Letter to My Representatives on the Tax Bill

An estimated thirty-six million middle-class families face a tax hike under the GOP tax bill. Not so for corporations. Families get a hike while huge corporations get a massive giveaway.

The end of the SALT (State and Local Tax) deduction means we families will be paying taxes on the money we’re paying in taxes. Further, there will be cuts to firefighters, schools, roads, and libraries in our towns and states, especially in states that have higher SALT taxes in order to pay for these necessary services.

One-third of the corporate tax break goes to foreign investors. That break plus the end of SALT is a transfer from blue states, in particular, to the transnational economic elite. A permanently lower tax rate on overseas operations & profits than on U.S. operations & profits plus new loopholes will encourage even more offshoring.

So, families are punished and blue states are punished. Who else?

Students, ex-students, and teachers are punished. Students lose help paying off their loans. Teachers can’t deduct the significant costs of buying classroom supplies. Graduate students get taxed on their scholarships. Head Start, Pell Grant, and other programs receive cuts.

The end of SALT will pressure states to cut services, particularly education. We’ve seen this over and over in states that have obliterated their tax bases—Oklahoma, Iowa, Maine, and Kansas, notably.

Disabled people will also be punished. Health care costs will skyrocket. Families won’t be able to get a deduction for large out-of-pocket medical expenses. With the loss of the adoption tax credit, fewer disabled kids will find homes. Giant cuts to Medicaid & Medicare and repealing parts of ACA will kill people and drive disabled people from in-home care to more expensive—and very abusive—institutional care. The lives and futures of my children are on the line.

With a one trillion tax cut for corporations, 200 billion for wealthy heirs, and 300 billion for individuals, this plan enormously favors the richest. It brashly and unapologetically favors kleptocracy.

This plan is wildly unpopular in both parties. Voters in deep red states are rejecting slash-and-burn tax policy. Americans do not believe they will receive any benefit from these policies, quite the opposite. Our lifelong experience is one of wages remaining static as corporate profits soar to historic levels. This will be no different.

The GOP is betraying the people they are supposed to serve. This long con is the selling out of America. This bill straight up takes away our health care to give tax cuts to corporations, oligarchs, and kleptocrats. We are witnessing the systemic poisoning and dismantling of America by a party that has irredeemably given itself to kleptocracy, white supremacy, and Christofascism.