"Intergenerational class warfare": Economists expose GOP’s heartless plot to hurt parents

The White House has been pushing the scheme with debunked “trickle down” talking points and outright lies about who would benefit from it, to try to hide just how damaging the bill would be for millions of Americans.

And Republican leadership has taken to simply lying about the impact it would have on middle-class families and the economy, while many in the party also flat-out admit it’s nothing but an intentional giveaway to their wealthy donors.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said in September that he was “really excited” to be raising taxes on working families in order to give the rich and their children — like, say, the Trump kids — even more money.

And now, economists have exposed the appalling depth and breadth of the damage the GOP’s plot would do to millions of families with kids — 22 million families, to be precise, roughly half the projected total at the time the tax hikes would take effect.

Meanwhile, the scheme calls for the elimination of the estate tax, which applies only to a tiny, extremely wealthy fraction of families in the country.

As eminent economist, professor, and columnist for The New York Times Paul Krugman put it plainly, this is nothing but “intergenerational class warfare” being waged by the wealthy elites in the GOP against hard-working American families.

Somehow even I hadn't fully taken this on board. House tax bill eliminates taxes on large estates, but raises taxes on HALF of families with children. This is intergenerational class warfare https://t.co/z6vG3olke5

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 12, 2017

Ernie Tedeschi, a former senior adviser and economist at the Treasury Department’s Office of Economic Policy, ran the numbers on what the tax scam would mean for families who don’t have enough money for the Republicans to care about them.

What he found is nothing short of galling (emphasis original):

I find that under the TCJA as written, 22 million families with children would see a tax hike in 2027 versus current law. This includes the indirect effects of the corporate income tax cut, but assumes that the filer credits expire in 2023.

That 22 million figure is almost exactly half of the 44 million total families with kids projected for 2027.

22 million American families will see their taxes raised if the Republican Party — the supposed party of “family values” — manages to force this scam through Congress.

But a small number of wealthy families will get a little more money stuffed into their already-fattened coffers.

Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis recently called out this scheme for exactly what it is:

This tax cut legislation does not make the tax code any simpler or any fairer. This bill is a slap in the face to real people.

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) November 6, 2017

This spiteful, irresponsible tax cut is not worth the paper on which it is written.

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) November 6, 2017

But to Trump and the GOP, anything that gives them and their wealthy friends and relatives more money is worth whatever devastation it may bring to anyone else’s family — all 22 million of them.