Trump calls middle-class tax hikes a "giant present for Christmas"

As part of the desperate effort to push the GOP’s tax scam bill through before the holidays, Donald Trump ridiculously claimed that the bill passed by the Senate last week is a “Christmas present.”

It was far from the first time he’s used the phrase, having repeatedly referred to the bill as a “Christmas present” for months.

Of course, the only people who might see it that way are wealthy families — like his own — and corporations. For the rest of American, the impact of the bill will be devastating. 87 million families would get a tax increase, while a tiny percentage of rich families would get even more money through the elimination of the estate tax.

Not that the Republican Party wanted anyone to truly know that. They passed the bill in the middle of the night Friday, giving no time for real hearings or for Democratic lawmakers to even read it.

Mere hours before they held their vote, Republicans handed out copies of their nearly 500 page bill covered in largely illegible scribbles — because heaven forbid anyone actually know what’s in the bill that was shaped by hundreds of lobbyists.

And in the wake of that devious late-night attack on millions of working Americans, and as the bill gets ever closer to becoming law, Trump is still insisting that he is basically Santa Claus, even though the only homes he’ll be visiting are mansions and executive suites of skyscrapers.

During remarks in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday, where Trump gleefully signed bills shrinking the size of two national monuments, he pulled out the Christmas present line again.

I want to especially thank you for the tremendous work in ushering massive tax cuts and reform through the Senate, just happened, and we have a final step to go and I predict we’re going to be very successful. Talking about massive, massive tax cuts. It’s tax cuts and reform, but I always mention tax cuts first, because that’s what people like to hear. We’re now one huge step closer to delivering to the American people the historic tax relief as a giant present for Christmas. Remember I said we’re bringing Christmas back. Christmas is back, bigger and better than ever before. We’re bringing Christmas back.

Of course, Christmas never actually went anywhere, but far be it from Trump to care about something like a calendar.

And in fact, by inflicting huge tax hikes on the middle class and chipping away at Obamacare, Trump is doing precisely the opposite for tens of millions of people across the country.

But this cruel hypocrisy fits right in with Republican ideology, such as Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s insistence that poor and middle-income people shouldn’t be given tax breaks because they would just spend the money on “booze or women or movies.” And as Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch admitted, the giveaways to the wealthy mean there’s no money to help sick kids with cancer.

The tax scam bill is nothing more than the legislative equivalent of a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking. Trump can call it a gift all he wants, but the only people who will be happy to unwrap it are those who already have all the gifts they need.