Tax Reform

Populist Plutocracy and the Future of America

December 17, 2017 Nouriel Roubini Educate! Donald Trump, Inequality, New Economy, Tax Reform

In the first year of his presidency, Donald Trump has consistently sold out the blue-collar, socially conservative whites who brought him to power, while pursuing policies to enrich his fellow plutocrats. Sooner or later, Trump's core supporters will wake up to this fact, so it is worth asking how far he might go to keep them on his side. The tax legislation that Republicans have rushed through Congress could prove especially dangerous, given that millions of middle-class and low-income households will not only get little out of it, but will actually pay more when income-tax cuts are phased out over time. Moreover, the Republican plan would repeal the Obamacare individual mandate. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, this will cause 13 million people to lose health insurance, and insurance premiums to rise by 10%, over the next decade. Not surprisingly, a recent Quinnipiac poll found that a mere 29% of Americans support the Republican plan.

Urgent Protests To Stop Tax Theft

December 17, 2017 #StopTheGOPTaxScam Coalition, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Donald Trump, Healthcare, Mitch McConnell, oligarchy, Paul Ryan, Tax Reform

Starting Monday, Dec 18, and continuing through Tuesday, Dec 19, doctors, nurses and medical students are joining with patients to STOP the VOTE on the GOP's tax cut that takes away health care from millions of Americans and raises insurance premiums on millions more. The action is organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, Housing Works, the Women's March, ACT UP, CPD's Ady Barkan and a national network of birddoggers who have been fighting all year to#protectpatients. They’re going to try to vote on this bill Monday or Tuesday. We are going to stop them. The tax bill will decimate health care. Congress has been ignoring renewing funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), community health centers, and safety net hospitals that serve large numbers of uninsured patients.

Indiana Grad Students Protesting Tax Bill

December 15, 2017 Sarah Jaffe, truth-out.org Resist! Protests, Student Activism, Tax Reform, Taxes

Today we bring you a conversation with Tracey Hutchings-Goetz, Edward Brudney, Justin Knight, Kathryn Lehman, Amanda Waterhouse and Liam Kingsley. They are Ph.D. candidates or graduate students at Indiana University, and all are involved in Campus Action for Democracy. They discuss their recent occupation of their congressman's office in opposition to the tax bill and how disconnected they felt from their representative, who was unwilling to engage these constituents. Sarah Jaffe: I am talking to all of you because you had an occupation of your congressman's office Monday. Tell us about that action and how that went.

Tax Bill: Stealing Money From College Education For Tax Cuts For Wealthy

December 14, 2017 Jeff Bryant, educationopportunitynetwork.org Educate! Higher Education, Tax cuts for the rich, Tax Reform, Taxes

New tax bills Congress just passed with zero input or support from Democrats hit higher education hard, but new legislation House Republicans are crafting will likely worsen the damage. As The Wall Street Journal reports [paywall], the House education committee recently gave a preview to its new legislation, a long overdue reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Like recent tax bills passed by the GOP-controlled House and Senate, this proposed rewrite of HEA will have the effect of further constricting learning opportunities for students, adding to the costs students and families take on for education, and steering more public money for learning to private businesses.

Tax Bill: More Secret Campaign Cash In Elections

December 14, 2017 Arn Pearson, exposedbycmd.org Educate! Electoral Politics, Tax Reform, Taxes

Last week Senate Republicans passed a tax bill that hands massive tax breaks to corporations and the rich at the expense of low-income and middle-class Americans. Written behind closed doors with the help of 6,000 lobbyists and rammed through before anyone could read it, the bill offers Christmas presents for special interests, like eliminating a tax that private jet owners have fought the federal government over and tax breaks hedge-fund managers living in the Virgin Islands. And it sets the stage for a sweeping attack on the New Deal and Great Society reforms of the past century that built America’s middle class. But as bad as that is, things could get even worse.

Widespread Protests To Tax Bill, Backlash Brewing

December 10, 2017 Sarah Anderson, inequality.org Resist! Finance and the Economy, Poor People's Campaign, Tax Reform

The tax reform moral abomination is already igniting a firestorm across the country. Over the past two weeks, protests have erupted at 50 universities and in least 100 cities, while nearly 50 people have been arrested on Capitol Hill. And whether or not President Trump achieves his goal of signing this tax deal into law by the end of the year, this fight is just beginning. On December 4, prominent faith leaders announced plans for one of the largest waves of civil disobedience in U.S. history. Dubbed the “Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival,” this effort will mark the 50th anniversary of a similar initiative in 1968 that was undercut by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Open Letter From William Barber To Mitch McConnell

December 10, 2017 Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, Medium.com Resist! Mitch McConnell, Tax cuts for the rich, Tax Reform, William Barber

We are writing to inform you that your faith is not in line with the Scriptures, nor with what your party’s first President called “the better angels of our nature.” This country’s most vulnerable will not remain silent as this immoral legislation moves through Congress. Tens of thousands of poor and disenfranchised people, clergy and moral leaders today announced that we are coming together to launch the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. We will combine direct action with grassroots organizing, voter registration, and power building in the largest wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in U.S. history. Fifty years to the day after Dr. Martin Luther King and others called for the original Poor People’s Campaign, this legislation you are championing makes clear that we need this work now more than ever.

