On the recordNovember 16, 2017
I thank the gentleman for yielding and for all of his work he has done over the years. The Republican tax bill is built on massive deception. The deception is that, as the Speaker put it: ``The focus is on middle class tax relief.'' That is simply not true. As the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said, roughly one out of every four Americans with income between $50,000 and $100,000 would pay higher taxes in 2023, far overshadowing the $1,000 or so for other families. In 2019, those earning over $1 million would get an average tax cut of $73,000. Even as modified in last-minute desperation, the wealthiest would receive 90 percent of the new tax break for so-called passthrough income. Another deception is that tax breaks pay for themselves. On this, some people may have been in the past fooled once, fewer twice, but none thrice. A further deception is that exploding the deficit and national debt to $1.7 trillion will disappear as it promotes growth. Not only is this a 180-degree Republican turn, but it threatens Medicare and other critical programs and will worsen the vast inequalities in income and wealth in America. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. In this case, Republican political necessity is the mother of desperation and deception.
