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jason smith
Little-Noticed Hearing Lays Bare GOP Push for 'Massive New Giveaway to the Ultra-Wealthy'
"American families are set up to lose because President-elect Trump and his congressional allies are eager to raise our costs in order to help their wealthy donor friends."
Jan 15, 2025
Republicans on the House's chief tax-writing committee made clear during a hearing Tuesday that their top priority is making permanent the massive giveaway to the rich that Donald Trump and the GOP pushed through in 2017.
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said during his opening remarks at Tuesday's hearing that "we must make the Trump tax cuts permanent as soon as possible."
While most of the corporate tax breaks in the 2017 law were made permanent from the start, provisions impacting individuals—including the cut to the top marginal tax rate—are set to expire at the end of this year without congressional action. Trump and Republicans have also called for a further reduction of the statutory corporate tax rate.
"As of today, we have only 142 legislative days before taxes will go up for every single American if Congress fails to act," Smith declared Tuesday.
Smith characterized the 2017 tax cuts as a boon for ordinary Americans, but the law's benefits were heavily skewed to the wealthiest.
The same would be true of an extension of the individual tax cuts, which is expected to be part of a sprawling party-line reconciliation bill. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy noted in a recent analysis that "Trump's plan to make most of the temporary provisions of his 2017 tax law permanent would disproportionately benefit the richest Americans."
"No amount of misinformation can hide the truth: This massive new giveaway to the ultra-wealthy and giant corporations comes at the expense of working and middle-class Americans."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the committee, said at Tuesday's hearing that "when Republicans inevitably tell you that the GOP tax scam gave everyone in America a tax break, remember this one contextualized fact: Extending the law gives people making over $1 million a year a $78,717 average tax cut—288 times higher than the $273 those earning under $50,000 would receive."
"Those millionaires won't feel the effects of cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, or higher premium costs, but America's working families sure will," Neal added, referring to the GOP's plan to slash key aid programs to help offset the enormous cost of extending the 2017 tax breaks.
.@RepRichardNeal is right. Congressional Republicans are standing up for the strongest and wealthiest, all at OUR expense. We need relief from the 2017 Trump tax code, not more of it. pic.twitter.com/8gd6KvfFnb
— Accountable.US (@accountable_us) January 14, 2025
Tuesday's committee hearing was overshadowed by the closely watched Senate questioning of Trump's nominee to lead the Pentagon, but it confirmed that Republicans intend to waste no time delivering another round of tax cuts to rich Americans who saw their wealth explode under the 2017 law.
"Last time Trump and the GOP held a trifecta, they moved fast to create new tax breaks rewarding wealthy corporations for moving jobs overseas and harming hard-working families across the country," David Kass, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness, said in a statement Tuesday. "Now, they're working to pass new tax breaks that will allow these same powerful corporations to evade paying their fair share and eliminate American jobs."
"The disastrous effects of the Trump tax scam are not theoretical—they're reality," Kass added. "It didn't raise wages for everyday people or protect our jobs and it certainly didn't pay for itself. Instead, it doubled billionaire wealth and added over $1.5 trillion to the deficit. No amount of misinformation can hide the truth: This massive new giveaway to the ultra-wealthy and giant corporations comes at the expense of working and middle-class Americans."
Trump and the GOP's aggressive push for a new round of tax cuts received a boost from the deep-pocketed Koch network, which is pumping tens of millions of dollars into a nationwide campaign to build support for a proposal that would predominately reward a small sliver of the U.S. population.
"If asked to choose between healthcare and food for low-income kids or tax cuts for giant corporations, Chairman Jason Smith and the Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee are proving that ten times out of ten, they'll choose the corporate giants," said Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US. "American families are set up to lose because President-elect Trump and his congressional allies are eager to raise our costs in order to help their wealthy donor friends."
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Tlaib Is a 'No' on Tax Breaks for Rich to Get 'Crumbs' for the Poorest
"This deal falls short, and will only reach a fraction of the most vulnerable," said the congresswoman of a tax deal set to be voted on Wednesday.
Jan 31, 2024
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib is calling on her fellow Democrats to "stay at the table and demand a better deal for our children" instead of supporting the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, a bill that pairs a partial expansion of the child tax credit with major tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, which was expected to reach the House floor for a vote Wednesday evening.
Tlaib (D-Mich.) echoed the concerns of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a longtime champion of an expanded child tax credit (CTC), saying Democrats and Republicans have negotiated a bill that "gives billions of dollars in tax breaks to the rich, while leaving behind millions of children living in poverty."
A number of progressive groups have joined Republicans in calling for the passage of the bill (H.R. 7024), which was negotiated by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), but Tlaib and DeLauro have each analyzed the legislation and found that while it offers an average of $57,530 in tax breaks for the richest 0.1% of Americans, the poorest 20% of households would receive just $60 in tax credits.
"Our families deserve so much better than a bill that trades massive tax breaks for the richest Americans for crumbs for a fraction of the poorest children in our country. In the first year, the richest 120,000 households would get a larger share of the tax benefits than the bottom 88 million families," said Tlaib.
Like DeLauro, Tlaib said Democrats should not accept the CTC provisions in H.R. 7024 after seeing the transformative difference the American Rescue Plan (ARP) made in U.S. poverty rates in 2021.
