stock market

Republicans want to stop subsidizing Americans who benefit from government-funded health programs. But by far the greatest American subsidies go to the millionaires, the 10% of Americans who own 93 percent of the stock market.

That's in part because of the so-called tax expenditures, which include mortgage deductions, interest and dividend exclusions, and reduced rates on capital gains, and which go almost entirely to the 13.7% of Americans who report enough income to itemize their taxes. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "the cost of all federal income tax expenditures was higher than..the combined cost of Medicare and Medicaid."

A 2015 NBER study found that 70 percent of federal spending on housing was in the form of tax-based deductions that largely benefit the rich. Families with expensive homes can take a tax break of up to a half-million dollars when they decide to sell. And the wealthiest among us can take a mortgage interest deduction for a second home, which might even be a yacht.

Yet while the millionaires subsidize their estates, the proposed Republican budget would make drastic cuts to low-income housing programs.

Daddy-Made Millionaires

It gets worse. The tax designers have figured out how to gift their heirs with billions in redirected tax revenue. In a massive subsidy for the super-rich, the tax code includes a so-called stepped-up provision which allows the super-rich to leave much of their multi-trillion-dollar stock market fortunes to their children with all the accumulated gains magically erased, and thus, in many instances, without a single dollar in taxes coming due.

If daddy and mommy's stock has grown from $10 to $100 over the years, the kids won't pay any taxes on that $90 gain, and society's potential revenue is wiped out. As baby boomers age and pass away, more and more privileged children will become accidental millionaires.

Yet while the kids of millionaires skip out on taxes, Republicans want to take food stamp benefits away from millions of poor kids.

Subsidies on American Lives

With regard to big business subsidies, economist Dean Baker says: "These government-granted monopolies likely transfer more than $1 trillion a year ($8,000 per household) from the rest of us to [those] in a position to benefit from them. In 1980 we were spending about 0.4 percent of GDP...on prescription drugs and other pharmaceutical products. Currently we spend more than 2.3 percent of GDP."

Big Pharma welfare forces us to pay much more than other countries for our medicine. According to The National Library of Medicine, "In 2022, U.S. prices across all drugs (brands and generics) were nearly three times as high as prices in 33 OECD comparison countries....In 2022, U.S. prices for insulin products were nearly ten times as high as prices in 33 OECD comparison countries."

And taking the pain to an absurd extreme, Forbes reports that "Sovaldi (a breakthrough treatment for hepatitis C) cost $84,000 for a 12-week course when it was initially launched in the U.S. In contrast, the same treatment is available in other countries, such as India, for less than $1,000."

Yet while medication for the elderly becomes evermore expensive, Republicans have proposed the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, taking health insurance away from millions of Americans.

Republicans: It's Good to Lose Your Medicaid

House Speaker Mike Johnson said, "Work is good for you. You find dignity in work." Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said, "It’s not kicking people off Medicaid..It’s transitioning from Medicaid to employer-provided health care."

Condescending enough?

Republicans say they only want to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. To do this they're wasting lives, defrauding their constituents, and abusing the privilege of leadership.