Commentary: Republicans are once again working behind closed doors to negotiate a tax bill they know is bad, and that benefits big corporations and the top 1% at the expense of middle-class families.
Republicans are once again working behind closed doors to negotiate a secret tax bill.
Talking Point Memo’s Alice Ollstein: “Tonight the House is voting to go to conference with the Senate on the tax bill. Negotiations on the differences between the House & Senate bills have already begun behind closed doors. The aim is to finish before the holiday break but it could spill over into next year.”
USA Today: “But don’t hit play on the Schoolhouse Rock video just yet. While Republicans say they’re committed to taking the tax bill through all the normal legislative steps, this won’t be a typical conference committee that involves open, deliberative compromise between both parties.”
Republicans know how bad their tax bill is, and are working to discredit credible analyses pointing that out.
New York Times: “A Republican requirement that Congress consider the full cost of major legislation threatened to derail the party’s $1.5 trillion tax rewrite last week. So lawmakers went on the offensive to discredit the agency performing the analysis.”
Los Angeles Times: “The Treasury Department’s inspector general has launched an inquiry into whether the department hid an analysis of the Republican tax bill — or even did one at all. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin has said economic growth stimulated by the bill’s large tax cuts would offset lost revenue and indicated his department would produce an analysis proving it.”
The Republican tax plan favors their donors and wealthy corporations.
GOP Rep. Mark Sanford: “THIS - REP. SANFORD to a few of us: Fundamentally this is a corporate tax cut bill, we should have been intellectually honest about that.”
Fortune: “When Senate Republicans passed their tax reform package early Saturday morning, after hours of debate, some major donors — some of whose contributions were hinging on this passage — may have been just as happy as the lawmakers.”
Wall Street Journal: “High-Income Households Would Get Biggest Boost From Senate Tax Bill, Analysis Says”
The Republican tax does very little for the middle class and would not be good for American workers.
Washington Post Wonkblog: “That said, it is hard to find a tax plan that has done less for the middle class.”
CNBC: “The GOP's tax bill is excellent for the stock market, but perhaps not as good for U.S. workers, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday.”
In the end, their tax bill will mean more broken promises from Trump and Republicans.
CNBC: “And he forgot them on taxes. Discarding his vow to reshape taxation for average families at the expense of rich people like himself, he's working with Republican leaders to hand the biggest benefits to corporations and the wealthy.”
Washington Post’s Helaine Olen: “At the core of the GOP tax plan: A huge broken promise by Trump”
Los Angeles Times’s Doyle McManus: “GOP tax promises, broken”
Daily Beast: “House conservatives are already indicating that they're prepared to block some of the key legislative promises that Senate Republicans demanded in exchange for their votes on tax reform legislation.”