From the AFT:
This week, congressional Republicans will unveil their tax giveaway bill. While they are touting their plan as a middle-class tax cut, the facts are way different. If you just do the math, it’s clear their bill would result in massive tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class. One of the ways President Trump and the GOP leadership are planning to pay for the giveaways to the wealthiest Americans is by eliminating the state and local tax deduction, which would hurt schools and property values.
That is why this plan is especially dangerous for middle-class families who own homes and pay property taxes, or who live in communities that invest in their schools, police and fire departments, sanitation and other vital services, like rebuilding roads, bridges, and water and electric systems.
As they did with healthcare, Republicans are working in secret to try and pass legislation because they know how damaging and unpopular their proposals will be to middle-class families. But just like the healthcare fight, we’re not going to back down.
Any tax reform must improve working people’s lives, make the tax system fairer and protect revenues for public services. Write your members of Congress now.
Things you need to know:
80 percent of the GOP’s tax cuts would go to the top 1 percent over the next decade.
One in four middle-class families would pay higher taxes over the next decade under the GOP tax plan.
Republicans are trying to get rid of the state and local tax deduction—a deduction that allows Americans to deduct the amount they paid in taxes to their states and localities when they file federal tax forms—which would negatively impact more than 44 million Americans and every community across the country.
For more than 100 years, this deduction has supported important state and local investments in public schools, healthcare, law enforcement, infrastructure and other vital services. The deduction is used by millions of Americans and has bipartisan support, and eliminating or undermining this part of the tax code would severely hurt communities and their residents.
Don’t let Republicans get rid of this vital deduction. Write your members of Congress now.
The tax plan is a large giveaway of public resources to those who need it least—providing 80 percent of the tax benefits to the top 1 percent of earners. And those giveaways would be paid for by ballooning the federal deficit. Ironically, for the last decade, these same politicians and their wealthy backers—like the Koch brothers—have harped on the importance of reining in the deficit, left over from Bush-era tax cuts, but they don’t seem too concerned about the national debt now, as long as they get their new tax breaks.
If their tax plan passes, school districts and other public services would be hit hard. With home values expected to fall about 10 percent under this plan, local governments that use property tax as the basis for school funding would see that funding go down. And the plan may even go after funding for Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other important services our communities depend on.
We have to be all in on this fight, or we will see the same budget cuts to schools and hospitals and other public services that we saw during the recession.
Families need a tax code that is fair and doesn’t further rig the economy in favor of the wealthy. Write your members of Congress now.
In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President