So…Tax Reform

While people around the country are celebrating that the Senate’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed last week, we wanted to remind everyone about another enormous legislative effort that could have a devastating impact on women and families: tax reform. The Administration and Members of Congress who are involved in this effort plan to build support for tax reform during Congress’ August recess, and says that a bill will be introduced in September. 

 The Trump campaign issued a tax plan in October, and the Administration released a page of tax reform principles back in April. Last Thursday,  Administration officials and Members of Congress working on tax reform released a statement of tax principles. Like the single page of bullet points issued by the Administration in April, it is extremely light on details. But in the meantime, here’s what we do know about the forthcoming tax reform proposal: everything that we’ve seen from the Administration and Republicans in Congress shows that they are focused on giving even more tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, and that they plan to use cuts to entitlement programs to pay for these massive tax breaks.  Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? And it’s just as dangerous in the tax context.

 Tax reform should make the tax system fairer and support an economy that works for all of us, not just the wealthy few. And one way to do this would be for Trump and Republicans in Congress to stop proposing ways to rob the poor to pay the rich. Otherwise, ‘Trump tax reform’ is nothing but just Robin Hood in reverse.