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The Progressive

NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release

The Art of the Scam: Trump Threatens Cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid to Pay for More Tax Cuts for the Rich

In a

WASHINGTON

In a televised interview early today, President Trump, when asked about "entitlement" programs, said he would "take a look at" so-called "entitlement" programs later this year and called it "the easiest of all things, if you look."

If there was any confusion about what that means, Trump in answer to a question acknowledged he "was willing to do some of the things" he "said he wouldn't do in the past"--a clear allusion to Trump's promise in 2015 never to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

"President Trump and the GOP can't seem to help themselves: their core goal is to cut taxes for the rich and corporations, then turn around and try to pay for those cuts by slashing vital public services working families depend on and have spent years paying into," said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness. "But this time the American people are wise to the trick and won't put up with it."

Yesterday, Trump said he was planning to unveil new tax cuts within the next 90 days. He described the cuts as for the "middle class," but that's how he described the 2017 tax cuts as well, and this year under that law the top 1% on average got a tax cut 75 times bigger than the bottom 80%.

"We've seen this scam before, when Trump proposed budgets in 2018 and 2019 that would have slashed Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to make up for the nearly $2 trillion in extra debt created by tax cuts largely for the rich and corporations contained in the Trump-GOP tax scam," added Clemente.

Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is a diverse campaign of more than 420 national, state and local endorsing organizations united in support of a fair tax system that works for all Americans. It has come together based on the belief that the country needs comprehensive, progressive tax reform that results in greater revenue to meet our growing needs. This requires big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, not to live by their own set of rules.

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