{"id":158780,"date":"2017-12-11T04:05:24","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T09:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=158780"},"modified":"2026-10-30T04:08:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T08:08:56","slug":"whats-really-behind-the-gop-tax-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=158780","title":{"rendered":"What’s Really Behind the GOP Tax Plan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published in the Delco Times. December 11, 2017<\/em><\/p>\n

With all the controversy over the details of the tax cut bill that is moving towards a final vote in the House and Senate this week it is easy to forget about the basic features of the bill.<\/p>\n

As they did during the debate over repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans put forward noxious proposals\u2014to radically reduce the state and local tax deduction, to tax graduate student stipends, to eliminate the deduction for teachers who use their own funds in classrooms, and to eliminate the deduction for extremely high medical expenses miante among others\u2014and then eliminated them in the final proposal.<\/p>\n

But we shouldn\u2019t be gratified that these horrible elements of the bill are gone when the basic framework of the bill, which has remained constant in every version of it considered by the House and Senate, remains so awful.<\/p>\n

The legislation is basically a huge and permanent tax cut for the largest and wealthiest corporations and pass-through businesses that will benefit the 1% of United States families who own them combined with a temporary tax cut for individuals.<\/p>\n

The overall impact in Pennsylvania in 2019 can be seen in this first table, which shows that the bottom 60% of Pennsylvanians with an average income of $34,100 will get an average tax break of $400 while the richest 1% of Pennsylvanians, with an average income of $1.8 million will get an average tax cut of $53,580. And that huge difference is not just a matter of cutting taxes in proportion to who pays them. The bottom 60% will see their taxes decline by 1.2%. The top 1% will see their taxes decline by $2.1%.<\/p>\n

After 40 years of growing inequality, when the top 1% in Pennsylvania have seen their incomes go up by 125% while incomes from the bottom 99% have gone up 12%, President Trump and the Republicans believe that the upwards redistribution of income is inadequate. They aim, plain and simply, to increase ncome inequality.<\/p>\n

And by 2027 when the indiviidual tax cuts have expired but the corporate and business tax cuts remain in place. the basic outline of the bill remains\u2014those at the very top benefit and most working and middle class people suffer. The bottom 60% will see their taxes actually go up<\/em> by an average of $100 or .2% of their current tax bill. The top 1% will see their taxes go down<\/em> by an average of $6,930 or .3% of their current taxes.<\/p>\n

There are other reasons to oppose the bill.<\/p>\n

Upper middle-class taxpayers will pay more because of the limitation on state and local tax deductions.<\/p>\n

About 500,000 working and middle-class fewer people in Pennsylvania, and 13 million fewr nationally will have health insurance. In 2019, people in their 50s and 60s who purchase health insurance in the individual market will pay more for insurance than they gain in tax cuts. By 2027 everyone who purchases health insurance in the individual market will pay more for insurance than they gain in tax cuts.<\/p>\n

The tax bill allows drilling for oil and gas in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) which is deeply harmful to the environment.<\/p>\n

Ultimately the huge deficits caused by the tax bill could, under certain economic conditions, undermine economic growth. And they will, sooner rather than later, lead the Republicans to try to put in place deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Food Stamps, and other important programs that reduce poverty and serve human needs.<\/p>\n

And, of course, this tax cut is unnecessary. There is no reason to think it will encourage economic growth and job creation.<\/p>\n

These other problems with the Republican tax cut plan are all really important. Any of them, by themselves, is reason to oppose this terrible legislation.<\/p>\n

But the fundamental reason to oppose it\u2014the one underlies all the others\u2014is seen in the data we presented above.<\/p>\n

This legislation is designed to redistribute income from working people and the middle class to the very rich. And that is, plain and simply, wrong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in the Delco Times. December 11, 2017 With all the controversy over the details of the tax cut bill that is moving towards a final vote in the House and Senate this week it is easy to forget about the basic features of the bill. As they did during the debate over repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans put forward noxious proposals\u2014to radically reduce the state and local tax deduction, to tax graduate student stipends, to eliminate the deduction for teachers who use their own funds in classrooms, and to eliminate the deduction for extremely high medical expenses miante among others\u2014and then eliminated them in the final proposal. But we shouldn\u2019t be gratified that these horrible elements of the bill are gone when the basic framework of the bill, which has remained constant in every version of it considered by the House and Senate, remains so\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[101,323,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-federal-taxes","category-published-op-eds-pbpc","category-taxation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-FiY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=158780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158782,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158780\/revisions\/158782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=158780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=158780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=158780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}