House GOP Trying to Hide Their Rotten Tax-and-Spending Deals from Angry Public

In the first year of a Trump-tax-law extension, the highest income 1% of households–lucky folks who all enjoy an income of over $900,000–would get an average tax cut of nearly $46,000.

By William Rice

When politicians craft policies popular with their voters, they don't hide in the shadows. But when they're plotting handouts to their wealthy donors—ones they know their constituents wouldn't like—they do it in secret. That’s why in recent weeks GOP leaders have met behind closed doors to work on their Trump-mandated tax-and-spending legislation. They know it’s not a political winner. 

The GOP-controlled House Ways and Means Committee recently met privately rather than in open session to start to fill in the tax details of the chamber’s recently passed budget. That blueprint allows for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years, partially paid for with $2 trillion of cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance, student tuition aid and other services critical to workers and families.

The bulk of the tax cuts will come in the form of extending parts of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law otherwise set to expire at the end of this year. Those provisions were given an expiration date in order to hide the full cost of the law, but now Republicans want to permanently extend them. 

Full extension would cost $4.2 trillion over the coming decade. Restoring three valuable tax breaks for big businesses that have already expired would add another $1.3 trillion to the tab, bringing the total revenue loss to $5.5 trillion. President Trump has also promised several other tax breaks that would drain up to $5 trillion more from the Treasury. 

Given they “only” have $4.5 trillion to hand out in tax cuts, the GOP tax writers will have to work out a deal. But the Ways & Means Republicans don’t want the public to see or hear that process–and for good reason. No arrangement they reach will be able to change the basic unfairness of their tax-cut agenda. 

In the first year of a Trump-tax-law extension, the highest income 1% of households–lucky folks who all enjoy an income of over $900,000–would get an average tax cut of nearly $46,000. Meanwhile, families in the middle of the income scale–those making between roughly $55,000 and $95,000–will receive on average less than $3 a day. 

And even that modest benefit will for most families be quickly wiped out by the added costs they’ll face thanks to the accompanying Republican budget cuts. They include up to $880 billion from Medicaid, which pays for over half of all nursing-home care and nearly half of all maternity care. Despite the claims of Republicans that they will not cut funding for Medicaid, a recent non-partisan Congressional Budget Office study determined that the savings they are seeking in Medicaid’s budget category cannot be achieved without reducing spending on the program. 

Additional cuts include up to $230 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps tens of millions of Americans better afford their groceries; and up to $330 billion in student-loan aid, which is there to relieve the heavy burden of student debt. 

House Republicans have gotten a taste of what the American people think about this rotten bargain, and it’s not pretty. At town halls during a recent congressional recess, GOP members got an earful from their voters about President Trump’s first month in office, including his effort to extend tax cuts for the rich by cutting services for everyone else.

Since they don’t have any good response to those complaints, House Republicans have been advised by their leadership to simply stop listening: they’ve been told to stop holding “town hall” type meetings with their constituents. But we can be pretty sure closed-door meetings with corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors will go on as scheduled. 

Republicans will go on hatching up plans in the dark to reward their billionaire campaign contributors with money taken from seniors, pregnant women and kids. But eventually they’ll have to unveil their handiwork–and they shouldn’t expect a welcoming reception.