Senator Brown - Let’s Cut Middle Class Taxes

Photo from Wikipedia

If we want to cut taxes for the middle class, let’s cut taxes for the middle class.

This latest attempt by Republicans in Congress to turn what should be a bipartisan effort to cut middle class taxes into a backdoor repeal of the Affordable Care Act is shameful.

Instead of cutting taxes for working people, this bill takes away Ohioans’ healthcare and cuts the Medicare they have paid into for years – all to pay for tax cuts for corporations that send Ohio jobs overseas.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed that Senate Republicans’ supposed tax bill would cause 13 million people to lose their insurance and raise insurance premiums for Ohioans by about 10 percent each year.

And if that weren’t bad enough, the current Republican proposal would hike taxes on middle-class families in 2027, and encourage more corporations to ship Ohio jobs overseas.

During a Finance Committee hearing last week, I questioned one of the expert witnesses directly about the ways this bill encourages outsourcing, asking him, “the tax incentive is to move jobs out of the United States under this bill. Correct?” And the witness responded, “there seems to be an incentive under the Chairman’s mark to achieve a lower tax rate by having manufacturing outside the U.S.”

This is no way to reform our tax code.

We should be encouraging companies to create good-paying jobs at home – not giving them special tax treatment for shipping Ohio jobs to China or Mexico, while taking healthcare away from families and raising premiums for Ohioans.

I’ve offered to work with Republicans for months now. I met with President Trump and offered him ideas. And I filed amendments to the Senate bill to increase tax cuts for the middle class. My door has been open, and it continues to be open.

The best way to cut taxes on the middle class is to cut taxes for the middle class.

Instead of giving money to outsourcing corporations, and hoping some of it ends up in the pockets of working people, let’s cut out the middle man and give the money directly to working people.
Sherrod