Childhood poverty was slashed by 30% by the enhanced CTC included in the ARP, reaching 61 million children and allowing their parents and guardians to pay for groceries, childcare, and other essentials.
"This deal falls short, and will only reach a fraction of the most vulnerable," said Tlaib.
With Republicans insisting on minimum income and work requirements for the CTC, the provision in H.R. 7024 leaves out the poorest families while ensuring households that earn up to $400,000 per year get a $2,000 credit.
Meanwhile, said Tlaib, "corporations who are already dodging paying their fair share of taxes" will benefit from "another handout" if the legislation is passed.
"For example, Meta—a company making tens of billions in profits—would see its effective tax rate drop from 25% to -2% under this bill," said the congresswoman. "Working families in my district should never be paying higher taxes than the richest companies on Earth. I cannot support a bill that deepens wealth inequality and economic injustice to benefit the richest Americans and corporations."
Tlaib called on Congress to pass the End Child Poverty Act, which would implement a "universal child benefit" of $428 per child, per month to all families "so that nobody is left behind."
"This universal child benefit proposal would dramatically simplify our nation's child benefit system and provide financial security for all families when they have a child," said Matt Bruenig, founder of the People’s Policy Project, last year when Tlaib introduced the legislation.
Bruenig's group found that Tlaib's proposal would cut child poverty by 61%, the deepest child poverty by 93%, and overall poverty rates in the U.S. by 26%.
"We need real solutions," said Tlaib on Wednesday, "not more tax breaks for the rich."
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DeLauro Pours Cold Water on Child Credit Boost in Exchange for Corporate Tax Giveaway
"At a time when a majority of American voters believe tax on big corporations should be increased, there is no reason we should be providing corporations a tax cut while only giving families pennies," said the lawmaker.
Jan 30, 2024
Some economic justice groups this week are pushing for the passage of a $78 billion bipartisan tax package that includes an expansion of the child tax credit—but one lawmaker who has made the credit one of her signature issues for years said Monday that the legislation does not go far enough to support families in need, especially considering the corporate tax breaks it includes.
As U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the bill is expected to come to the House floor this week under "suspension of the rules," an expedited maneuver requiring the approval of two-thirds of members for passage, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said the bill "fails on equity" and leaves out too many struggling American families.
DeLauro released a fact sheet showing how the bill, negotiated by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), "falls far short of comparing to the gains made under the American Rescue Plan (ARP)," which in 2021 helped slash childhood poverty by about 30% with its inclusion of an enhanced child tax credit (CTC).
With Republicans insisting on work and minimum income requirements for the version of the CTC included in the tax package—to "safeguard" against undocumented immigrants and "ineligible persons" benefiting from the bill, according to the House Ways and Means Committee—"families with little-to-no income are left behind from the full child tax credit, while allowing a single parent making $200,000 or a married couple making $400,000 to receive the full $2,000 credit," notes DeLauro's fact sheet.
The ARP included all but the highest earners in the enhanced CTC, which increased the maximum credit amount to $3,000-$3,600 per child depending on the child's age and issued half of the credit on a monthly basis, enabling families to use the money for everyday necessities.
Falling short of the credit amount included in the ARP, the Wyden-Smith plan would afford families a maximum of $2,100 per child and would not provide payments to families on a monthly basis.
The tax deal is estimated to lift "up to 400,000 kids" out of poverty, said DeLauro, while "93% of kids in the lowest quintile (the poorest 1/5th of children in the country) will continue to be left behind—meaning they will not receive the full credit."
Last week DeLauro called on her fellow Democrats to "fight to ensure our families aren't sold out for profits" and told The Connecticut Mirror the bill has "serious room for improvement."
While falling short on providing economic support for families paying for groceries, childcare, healthcare, and other essentials, the Wyden-Smith deal "locks in $600 billion in tax cuts for businesses," according to Smith.
The GOP aims to make those cuts permanent, making the three-year cost "four times higher than the child tax credit," DeLauro noted.
"This is not parity," said the congresswoman, adding that a research and development tax credit for corporations will be made retroactive "under the guise of incentivizing R&D."
"It is virtually impossible to incentivize action for anything retroactively," said DeLauro. "While the CTC phases-in, corporations will get their tax cuts on the first dollar. Families will not be getting any additional child tax credit retroactively to 2022, like the corporations are."
The tax deal "delivers huge tax cuts for giant corporations while denying middle-class families the economic security they had under the expanded, monthly child tax credit," said DeLauro. "It also leaves the poorest families behind because of a policy choice. At a time when a majority of American voters believe tax on big corporations should be increased, there is no reason we should be providing corporations a tax cut while only giving families pennies."
The Pew Research Center found last year that 61% of Americans feel corporations don't pay their fair share. Nearly two-thirds said tax rates on large corporations should be raised; 39% said by "a lot," while 26% said by "a little" and just 14% said they should be lowered.
Some of DeLauro's colleagues have suggested any expansion of the CTC should be passed, with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) tellingThe Mirror he was "less than ecstatic" that the credit is not completely expanded but that he would "rather see this provision enacted than none at all."
Another Connecticut Democrat, Sen. Chris Murphy, said he would consult "the mother of the child tax credit"—DeLauro.
"I'm going to continue to work to improve this legislation before it's considered on the House floor because I believe that families and children need a strong child tax credit," DeLauro told the outlet. "I'm opposed to this bill in its current form. Corporations get everything they asked for and children got pennies."
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