A message from National NOW:
Tax Breaks for the Very Rich – This week the Senate will likely vote on a cruel tax bill which increases taxes on 87 million middle-class taxpayers while granting a huge tax break for the richest one percent and for wealthy corporations. As Donald Trump urged, the Senate bill would repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance mandate, causing 13 million persons to lose coverage and an inevitable collapse of the ACA. Loss of affordable health insurance will disproportionately harm women and their families.
With their inability to pass any major legislation this year, Republicans are under immense pressure to have a win. They are especially anxious to reward their millionaire and billionaire donors. The vote will be very close, so please call your two senators ASAP, 202-224-3121 or find their office phone numbers here.
Raises Taxes on Everyone Else – The bottom 80 percent of the income distribution would see a tax hike by 2027 and, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation this would result in higher rates for persons earning under $10,000 to $75,000. The harshest impact would be on women who are paid less due wage discrimination and on those with poverty level incomes. At the same time, everyone with incomes $75,000 and higher gets a cut in their rate. A change in the inflation adjustment is made, resulting in permanent changes for tax brackets so that taxpayers would be paying more over time. These unfair and unbalanced approaches will further grow the nation’s already yawning wealth gap.
The Senate Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would:
- Cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent and set an even lower rate on U.S. taxes that multinationals would pay on foreign profits, thereby encouraging more off-shoring of U.S. companies and profit shifting, while killing more jobs.
- Pay for the cost of reducing taxes on the wealthy by permanently repealing the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that everyone have insurance, causing 13 million persons to lose coverage and raising premiums for those remaining in the program. The ACA would ultimately collapse.
- Mandate automatic Medicare cuts of at least $24 billion in 2018 and $400 billion over ten years, causing seniors to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy. Also, there will be a $1 trillion Medicaid cut that means far fewer low-income persons — a majority being women — will have access to health care services.
- Add at least $1.4 trillion and perhaps as much as $1.8 trillion to the deficit, jeopardizing critical services and undermining Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, and a wide range of critical human needs programs.
- Endanger funding for such programs as Social Services Block Grants which help fund child care, foster care, elder abuse prevention, Meals on Wheels plus various higher education programs aiding historically black colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions and tribal colleges, vocational rehabilitation state grants, and an array of farm support programs – to name just few of the many vital programs that will come on the chopping block.
PLEASE CALL NOW – Urge both of your senators to vote against this cruel tax bill that makes women, low and middle-income families, and seniors pay for huge tax cuts for the rich and for wealthy corporations. Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or click here to find the senators’ office phone numbers.
