INDIANAPOLIS – The McConnell tax bill will harm Hoosiers in countless ways, as the Indiana Democratic Party has shown throughout the “12 Days of Taxes” series.
The tax bill that Congress passed this week is the least popular piece of major legislation among Americans in the last three decades, polls have shown, and for good reason. It raises taxes on millions of middle class families to fund new tax breaks for major corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Within a decade, taxes on a majority of Americans will actually rise, and 83% of the remaining benefits will go to the top one percent. A majority of economists surveyed say it will do little to boost the economy.
The problems with both the McConnell bill and the House version which Republicans like Congressmen Messer and Rokita initially wanted, however, go far beyond that. The IDP has highlighted a number of these issues in recent days:
Even though Republicans like Congressmen Messer and Rokita claimed that they cared about deficits and the debt, the McConnell bill is devastating for the nation’s fiscal health. Serious analyses predict that the bill will add to the debt by as much as $2.2 trillion.
The House Republican bill contained a provision that would have forced taxpayers to subsidize the dark money donations unleashed in the wake of the Citizens United decision by potentially making them tax deductible.
The McConnell bill sabotages the nation’s health care system and will lead to roughly 13 million more Americans not having health care within ten years – including nearly 25,000 Hoosiers in Congressman Messer’s district and more than 27,000 in Congressman Rokita’s.
The McConnell plan raises taxes on the endowments for private colleges, and the initial House bill went even further, cutting into endowments of colleges in the districts of three GOP Members of Congress in Indiana—including Congressmen Messer’s and Rokita’s alma mater.
The House Republican bill utilized a variety of methods to make higher education more expensive for many Hoosiers on top of the endowment tax and would have put college out of reach for the children of many working families.
Americans putting their lives back together after many natural disasters, like last year’s tornadoes in Kokomo that Congressman Rokita notoriously claimed were “God’s will,” will receive significantly less help under the McConnell bill.
Republicans have claimed that the bill will help the middle class, but its biggest beneficiaries are more likely to be on Wall Street. Few winners will be as big as Wells Fargo, an odd choice to reward after its scandal-ridden 2017.
An obscure provision tucked into the McConnell bill will make it significantly harder for states like Indiana to raise money through tax-exempt municipal bonds to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges, even though the change will earn the federal government next to nothing.
The McConnell bill was supposed to encourage companies to bring jobs back to the United States, but its corporate tax changes will likely have the opposite effect, an analysis shows.
“A plan that raised taxes on millions of middle class Americans in order to give another tax break to the wealthiest among us and corporations who ship jobs overseas would have been bad enough, but the McConnell tax bill that every single Indiana Republican voted for doesn’t stop there. This bill’s effects will harm us every single day,” said Will Baskin-Gerwitz, Senior Media Strategist for the Indiana Democratic Party. “For the majority of Hoosiers, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans who voted for this bill aren’t coming down the chimney to bring them a Christmas present, they’re coming to rob them instead.”
This release is part of day twelve of the Indiana Democrats’ 12 Days of Taxes, a daily series highlighting the problems the McConnell tax bill would create if passed this holiday season. While the McConnell plan would raise taxes on middle class Americans to fund more tax breaks for the wealthy and major corporations, its consequences stretch across American life.
###
