The Congressional Budget Office ("CBO") has further analyzed the GOP Senate tax proposal and surprise, surprise - well, actually not surprising at all - the impact of the bill would hurt the poor more than originally believed. Sadly, the bill is typical of the Republican Party's reverse Robin Hood agenda of taking from the poor and middle class and giving lavish tax cuts to the wealthy. So much for Orrin Hatch's disingenuous lie that he works to benefit the poor and working class. His rant at Sen. Sherrod Brown is definitely an example of he doth protest too much. Here at the holiday season, the GOP is showing that its claimed deference to "Christian values" is nothing more than a charade. Indeed, Republicans like Hatch are little more than self-laudatory modern day Pharisees. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the new CBO analysis and its unsurprising consequences. Here are article highlights:
The Senate Republican tax plan gives substantial tax cuts and benefits to Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, while the nation’s poorest would be worse off, according to a report released Sunday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Republicans are aiming to have the full Senate vote on the tax plan as early as this week, but the new CBO analysis showing large, harmful effects on the poor may complicate those plans. The CBO also said the bill would add $1.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, a potential problem for Republican lawmakers worried about America’s growing debt.
Democrats have repeatedly slammed the bill as a giveaway to the rich at the expense of the poor. In addition to lowering taxes for businesses and many individuals, the Senate bill also makes a major change to health insurance that the CBO projects would have a harsh impact on lower-income families.
By 2019, Americans earning less than $30,000 a year would be worse off under the Senate bill, CBO found. By 2021, Americans earning $40,000 or less would be net losers, and by 2027, most people earning less than $75,000 a year would be worse off. On the flip side, millionaires and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 would be big beneficiaries, according to the CBO’s calculations.
The main reason the poor get hit so hard in the Senate GOP bill is because the poor would receive less government aid for health care.
The CBO has calculated that health insurance premiums would rise if this bill becomes law, leading 4 million Americans to lose health insurance by 2019 and 13 million to lose insurance by 2027.
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the other official nonpartisan group that analyzes tax bills, put out a similar report showing how lower-income families are hurt by the loss of the health-care tax credits. But the CBO goes a step further than the JCT. The CBO also calculates what would happen to Medicaid, Medicare and the Basic Health Program if the Senate GOP plan became law. The CBO is showing even worse impacts on poor families than the JCT did.
Republicans, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), have argued that their bill helps Americans across the income spectrum. . . . They also argue that lower-income families are not losing any money in their wallets.
But Democrats and advocates for the poor say these lower-income Americans are going to be worse off if they no longer have health insurance.
Nowadays, like the Christofascists who dominate the GOP base, if a Republican elected official's lips are moving, the safest assumption to make is that they are lying. The biggest irony is that evangelical Christians who park their sanctimonious asses in church pews each week are the ones most loyal to the GOP which pushes policies that are the antithesis of Christ's social gospel message. It is long past time that the media stop giving these people deference and maintaining the myth that they are decent people.
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