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Tag: republican senator ted cruz
Republican Senators Demand Another Tax Break For The Wealthy

Republican Senators Demand Another Tax Break For The Wealthy

More than 20 Republican senators are demanding yet another massive tax break for wealthy Americans.

In a letter addressed to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the lawmakers begged the administration to tie capital gains to inflation. The senators, led by Ted Cruz (R-TX), claimed the move would benefit the economy, but a 2018 analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found it would mostly benefit the wealthy.

Such a policy would cost the government about $100 billion to $200 billion in revenue over ten years, placing it on the backs of American taxpayers. Additionally, 86 percent of the benefits would flow only to the top 1 percent of households, according to the analysis.

Apparently the wealthy haven’t cut enough breaks lately under the Trump administration.

The conservatives’ demands follow a budget compromise between Trump and Democrats to raise the debt ceiling, the deadline of which was sped up by the GOP’s 2017 tax scam.

That tax scam, passed solely by Republican lawmakers, cost American taxpayers a whopping $1.5 trillion and mostly benefited wealthy corporations.

Due to the high price tag, the administration has been eager to make deep cuts to important safety net programs. The White House has proposed cutting more than 3 million poor Americans off of food stamps to save the government money. The administration has also taken aim at education, hoping to slash billions from the Education Department. In 2018, the administration denied federal workers their 2.1 percent raise due to “serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare.”

Additionally, the tax cuts did not help grow the economy how Republican lawmakers claimed they would. A March report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) found that the economy will not sustain even a 3 percent growth for the foreseeable future.

It seems the GOP hasn’t learned its lesson and will do anything to make sure money flows only to the rich and powerful.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

The Immigration Questions Ted Cruz Won’t Answer

The Immigration Questions Ted Cruz Won’t Answer

By Sahil Kapur, Bloomberg News (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Even as he makes immigration a central issue in his presidential campaign, there are two important questions on the topic that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has repeatedly declined to answer.

The first is what to do about the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. illegally. The second is whether granting them some form of legal status (even something short of a path to citizenship) amounts to “amnesty.”

“I consider amnesty to be forgiving the law-breaking of those who come here illegally and having no consequences and in particular, a path to citizenship,” he told reporters in Clinton, Iowa, before a campaign event, when asked to define the term.

Pressed on whether legal status for undocumented immigrants amounted to amnesty, Cruz moved on and took a different question. As the news conference ended, the Texan was asked that question again, and declined to say.

Cruz has proposed what he calls the “most aggressive” plan to crack down on illegal immigration, but it’s silent on how to handle the current undocumented population. One of his rivals, Donald Trump, has proposed mass deportation, an idea criticized for being wildly expensive (more than $400 billion, according to one conservative estimate). Another rival, Sen. Marco Rubio, is open to a path to eventual citizenship, a position Cruz has blasted as “amnesty” (though Cruz hasn’t said if he believes legal status without a path to citizenship also counts as “amnesty”).

An email to reporters by Rubio’s campaign declared that “Senator Cruz is proving to be rather consistent only in dodging questions.”

Cruz has struggled to find a safe place in between, and said in recent months he won’t discuss what to do about people in the country illegally until the border is “secure.”

So Bloomberg put the question to Cruz in an exclusive interview Monday afternoon between campaign events in Iowa: What will it take to achieve a “secure border” and therefore address undocumented immigrants?

In response, Cruz deflected and attacked Democrats as soft on illegal immigration. Asked in a follow-up if he’d be willing to address the question of what to do about the undocumented population once all the security measures he has proposed — including a border wall, tripling the border patrol and a biometric entry-exit visa tracking system — are in place, Cruz pivoted to insisting he’ll prioritize securing the border and stopping illegal immigration.

The Texan’s challenge is that he’s boxed in: Any hint of support for normalizing the status of undocumented immigrants risks turning off the conservative voters he’s relying on, while mass deportation is widely viewed as impractical — and inhumane by some Republicans. Cruz’s progressive critics say his demurrals are a red-herring — that he’s setting up obstacles that will never be met.

What Cruz preferred to discuss is his vote against comprehensive immigration reform in 2013, a bill despised by many conservatives, and that Rubio supported but has since backed away from. During the press conference in the town of Clinton, Cruz said his record and Rubio’s record are as different as “the arsonist and the fireman,” adding: “Marco Rubio led the fight standing shoulder to shoulder with Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama for a massive amnesty plan.”

Speaking to Bloomberg, Cruz made clear he would, as president, immediately end President Barack Obama’s 2012 program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to grant deportation relief and two-year work permits to roughly 650,000 young people brought to the country illegally as children. Cruz also said he’d end Obama’s 2014 actions to expand deportation relief.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has promised to protect and expand on both programs, a stance that is popular with Hispanic voters, who could decide a close election if it comes down to key swing states like Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

©2015 Bloomberg News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Ted Cruz, right, would rather deflect to criticize Democrats than answer questions. Marc Nozell via Flickr

 

BREAKING: Ted Cruz Still Thinks You’re Dumb

In November, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told a crowd not made up of Tea Partiers that he didn’t want a government shutdown — and they laughed.

On ABC’s This Week, the senator made the same point and even Jon Karl — a journalist who was nurtured by the conservative movement — didn’t buy it.

“You have had a couple of months to think about this whole government shutdown strategy,” Karl said. “Now that it’s over in hindsight, are you prepared to say that it was a mistake, it wasn’t the right tactic?”

“I think it was absolutely a mistake for President Obama and Harry Reid to force a government shutdown,” Cruz said.

“No, I mean, but come on,” Karl said.

Cruz’s argument rests on the fact that demanding the president defund his signature legislative accomplishment less than a year after that president was re-elected by a margin of millions of votes was a reasonable demand. And the president should have rewarded Republicans for shutting down the government over that demand. Even the Republican leadership in the House didn’t buy that argument, as Speaker John Boehner pointed out before the shutdown and after it — yet he still went along with the strategy.

In the same interview with Karl, Cruz insisted he doesn’t play politics.

Meanwhile he’s made several trips to states crucial to winning the 2016 GOP presidential nomination and is now attempting to renounce his Canadian citizenship.

The senator may find that it will actually be easier to qualify to run for president than to remove his Canadian birthright from his record.

Ted Cruz ABC This Week