Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) explains how Republicans made an intentional decision to harm the middle class with their tax cut bill.
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Sen. Schatz said, “You know, for people making $30,000 or less, very shortly, they will see a 10% increase. Most of the benefit goes to the very wealthiest individuals and also to corporations. And you know, the message from the 2016 election, I thought, was that there was this populist uprising, and it is shocking to me, really shocking, that they took $1.5 trillion worth of deficit spending and still couldn’t find enough money to do a straightforward middle class tax cut. It’s not that hard to do a middle class tax cut if you’re deficit financing it. They freed up $1.5 trillion and they still couldn’t do a straightforward middle-class tax cut. And my constituents are very strongly against this bill. Obviously, some people will see some tax relief, but the vast majority of people understand that this is essentially a wealth transfer from people who work for a living to people who already have wealth.”
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The Democratic Senator nailed it. Republicans sat down and made a conscious decision to screw over the middle class in order to give people who are already rich even more money. The way the bill played out was by design. The GOP tax cut bill was intended to be a wealth transfer from the bottom and middle of the US economy to the top. The legislation is an intentional attempt to harm the middle class.
Republicans could have easily done a real middle-class tax cut. If they were interested in real tax relief that would help the economy, they could have built their tax plan from the bottom up. This legislation was never about real tax reform. Tax reform was the pretext for wealth transfer.
Democrats understand the messaging on this issue, and Senators like Brian Schatz are going to hammer this message to voters for years to come.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
