The current Republican tax plan is best summed up as mega-feeding for U.S. corporations and the rich, with one-half of the tax cut going to the top 1 percent; placating the middle class with tax cuts for some but not all, while eliminating several beneficial deductions and harming the middle class and poor with proposed major cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Deductions (mostly utilized by the middle class) that would be eliminated include state/local income taxes, college tuition, personal exemptions, medical equipment, student loan interest and teacher classroom supplies. Also the plan treats employer-provided tuition payments as taxable income.
Arthur Laffer’s supply side economic theory (trickle down) with his Laffer curve has not worked as he described. A good example is what happened in Kansas.
Currently, several major corporations are holding a pile of cash instead of investing or raising wages. The tax plan is welfare for the top 1 percent — over a trillion dollar government handout. Corporations will take the tax cuts as profits and pay their shareholders long before they will hire people, expand or raise wages. Few people will be “trickled” on with the current plan.
The Republicans’ plan will make the corporations and the rich the big winners (over a trillion dollars). The national debt will rise by about $1.5 trillion and about 13 million people will lose their health insurance.
It is time to mega-feed the 99 percent and placate the top 1 percent.
Crystal Ward, Lewiston
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