'Not One Penny' More Ads Target GOP Over Tax Cuts for Rich

Republican lawmakers who are up for re-election in 2018 are the targets of a new ad campaign by progressive groups behind the Not One Penny campaign, attacking the Republican tax reform plan as being a giveaway for lawmakers' wealthy donors.

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GOP leaders have said they'll push their tax reform agenda this fall, following the defeat of their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act--a proposal that would have taken health coverage away from tens of millions of people while eliminating Medicare taxes on income and investments for wealthy Americans.

Based on their rhetoric and what's known about their tax plan so far, the Republicans are focused intently on finding a way to deliver major tax cuts to corporations and the very rich when Congress returns from the August recess.

According to analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and the Tax Policy Center, middle-class Americans would shoulder the burden to pay for the tax cuts Republicans are proposing. "The spending cuts and tax increases needed to offset the cost of the tax cuts would cause their incomes to fall much more than they would gain from the tax cuts themselves," the CBPP wrote last week.

The Trump tax plan presented so far would have a net cost of $3.5 trillion over ten years. Half of the tax cuts would go to the top 1 percent of households and a fifth to the top 0.1 percent. That top 0.1 percent (whose annual incomes exceed $3.4 million) would get tax cuts totaling more than $900,000 a year on average, boosting their after-tax incomes by more than 13 percent. Low- and moderate-income families would see tax cuts that are much smaller in both dollar terms and as a share of their after-tax incomes.

"The American people are sick and tired of the wealthy and well-connected not paying their fair share," said Nicole Gill, a member of the coalition behind the ad campaign. "[We] will hold lawmakers accountable for trying to give even more tax breaks to billionaires and corporate insiders, while working American families foot the bill."

The ad campaign's accompanying website shows that like Trumpcare, the Trump tax reform plan will likely have little support among most Americans. Eighty-four percent of Americans favor raising taxes on the rich rather than lowering them, while 67 percent believe corporations pay too little in taxes.