Pittance for People as #TrumpTaxScam Permanently Cuts Corporate Tax Rate to 20%

The Republicans on Thursday morning released a new outline of their tax "scam" proposal which--among other giveaways to the rich and powerful--would permanently cut the corporate tax to 20 percent (down from its current 35 percent) and abolish the tax on wealthy estates while leaving low-income families and the middle class out in the cold.

Providing breaking analysis on social media, Chad Bolt, the policy manager for the advocacy group Indivisible, denounced the corporate tax cut as "HUGE" and pointed out that the broader proposal contained a "lot of scammy stuff" in terms of giveaways to businesses and the rich.

Here are the latest details, contained in a one-page sheet handed out during a closed-door meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday morning:

Among other outlets, both the New York Times and CNBC have breakdowns of the framework which lavishes benefits on corporations and wealthy people while offering crumbs to the middle class.

In response to its release, Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, an advocacy group comprised of high-wealth individuals who say the tax code already benefits people like them too much, slammed what the Republican leadership and President Donald Trump are proposing.

"When millionaires get a tax cut, the middle class pays," Pearl said in a statement. "These ridiculous public speeches about 'reform' are nothing but a cover up for a tax code that deposits a trillion and a half dollars into the bank accounts of the richest people in the country and then hands the bill to the middle class. This is the same group of people who just tried to take health care away from 20 million Americans. Now they're trying to rob the Treasury so they have an excuse to gut Medicare, Medicaid, education, and everything else that makes this country work."

Economist Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the proposal is build on preposterous growth assumptions and called it "hot mess" that's only getting "hotter by the minute."

As Igor Volsky, deputy director of policy at the Center for American Progress, explained there are four key ways in which the GOP plan directly benefits the nation's wealthiest:

What progressives say should be called a "tax scam" and not a "tax plan," according to Pearl, should be seen for what it is: a giveaway by Trump and the Republicans to their wealthy benefactors and the corporate forces that fund their campaigns.

"Speaker Paul Ryan and President Trump like to pretend this is some kind of economic philosophy. It is not," said Pearl. "It's a payoff to their millionaire friends and to Republican campaign contributors. Trickle down has never worked, it will never work, and it is embarrassing to the country that lawmakers continue to spread lies about the economic effects of their tax policies. Here is the truth: the billionaires who control Republican lawmakers want to live in a country with a tiny number of rich people, millions of poor people, and no middle class. They want special treatment. They think they deserve special treatment."