{"id":430,"date":"2018-03-01T21:07:57","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T02:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=430"},"modified":"2018-03-03T21:15:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T02:15:03","slug":"taxpayers-youve-been-scammed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=430","title":{"rendered":"Taxpayers, You\u2019ve Been Scammed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Paul Krugman<\/a>\u00a0

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President Trump with the just-signed tax law in December.<\/span>\u00a0Credit<\/span>Doug Mills\/The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So you go out for dinner with a wealthy acquaintance. \u201cI\u2019ll take care of everything,\u201d he says, and orders you a hamburger. Then he orders himself an expensive steak and a bottle of wine, which he doesn\u2019t share. And when the waiter comes with the check, he points at you and says, \u201cCharge it to his credit card.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now you understand the essence of the Trump tax cut, signed into law a little over two months ago.<\/p>\n

The key thing you need to know is that right now the U.S. government has no business cutting taxes. We need more revenue, not less.<\/p>\n

Why? The federal government, as an old line says, is a giant insurance company with an army. Most of its costs come from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid \u2014 and all three programs are becoming more expensive as ever more baby boomers\u00a0reach retirement age<\/a>. This means that unless we cut back sharply on benefits that middle-class Americans count on, we will need to raise more revenue than in the past.<\/p>\n

Yet even before the tax cut, federal tax receipts were\u00a0looking weak<\/a>\u00a0for an economy with low unemployment and a rising stock market \u2014 for example, far lower as a percentage of G.D.P. than the tax take during the Clinton boom of the 1990s, and even a bit lower than they were at the end of the Bush-era expansion. The tax cut will push them lower still. Something will have to give.<\/p>\n

And we already know what will give, if Republicans get their way: programs that benefit working Americans. In fact, the usual suspects like Paul Ryan were talking about the need for \u201centitlement reform<\/a>\u201d \u2014 meaning cuts in Medicare and Medicaid \u2014 to reduce deficits even as they were passing a huge tax cut that will make those deficits much worse.<\/p>\n

Hence my analogy about the guy who \u201cgives\u201d you a hamburger, then bills it to your credit card. Ryan celebrated the tax cut with a\u00a0<\/span>tweet about a teacher<\/a>saving $1.50 a week on her taxes; that\u2019s like saying you should feel grateful for a \u201cgift\u201d that\u2019s actually being charged to your own credit card. How\u2019s that $75-a-year saving going to look when the teacher finds out that, partly because of that tax cut, her mother\u2019s Medicare plan has been converted into an inadequate voucher system and Medicaid won\u2019t pay for her father\u2019s nursing home care?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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