Mitch McConnell Tricked Into Admitting He Just Wants to Cut Taxes for the Rich

Mitch McConnell Tricked Into Admitting He Just Wants to Cut Taxes for the Rich
By Jonathan Chait August 1, 2017


Senate Democrats — or 45 of them, anyway — have published a letter outlining their criteria to support tax reform. One of the criteria is inconsequential: They want to pass the bill through regular legislation rather than budget reconciliation. (That’s kind of meaningless, since the only point of reconciliation right now is to avoid having to get Democratic votes.) The other two demands are substantive: The bill must be revenue neutral, and it must not deliver a net tax cut to the highest-earning one percent.

But Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell announced tonight that, because of the letter, he has no intention of working with Democrats, and will instead try to assemble 51 Republican votes for a reconciliation bill.

McConnell himself has said that he favors a revenue-neutral tax reform. (Don’t believe me? Mitch McConnell, May 16: “It will have to be revenue neutral.”) So that means, by process of elimination, that the unacceptable condition is the Democrats’ insistence that tax reform not give rich people a net tax cut.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/mcconnell-tricked-into-admitting-he-wants-tax-cuts-for-rich.html