Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday to explain how President Donald Trump’s current tax plan will affect middle class families. Using the Kansas 2012 tax cuts as a microcosm for what will happen if the President is successful in passing tax reform, the New York Democrat deconstructed Republican rhetoric surrounding economics.
“This idea that cutting taxes on the wealthy, this trickle-down economics which the Republican Party loves, does not create growth. It never has,” explained the senator.
According to Schumer, the 2012 Kansas tax cuts sparked a budget deficit that forced the state to cut funding for schools and infrastructure. Kansas lawmakers subsequently approved legislation to roll back the tax cuts.
Architected by National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, the President’s current tax plan includes a number of adjustments to the current tax code that has been criticized by both Republicans and Democrats. In the proposed version, the President has pledged to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, eliminate the estate tax, and create new tax brackets, among other measures.
“It’s completely focused on the wealthy and the powerful. Not the middle class,” Schumer said on Face the Nation.
“Of course, it benefits the wealthy. And of course it benefits large multinational corporations,” argued former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on CNN’s State of the Union.
Republican senator Rand Paul also took to Twitter to raise concerns over a possible tax hike on middle class families.
This is a GOP tax plan? Possibly 30% of middle class gets a tax hike? I hope the final details are better than this. https://t.co/lcjkI4YRz8
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 2, 2017
Although Democratic resistance towards a Trump-led tax plan is expected, even with the President’s willingness to negotiate with Schumer on immigration reform and raising the debt ceiling, the bill will collapse in the vein of this year’s health care fiasco if Republicans can’t unify behind it.
