Ted Cruz urges White House to unilaterally cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy
We’re already running huge deficits during flush times for the U.S. economy — contrary to common sense and the advice of every reputable economist on the planet — but that shouldn’t stop us from delivering even more windfalls for the super-rich! Right?
That’s what Ted Cruz seems to think, anyway.
Who cares about climate change, a potentially ruinous trade war, or the fact that the pr*sident of the United States is a piggish, race-baiting gob of pumpkin guts? We’ve got to hand out more goodies to the people who need the least help! Or else what did Donald Trump dodge the Vietnam War for, anyway? So he could live a desperate, meaningless life wallowing in only moderately obscene wealth?
In a letter sent to Steve Mnuchin on Monday, the senator from Texas urged the Treasury Secretary to use his “authority” to index capital gains to inflation, a move that would almost exclusively benefit the mega-rich. Claiming, falsely, that the United States economy “has experienced historic levels of growth as a result of Congress and the current administration’s policies such as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” Cruz insists that it is now crucial for the Treasury Department to adjust capital gains for inflation “so that everyday Americans can continue to enjoy better lives and livelihoods.”
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Missing from Cruz’s call for Mnuchin to use “executive authority” to end this “unfair” treatment of taxpayers, which was signed by 20 of his Republican colleagues, is the fact that, according to the Penn Wharton Budget model, a whopping 86% of the benefit of indexing capital gains to inflation would go to the [top] 1 percent (and reduce annual tax revenue by an estimated $102 billion over a decade).
And even though — or, more likely, because — this is a horrible idea based on supply-side, trickle-down theories that have never actually panned out in real life, Donald Trump appears to be on board.
On the other hand, Trump has reportedly “told confidants…that he remains deeply invested in making the change,” and his National Economic Council chair, Larry Kudlow, has been pushing for it since he was hired.
So the same people who repeatedly called Barack Obama a dictator for signing an executive order establishing DACA now want the Trump administration to use executive authority to give extremely rich people a lot more money. Just because.
Ted Cruz must need an Ambien enema to get to sleep at night. Or else he has no soul. Then again, both could be true.
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