Dear Editor,

I read Sen. McConnell’s screed on taxes in the Nov. 25-26 Advocate-Messenger and I’ve never seen so many lies in one article. McConnell says that the Republican tax plan would put thousands of dollars into the paychecks of middle-class families. Moody’s Analytics calculates that 80 percent of the tax reductions go to corporations and the business pass-through provisions and only 20 percent accrue to individuals. And of that 20 percent, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center analysis projects that 50 percent of the benefits would go to the top 1 percent of income earners.

The big gainers would be corporations and the already rich. There is literally nothing in the plan for low- and middle-income earners. Mitch mentions the “doubling of the standard deduction,” but he doesn’t tell you that they do away with the $4,050 personal exemption and the additional $1,250 deduction for those over 65. So the result is almost a net wash. I calculated my family’s 2016 taxes under the new rules and we would gain a whopping $60!

Currently, the lowest tax bracket is 10 percent. The new lowest bracket would be 12 percent, for a 20-percent increase. The corporate tax rate is cut from 35 percent to 20 percent for a whopping 43-percent cut. And BTW, McConnell says that he will make up for that by “closing loopholes that only the wealthy know how to exploit.” So far, the corporate tax cuts are all in, but the loopholes remain. Today, the “effective” corporate tax rate is 18.6 percent. Under the new rules, that rate would drop by several percentage points. And the corporate tax rates are permanent. The personal tax changes expire or sunset after 10 years.

Other changes include the elimination of the deduction for state income and property taxes, the elimination of the deduction for medical expenses, the limitation of the home loan mortgage interest deduction, and the elimination of the deduction for student loan interest. Teachers would lose the $250 deduction for school supplies they purchase.

And the deficit that Republicans used to claim to care about would increase by at least $1.5 trillion! So the day after the tax “cuts” go into effect and the deficit increases, Republicans will declare, “Something has to be done.” And the something that they will suggest will be to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And of course, that was their diabolical plan all along. One can almost hear Mitch chuckling heh, heh, heh suckers.  

Jim Porter

Danville