[Vision2020] AFT Response to Trump's Tax "Reform"

[Nicholas Gier]

My national union president speaks out. See especially the bolded sentence
below.

nfg

*WASHINGTON*—AFT President Randi Weingarten released the following
statement responding to Donald Trump’s tax proposal:

“Everyone complains about taxes, but most of us want a tax code that is
fair. Donald Trump’s tax proposal just makes it worse. It diverts federal
funding from Medicare and Social Security for tax cuts for the wealthy.
Indeed, the only winners we can discern are corporations and the rich, as
‘Trumptax’ lowers their tax bracket while raising rates for those who are
the least well-off.

“By enshrining a loophole that lets hedge fund billionaires pay a lower tax
rate than their secretaries, this proposal would further rig the economy in
favor of the wealthy. And cutting the deductions for state and local taxes
is catastrophic to every community and state that has invested in its
schools and other services.

“This plan reflects what has been the president’s modus operandi since his
campaign—promising to help working people but then hurting them by his
administration’s actions. *Income redistribution is a ‘third rail’ for many
Republicans, but I guess not when that money is given to their rich
friends.*

“The president’s plan seems tailor-made to benefit himself and his
businesses, but we don’t know because he hasn’t released his taxes.
Trumpcare was defeated because millions of Americans rose up to stop
attacks on the most vulnerable. Unless the president is prepared to work
with Democrats and sensible Republicans on real tax reform that improves
working people’s lives and ends handouts for the wealthy and corporations,
today’s Trumptax plan will either catastrophically hurt working families
or, hopefully, suffer the same fate as Trumpcare.”

# # # #

The AFT represents 1.7 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers;
paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education
faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government
employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.
-- 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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