Check stats related to tax bill

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After reading a recent email from Senator Rob Portman, I got interested in to what extent the statistics he cited in regard to the tax cut bill were distorted by ideology. What I found was in line with the level of duplicity we now expect to come out of the Trump administration or through its various mouthpieces. I noticed, too, that Portman’s email made no mention of the fact that as meager as tax relief would be for middle income and poor people through the legislation that may be about to become law, that relief would be phased out. There are no such phase outs for the “relief” extended to the wealthy.

Portman cited a $2,375 tax cut for the “typical American family.” Portman’s figure was drawn from “The Tax Foundation,” a conservative, pro-business advocacy group that can be counted on to favor any legislation that advances tax cuts for the wealthy, regardless of the consequences and regardless of effects to the deficit. Don’t take my word for it, and certainly don’t believe ideologically driven Senators and advocacy groups whose very existence depends on funding from wealthy people and corporations destined to benefit the most from the pending tax legislation. Figure that numbers calculated by the Tax Policy Center and the Congressional Budget Office, both non-partisan, are far more credible: these non-partisan sources have no reason to lie. Both of these groups have calculated that the overwhelming majority of benefit derived from the tax cuts will go to the super wealthy, not the middle class.

The frequency with which we have to deal with lies coming out of the mouths of politicians, particularly Trump, and the audacity of those lies makes reasonable seeming people like Portman credible in comparison. But, Portman, too, must have those donor contributions coming in. He has a good job, and he wants to keep it. When he and his Republican colleagues represent the tax legislation as a boon for the middle class, no matter how sweetly they are smiling, they are lying.

Daniel Morrison,

Delaware

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