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Republican tax cuts will only help the rich

Republicans are working behind closed doors in a partisan way to create a tax plan that hurts working families in all 50 states.

It contains across-the-board tax cuts for the wealthy: 1) lowering the top individual tax rate, 2) repealing the estate tax, which helps only 5,200 of America’s wealthiest families, and 3) lowering the rate on pass-through entities;

It socks it to middle-class Americans: Notably, a recent study from the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Centershows that the Trump and Republican tax plan would greatly benefit the top 1 percent of Americans while offering only modest tax relief to the rest of American households;

And it would lead to cuts to vital programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, in addition to the proposed cuts in the Republican budget: Based on what we know now, the Republican tax plan would blow at least a $1.5 trillion hole in the deficit. This would likely allow Republicans to follow the same “starve the beast” playbook where they: (1) pass huge tax breaks claiming they’ll pay for themselves and then (2) use the resulting huge deficits to justify deep cuts to health care, nutrition and education programs vital to working families.

Mary O’Neill

Presque Isle

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