A NEW FORM OF GOVERNMENT

As cautioned on several occasions, ignore what they say and pay close attention to what they do, one needs to be tracking this so called tax reform package. As per Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University, the tax bill is plain and simply, a heist. It is gas lighting, pure and simple. Let’s take a brief look.

Of the top major corporations on Wall Street, – three hundred are paying 14% tax rate ; half of that number are paying zero in taxes ; and half of that number are not only paying nothing, but are getting subsidies ; with stocks at an all time high and corporate profits at a likewise all time high, and CEO salaries exceeding any level of sanity, why the massive tax cuts, especially as wages are stagnant…
The current plan as offered will add between 1.5 and 1.7 trillion to the national debt…
83 % of the benefits will go to the top 1 % …
People like the trump kids stand to gain over two billion dollars in tax free estate funds…
It will eliminate taxes on pass through income, the primary source of wealth for so many…
These considerable tax reductions for corporations will be permanent while the tax cuts for individuals will expire in seven years.. causing the tax burden on the middle and lower income wage earners – approximately 60 % – to actually increase
An item added literally at the last minute, with targeted benefits specifically for real estate developers represents $414 billion in lost revenue..

It is no accident that the trump administration has encased itself in Goldman-Sachs alumni, serving as advisors on this tax measure – rather Wealth measure – and one can be confident that this was part of the overall agenda all along. This is not a tax bill. It is a wealth transfer bill, moving billions to the upper ten per cent.

This bill was designed and formulated behind closed doors and issued on a strict need to know basis, completely excluding all democrats. There were no hearings, no expert witness testimony and no access across the aisle. This is how the GOP handled the most impactful piece of legislation since the Affordable Care Act, which, for the record, had numerous hearings and, much to its detriment, had over 100 amendments tagged on to it.
One needs to also ask the key question which all are reluctant to ask and the GOP is emphatically unwilling to answer – how, in the face of a 1.5 trillion dollar debt addition, will the cost of this monstrosity be covered ?
One can see, based on observing the GOP for decades, precisely how they plan to accomplish that. They will extract payment from the broad social safety net programs and those ancillary programs which support states and the communities within them. It is already in the works , as per senate rules established some time ago, that any new legislation which increases the debt will trigger automatic cuts is major domestic programs. The price tag to date will be approximately $120 billion, including $25 billion in cuts to Medicare. It will also trigger, by virtue of eliminating the “individual mandate” element of the ACA – the final nail in that coffin – the loss of health insurance for nearly thirteen million people. Also, it seems that, as part of covering the 1.5 trillion to be added to the debt, the less than esteemed congress will allow CHIP to expire, tossing nearly nine million children of working families off their health insurance.

This legislation had, for all practical purposes, not as much to do with reducing the tax burden on the middle class as it has to do with giving Wall Street corporations and the upper ten per cent a major reduction in taxes…. in spite of the fact that many major corporations pay a lower rate in taxes than most wage earners. This was nothing more than ransom paid to those donors who fund the GOP campaigns, keeping them in office so that their financial well being is secured. It is now a government of the donors, by the donors and for the donors.