Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.
Turns out Republicans know their tax scam — running up trillion-dollar deficits to supply handouts to billionaires and Wall Street banks — won’t do them any favors during the midterm elections.
A tax scam heavily tilted toward the rich is barely mentioned in ads from the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a Republican-aligned dark money group that spends millions of dollars trying to shore up a failing Republican majority.
Out of more than 31,000 ads the group has aired, a mere 17 percent refer to the tax scam, reports Bloomberg.
“The data underscore concerns among Republicans that the 2017 tax law — championed by President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders — hasn’t gained traction with voters ahead of the Nov. 6 election that will determine control of the House and Senate.”
The all-out retreat from the tax scam is an epic flip-flop for the CLF.
In March, the head of the CLF said, “The central question for November is: Does the middle think we cut their taxes? If the answer to that is yes, Republicans will keep the House.”
The answer, however, is no. Americans overwhelmingly think the tax scam is a monumental failure.
In September, Bloomberg obtained a private, internal poll from the Republican National Committee (RNC) showing, “By a 2-to-1 margin — 61 percent to 30 percent — respondents said the law benefits ‘large corporations and rich Americans’ over ‘middle class families.’”
Evidence of the tax scam failure is easy to see. Trump and Republicans promised the bill was focused on working-class families, but that’s just not true. Wages for most families has been stagnant or falling, adjusted for inflation, since the bill became law.
While families are left behind, Republicans lavished billions of dollars on Wall Street banks and corporate cronies. Bank profits are hitting record levels and wealthy CEOs are showering themselves with millions of dollars from stock buyback schemes.
One Republican member of Congress, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) went out and bought himself a multi-million dollar yacht on the very day he voted for the tax scam. Private jet sales are booming.
And to pay for the excesses of the wealthy, Trump and Republicans added nearly $2 trillion to the national deficit.
Now that the damage is done and Americans see through the tax scam, Republicans are reluctant to acknowledge their role in making it happen.
It’s not exactly a rousing display of the courage of their convictions.
Published with permission of The American Independent.
