Donald Trump refused to join tonight’s Republican debate, but that didn’t stop his extreme, right-wing tax plans from taking center stage, as the GOP primary field touts policies that would slash rates for the top income-earners and leave working people and the middle class hanging out to dry.
It’s clear that every single Republican candidate continues to take cues from Trump and his extreme tax plans. Trump favors plans to drop the income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans to its lowest level since 1931. His massive cuts for the wealthy, would, over a decade, add up to $10 trillion in lost government revenue, but only give “minimal” tax cuts to lower-income Americans.
The Republicans on stage are working hard to prove themselves a worthwhile investment for billionaire Wall Street donors like the Koch brothers — and that’s why they’re promising disproportionate tax cuts for the top 1% over working Americans.
Here’s a look at how the other Republican candidates earned top marks in Trump-O-Nomics 101 with their tax plans:
- Marco Rubio’s tax plan would gift “the top 1 percent…tax cuts more than 103 times larger than the poorest 20 percent.” And totally eliminating taxes on investment income — Rubio’s biggest gift to the wealthy — is a huge giveaway for his Wall Street “megadonors” like Paul Singer, but does nothing for working families. Rubio’s proposal would also cost $11 trillion — three times the size of the Bush tax cuts — and would dramatically grow the budget deficit.
- Despite Jeb Bush’s claims of a “populist” approach, Jeb’s own plan would similarly use big cuts to capital gains taxes to benefit the wealthy few over the middle class. The increases in after tax-income would go to the top 1% — Jeb himself would receive a $800,000 after-tax boost. And to his dubious credit, he hasn’t tried to spin it, affirming: That’s “just the way it is.”
- Ted Cruz’s extremely regressive flat-tax proposal would require that middle-class income earners pay a greater percentage of their income than they do at present, but pad the pockets of his billionaire donors — increasing the the wealthiest’s after-tax income by 29.6%.
Published: Jan 28, 2016