Media Downplay Class Warfare As ‘GOP Victory’

December 8, 2017 Ben Norton, fair.org Educate! Class Struggle, Congress, Electoral Politics, Tax Reform, Taxes

By Ben Norton for FAIR - The fallacy of “neutral,” “both sides” journalism rings loud and clear in corporate media reporting on the Republican Party’s tax plan. The GOP bill, passed by the Senate in the early hours of December 2 and described by major media outlets as a “tax cut,” is in reality an explicit handout to large companies and the ultra-rich that will actually increase taxes on working-class Americans. But under the cover of a shallow understanding of “balance,” corporate media have internalized the outlandish idea that it is “partisan,” and thus not “neutral,” to acknowledge the undeniably destructive effects of particular political policies. These inconvenient facts are hence not emphasized in news reporting, and cannot be presented alone without being “balanced” with an opposing perspective—even if that contrary view is demonstrably false. In the case of the GOP legislation, which will slash the corporate tax rate and add some $1.4 trillion to the national debt, the deception took a variety of forms. The primary distortion, as noted, was portraying the Senate GOP bill as a massive “tax break.” Headlines and reports spoke of “tax cuts” and “tax breaks” vaguely, without indicating that the breaks were not for Americans as a whole, but rather for corporations and the rich.

Arrests, Anger, Anxiety As Grad Students Visit Paul Ryan’s Office

December 7, 2017 Nick Roll, insidehighered.com Resist! Higher Education, Student Activism, Tax Reform

By Nick Roll for Inside Higher Ed - WASHINGTON -- As the competing Republican tax plans from the House of Representatives and the Senate head to a conference committee that will square the differences and create a final piece of legislation, graduate students are worried. A group of 40 or so activists and graduate students, organized in part by Faculty Forward and the Service Employees International Union, took their concerns to Capitol Hill Tuesday in a protest outside the office of Representative Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House. Upon coming to the office’s locked door, the protesters held their demonstration in the hallway. It was a short-lived affair, with police quickly arresting nine people who declined to move after being given a warning. However, the protest captured the anxiety some graduate students expressed regarding the tax legislation, especially provisions stemming from the House bill. “If it’s filled with any, or most of, the provisions aimed at higher ed, then I’ll have to drop out of my program,” said Tom DePaola, a doctoral candidate in education policy at the University of Southern California and one of the nine protesters arrested. Graduate students who took to the Hill, many of them organizers at their respective graduate student unions, took issue with a broad range of measures presented in the tax overhaul, for reasons related to higher education and not. But, some said, if the tax legislation was going to pass, they hoped that some of the provisions in the House bill would be stripped in conference.

Hundreds Storm Capitol Hill Offices To Denounce GOP Tax Bill

December 6, 2017 Julia Conley, commondreams.org Resist! Congress, Protests, Tax Reform, Taxes

By Julia Conley for Common Dreams - Outraged demonstrators arrested outside of Republican lawmakers' offices as House and Senate prepare #GOPTaxScam for conference committee. Opponents of the Republican tax plan moving through Congress showed they were not backing down on Tuesday as hundreds of protesters chanted "Kill the bill!" and "Tax the rich, not the sick!" as they assembled outside the offices of GOP lawmakers. While numerous arrests were made in the crowded hallways, the demonstrators made it clear that the fight to defeat the bill is not over yet. Demonstrators targeted Reps. Ryan Costello (R-Penn.), Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), and other Republicans who voted for the tax plan, visiting their offices and telling staffers how they would be impacted by the law. Both Costello and Comstock are up for re-election in 2018. Capitol Police began arresting protesters at about 2:30pm outside Costello's office, with chants of "Kill the bill, Costello!" continuing as people were led away in handcuffs.

People Power Can Still Stop The Tax Theft, Here’s How

December 5, 2017 Taylor Lincoln, citizenvox.org Educate! Lobbying, Tax Reform, Taxes

By Taylor Lincoln for Citizen Vox - A total of 6,243 lobbyists have been listed on lobbying disclosure forms as working on issues involving the word “tax” in 2017. That equals 57 percent of the lobbyists who have reported any lobbying activity in 2017 and is equivalent to more than 11 lobbyists for every member of Congress. Each of the 20 organizations hiring the most lobbyists on tax issues reported working on “tax reform” specifically, meaning their lobbying was relevant to the ongoing debate on overhauling the tax code. Corporate tax rates, repatriation of corporate profits, intra-organizational transfers of assets, deductibility of interest, and depreciation rules were among frequently listed topics among the organizations. Twenty corporations and trade associations have hired at least 50 lobbyists apiece. The organization hiring the most lobbyists to work on tax issues was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (100). The Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of the nation’s largest corporations, deployed 51 lobbyists. Twenty-six industry sectors have hired at least 150 lobbyists each to work on tax issues, led by pharmaceuticals (653) and insurance (600). Five corporations have hired at least 15 separate lobbying firms in additional to their in-house lobbyists to work for them on tax issues so far in 2017: Comcast Corp. (23 firms), Anheuser-Busch (19), Verizon Communications, (17), Microsoft (16) and Altria Group (15).

