GOP congressman gave himself a tax cut, then immediately bought a yacht

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) couldn’t wait to take advantage of the $2.1 million kickback he was giving himself when he voted for the Republican tax scam.

So he bought himself a multi-million dollar yacht on the very same day as the vote.

“Buchanan spent between $1 million and $5 million purchasing an Ocean Alexander yacht on Nov. 16, 2017, the same day he joined 226 other Republicans and no Democrats in voting in favor of the ‘Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,'” reports Florida Politics.

The financial disclosure form Buchanan filed only required a broad range of the cost of the yacht, but his new boat “likely trended toward the higher end of the reported range given that Ocean Alexander’s least expensive model — the 70-foot 70E Motoryacht — has a base price of $3.25 million,” according to Florida Politics.

Buchanan is worth a reported $73 million, and the tax scam was written to be a boon for the wealthy. In fact, more than 80 percent of the benefits eventually ended up in the bank accounts of the richest 1 percent of Americans.

“It’s no secret to his constituents that he has lived the American Dream,” a Buchanan spokesperson said in response to reports of his yacht purchase. He just voted to make his dream a little dreamier, it seems.

Buchanan, of course, wasn’t the only wealthy beneficiary of his vote.

Rich corporations are lavishing wealthy Wall Street investors with record levels of stock buybacks and dividends which “help enrich corporate executives, whose compensation is often linked to their share price,” reports CNN.

Workers, meanwhile, are getting left behind. Most Americans report that they have not seen any increase in their paycheck whatsoever — let alone enough to purchase a luxury yacht.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) was roundly mocked after touting a woman who will receive an additional $1.50 per week due to the tax scam. If she saved every penny of that, it would take her more than 41,000 years to be able to afford Ocean Alexander’s least expensive yacht model.

Even though the rich are getting richer, the tax scam won’t do much for the overall economy. In fact, the economic boost from the tax scam may be “as small as zero,” according to a new report from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

And the tax scam will add close to $2 trillion to the national deficit, passing along mounting debt to the next generation.

Meanwhile, Buchanan is doing his level best to keep the luxury yacht industry afloat.

While Buchanan works hard to ensure the wealthiest 1 percent are able to afford expensive new toys, he seems much less concerned with people on the other end of the economic spectrum.

Months after his multi-million spending spree, Buchanan cast a vote in the House of Representatives to take away SNAP, or food stamp benefits, from more than two million people — many of whom are low-income working families with children.

Maybe some of those children can get a part-time job cleaning Buchanan’s yacht to help make ends meet.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.