'Unprecedented Handout': Senate GOP Tax Bill Even More Regressive Than House Version
That's $3,093 morethan they would receive under the House GOP bill, according to Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-Ore.) office, which in a statement Wednesday described the Republican budget package as "an unprecedented handout to big corporations and the wealthy paid for by stealing from typical families and driving millions of Americans into hardship and misery."
By contrast, an average family earning $30,000 per year would get a tax break of just $108 under the Senate GOP plan, according to JCT—$51 less than the family would receive under the House-passed bill. (The JCT analysis does not account for the devastating impact that the GOP's proposed cuts to Medicaid and nutrition assistance would have on low-income households.)
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Wednesday that "Senate Republicans apparently saw the House Republican tax plan as a challenge, because their version of this bill is an even bigger rip-off."
"This bill will give the ultra-wealthy annual tax breaks of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but low-income families will be lucky to get enough to cover groceries for a week," said Wyden. "The reality is, this Republican plan will drive the vulnerable into misery and drag down the middle class for the benefit of big corporations and the rich. It's getting worse with every rewrite."
The Senate GOP tax package is expected to cost $4.2 trillion over the next decade, notwithstanding Republicans' attempted use of budget gimmicks to dramatically understate the measure's projected deficit impact. Senate Republicans have argued that because the 2017 Trump-GOP tax cuts are "current policy," it wouldn't cost anything to extend them.
"Don't believe Republicans when they try and float their 'magic math' to claim this bill will only cost a fraction of what it will really cost," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said Tuesday. "It's fiscally reckless and dishonest. This is the Great Betrayal of working families where families lose, and billionaires win."
JCT's breakdown of the highly regressive distributional effects of the Senate GOP tax plan broadly aligns with outside analyses. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), 69% of the net tax cuts under the Senate proposal would go to the richest fifth of Americans during the legislation's first year in effect.
"There are plenty of technical differences between the House and Senate versions of this legislation, but the bottom line for both is the same," said ITEP federal policy director Steve Wamhoff. "Both bills give more tax cuts to the richest 1% than to the entire bottom 60% of Americans and both bills particularly favor high-income people living in more conservative states."