With The GOP Tax Plan, A New Economic Epoch Begins

December 5, 2017 Sam Pizzigati, inequality.org Educate! Economics, New Economy, Tax Reform, Taxes

By Sam Pizzigati for Inequality - The U.S. Senate has now passed the most significant tax “reform” legislation since 1986. The legislation, most pundits believe, will likely become the new law of the land within weeks. What will that mean? We already have all sorts of numbers from reputable researchers on who will now see really big savings on their tax returns (the rich) and who won’t (everybody else). We also have official — and sobering — congressional research estimates on what the GOP tax changes, once put in place, will mean for the nation’s economic growth and the federal budget deficit. But we don’t yet have what we need: a sense of the “big picture.” Ten years down the road, twenty years down the road, how will the lives that Americans lead change if this Republican tax plan gets to shape our national future? The answer may well rest in new research just out from three of the world’s most prolific inequality analysts, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman. Piketty and Saez have been pushing the envelope on income distribution stats ever since the 21st century began. The duo, joined in recent years by Zucman, have become ever more sophisticated in crunching the numbers that tell us who gets what and why in America.

5 Ways The Republican Tax-Reform Plan Hits Black Folks The Hardest

December 5, 2017 Charles D. Ellison, theroot.com Educate! New Economy, Racism, Reform, Tax Reform, Taxes

By Charles D. Ellison for The Root - Right now, at this very moment, the single biggest threat to the group of people already in a compromised position because of their race is the congressional Republicans’ tax-reform plan. Not the sound of the police. Not lead in your water and not a jail cell. The tax-reform plan that both Congress and the White House are pushing seems obscure. It’s that thing only geeky Washington, D.C., insiders pass crush notes over, so you glance away from the television screen because it sounds irrelevant. It’s so innocuous, you ask, “What’s a tax cut got to do with me?” especially when shit is already tight. So long as you get that refund check for a down payment on that next car, you could care less. As the latest YouGov poll (pdf) shows, you are among the vast majority of Americans who hate Congress, yet you’re probably in that 46 percent who don’t follow what congressional lawmakers do, including the nearly 70 percent of whom are black. But black folks should be paying the most attention because we’ll feel the most hurt as congressional Republicans, along with an oligarchic Trump White House, try to make the plan into law (House Republicans passed their version of the bill on Thursday). Not only is black America the least likely to see a tax cut, but it’s also the most likely to see future tax increases, shredded safety nets, and a flurry of fines and fees to make up the difference.

Proposed Tax Reform Plan Will Destroy Black America

November 28, 2017 Phillip Jackson, www.blackstarjournal.org Resist! Jim Crow, Racism, Slavery, Tax Reform

By Phillip Jackson for Black Star Journal. Today, we have the Civil War 2.0 with many of the same southern states that lost the first Civil War initiating a Tax Reform Plan that would effectively, long term, disenfranchise most Black people in America. This time, the South plans to win! The negative impact of this proposed Tax Reform Plan, as it is being proffered by the Republican-controlled House, Senate and White House, will be that of 100 Hurricane Katrina’s on Black communities across America. This proposed tax plan for Black America is like the frog put in a pot of cold water under a low-burning flame so that it doesn’t jump out of the pot, but as the heat is turned up, the frog is slowly cooked. The early years of the proposed Tax Reform Plan would give most Blacks in America some tax relief. The later years of the proposed Tax plan would “cook” Black people in America!

Newsletter – Free Yourself From An Exploitative Culture

November 25, 2017 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Amazon, Austerity, Inequality, Net Neutrality, New Economy, Tax Reform, Thanksgiving, Wealth Divide

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. Shoppers hit the malls and online stores this week, spending over $3.5 billion online alone on what is called 'Black Friday'. Some people reject the extreme consumerism, calling it 'Buy Nothing Day' and staying home in protest, others take their protests to the streets. Anti-police violence activists in St. Louis, Missouri, demonstrated peacefully at a major shopping mall to say "No Justice, No Profit." True to form, police responded by violently attacking the 100 or so protesters and arresting seven people. Our friends at The Rules remind us that there are many fulfilling things money can't buy, such as community and wisdom. They write that 'Buy Nothing Day' is "an opportunity... to nurture the feeling of sovereignty you get when you step back from mainstream culture and know that it has no hold on you."

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