 1920's. This tax plan will grow that gap much larger.

And that's just the first of the bad news for most Americans. This massive tax cut for the rich and the corporations will blow a huge hole in the budget (leading to more than a trillion dollar increase in the national debt). That will give the Republicans the excuse to attack the government programs that help most Americans -- including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (programs the Republicans have always hated but couldn't eliminate because of their popularity).

This tax plan is terrible economic policy, and it will hurt the country and most of the people in it. We must vote the Republicans out of power in 2018 -- before the worst of this program can kick in. That's the only way to return economic sanity, give a tax cut to those who need it (the working and middle classes), raise taxes on the rich and corporations, and protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

The charts below are from PBS, and illustrate the winners and losers of the terrible GOP tax plan.