The Tax Bill That Would Launch More Than 13,000 Yachts

The current congressional majority has made its priorities painfully clear. In 2017, the legislative calendar was dominated by an attempt to strip health care from millions of people in order to provide significant tax cuts to the wealthy. When that failed, Congress turned to a tax bill known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which was essentially a corrupt giveaway that provided massive windfalls to wealthy donors, special interests, and members of Congress themselves. The law will provide more than $84.7 billion in tax cuts to the top 1 percent of Americans in 2019, while increasing health insurance premiums for millions of people and resulting in nearly 9 million fewer people with coverage.

Many of the staffers who were most involved in the TCJA’s passage have left the Hill for lucrative jobs as lobbyists for the special interests to whom they provided special tax breaks. Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH), who helped draft the TCJA, left shortly after its passage to become the head of the Ohio Business Roundtable—many of whose members benefited substantially from the bill.

Perhaps the most ostentatious example of this corruption came from Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan (R). Rep. Buchanan sits on the House committee that was charged with drafting the TCJA—a bill that gave him millions of dollars in special tax breaks. On the same day that he voted to pass the bill, Rep. Buchanan purchased a brand new 73-foot yacht with a base price of nearly $3 million.

Since the tax bill’s passage, corporate profits have shot up by more than 13 percent, while wages have barely moved. While workers have seen virtually no benefits from the TCJA, wealthy donors have been extremely enthusiastic: The bill’s passage reportedly has resulted in tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from those who received tax breaks.

As the 2018 midterm elections approach, the U.S. House of Representatives is planning to provide even more giveaways to wealthy donors. Rather than focusing on boosting wages or reducing health care costs to help working families, the House majority is seeking to make expiring provisions in the TCJA permanent. This new proposal would be just as skewed to the rich as the TCJA and would lock in more loopholes and tax breaks that solely benefit the wealthiest Americans. In fact, in 2026 alone—the first year in which the new provisions would take effect—the proposed bill would provide more than $40.3 billion to the richest 1 percent of Americans. That’s enough to buy 13,476 new yachts every year, assuming they cost the same $2,995,000 as Buchanan’s yacht.

https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2018/09/12/171648/tax-bill-launch-13000-yachts/