Republicans finally seemed to have their act together to jam through a plan to cut taxes for billionaires and corporations and raise them on millions of middle-class households. They were lining up the votes and they were ready. And then, once again, Republicans ran into problems on one of their own major priorities. Problems like it turned out that the trigger provision needed to secure some Republican votes is against the rules that allow Republicans to pass a bill with 50 rather than 60 votes. Problems like the fact that the plan will not pay for itself through economic growth, the Joint Tax Committee announced Thursday. And as they cope with that chaos—scrambling through the night to fix a bill almost no one has actually seen—they’re relying on the public not noticing that paying for this plan will mean slashing Medicare and shredding the safety net, unless this same dysfunctional Congress passes a fix:
The GOP’s $1.5 trillion tax plan would trigger $150 billion in cuts to domestic programs every year for a decade if Congress doesn’t step in, according to the CBO. That would include $25 billion from the money Medicare pays health care providers.
"You’re likely to have doctors who will see less patients; you’re likely to have hospitals and other health care facilities cut back on certain services,” said David Certner, legislative counsel for the AARP, which has loudly opposed cutting Medicare. “It really affects the program.”
Congress could stop those cuts to going into effect by waiving the pay-as-you-go rule that requires Congress to offset the cost of giant tax breaks for billionaires. But that would require Democratic votes, and while Democrats sure don’t want to cut Medicare, it’s less clear that they want to bail out the Republican tax plan. The promise that this problem will be made to disappear, though, is crucial to at least one Republican vote. Guess who:
[Susan] Collins, a key moderate holdout on the tax bill, said she received a personal assurance from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday that the cuts would be waived — one day after she threatened to oppose the bill over the severe reductions. She said House Speaker Paul Ryan had made the same promise.
And Collins believed them—or at least, is willing to say she did in her ongoing quest to justify voting for this stinking mess of a giveaway to giant corporations and the wealthiest individuals.
Jam your senators' phone lines at (202) 224-3121. Tell them to vote "no" on the Republican tax bill.
