RED ALERT: The Trump tax bill being rammed through Congress right now is confusing so let me break down what it’ll mean for you. Spoiler: You’ll get stuck with the bill. Follow along for details. 1/
YOUR TAX BILL
47 million households will get a tax hike! Yes, you read that right. In a plan that cuts taxes for corporations and millionaires, millions of middle-class families—especially those with children—get a tax increase. 2/
YOUR HEALTHCARE
Health care costs will skyrocket. Families won’t be able to get a deduction for large out-of-pocket medical expenses. The GOP budget includes giant cuts to Medicaid & Medicare. AND they are considering repealing a key part of the ACA as part of the tax bill. 3/
YOUR EDUCATION
Students lose help paying off their loans. Teachers can’t deduct the cost of buying classroom supplies. Grad students get taxed on their scholarships. GOP budget includes massive cuts to funding for Head Start, Pell Grants & everything in between. 4/
YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY
They’re coming for it. It’s not a coincidence that George W. Bush waited until just after his tax cuts took effect & the deficit ballooned, to push for cuts to Social Security. Paul Ryan’s even admitted that “entitlement reform” is next. 5/
YOUR JOB
Corporations would get a permanently LOWER tax rate on OVERSEAS operations & profits than on U.S. operations & profits, and new giant loopholes would encourage even more offshoring. 6/
YOUR WAGES
Cutting taxes on the super-rich and corporations yet again means they will have even more incentive to hoard as much of the profits as they can, spending less and less to hire new workers or raise worker wages. 7/
YOUR ENVIRONMENT
The plan keeps tax breaks for oil, gas, and coal companies but eliminates or reduces them for solar & wind. The GOP budget slashes funding for EPA. The plan even includes a Polar Payoff allowing drilling in the Arctic refuge. 8/
YOUR COMMUNITY
There will be cuts to firefighters, schools, roads and libraries in your town and state. That’s because the GOP plan eliminates the deduction for local taxes, making it harder to fund these vital services. 9/
BOTTOM LINE
You will pay more, either through higher taxes or fewer public services (or both). Millionaires and corporations will pay a lot less. The economy and your community will suffer. It will take decades to recover. 10/
Professor @DarrickHamilton & I have a new issue brief today detailing 4 specific ways that the Trump tax law affects communities of color. Like the economy in general, the new law puts black and brown people at a disadvantage.
First & perhaps most obviously, most people know that the law is skewed to the rich. Because of longstanding racial income gaps, a tax law that benefits the very high-income over everyone else also disproportionately benefits white households over households of color. 2/
Second, racial wealth disparities are even more acute than income disparities, and this new tax law dramatically favors existing wealth over new wealth creation. 3/
By now, most Americans know this tax bill is terrible. We know it's unfair, it's a giveaway to the rich, it cuts health care & puts other services at risk.
What hasn’t sunk in yet is how it could also harm the economy, costing jobs and prosperity.
I count at least 5 ways. 1/
First and most directly, by cutting taxes on the super-rich and asking everyone else to pick up the tab, this bill will exacerbate our already sky-high levels of income inequality, as @DLeonhardt correctly points out. 2/ nytimes.com/2017/12/17/opi…
Beyond being morally repugnant, increasing our income inequality will also cause the economy to grow more slowly and will result in more fragile growth, bringing recessions on more rapidly. 3/ imf.org/external/pubs/…
This coming week is make-or-break for the GOP tax scam. If you have any interest in fighting this disastrous bill, follow along for a state-of-play update. Short version: we CAN still stop this thing. 1/
Here’s where we are: Both the Senate & House have passed versions of the GOP tax scam. They have a lot in common (huge tax cuts for the wealthy & corporations, tax hikes on millions of middle class families) but aren’t identical. 2/
To become law, the House & Senate have to pass identical bills. So to come up with ONE new version that both chambers can pass, the GOP has sent their bills to a “conference committee.” 3/
New analysis out TODAY shows that the Senate GOP tax bill would raise taxes on half of all families.
But, really, it's even worse than that. Once you include the spending-side changes, the bill looks even worse. THREAD TIME. 1/ rooseveltinstitute.org/who-really-pay…
The Senate tax bill doesn't only change taxes, it has also has big changes to spending, including cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and lots of other things. A full distributional analysis would include those cuts too. 2/
For example, here's the official JCT (cbo for tax) analysis of who gets a tax cut in 2019 under the Senate bill, and next to it is a FULLER distributional analysis that includes the SPENDING CUTS. 3/