Washington, D.C. — Seth Hanlon, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, released the following statement today after Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) delivered remarks on tax reform at a manufacturing summit in Washington, D.C.
Speaker Paul Ryan’s tax reform address today makes clear that Trumpcare is just the first step in an agenda of enacting massive tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations at the expense of middle-class and working families. If Trumpcare is enacted, then President Donald Trump, Speaker Ryan, and their colleagues in Congress will soon serve a second helping of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
Both the House GOP tax plan from last year and the Trump tax plan are heavily slanted toward people at the top of the income ladder, and both would cost trillions of dollars. Education, health care, and many other vital programs and investments that serve the middle and working class, in turn, will be on the chopping block.
The “Better Way” plan released last year would increase deficits by $3.1 trillion over 10 years—and a staggering 99.6 percent of those tax cuts go to the richest 1 percent of income earners after several years, according to the Tax Policy Center. If Speaker Ryan were interested in genuine tax reform, he would work across the aisle to close loopholes and use the resulting revenue to invest in education, infrastructure, and other priorities.
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