Press Releases

Santa Barbara, CA – Today, as Central Coast residents file their 2017 taxes, Rep. Salud Carbajal (CA-24) slammed the GOP tax plan’s $2 trillion giveaway to multi-national corporations and the wealthiest one percent of Americans.

Republicans have now signaled their intention to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Socials Security programs to finance their TAX SCAM. Carbajal recently spoke on the House Floor and voted against the irresponsible Balanced Budget Amendment that would have triggered crippling cuts to Medicare and Social Security, which failed to pass the House of Representatives.

“Republicans are now using the $2 trillion in additional deficits created by their misguided tax plan, to justify ransacking Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs that Central Coast families and seniors rely on,” said Rep. Carbajal. “They promised their tax cuts would pay for themselves and translate to wage growth for workers. Instead, corporate executives are benefiting themselves with bonuses and stock buybacks while tacking trillions of dollars to our deficit.”

Recent reports and analyses of the GOP tax plan have detailed the immense windfalls going to multinational corporations, while middle-class families are left behind:

• Wealthy corporations are reaping massive windfalls from the giveaways in the GOP tax scam, with almost two-thirds of the corporate windfall from the GOP tax scam being spent on buybacks, dividends, mergers and acquisitions, according to Morgan Stanley. Just 13 percent would go toward bonuses and raises.  Many corporations pocketing massive windfalls from the tax scam are actually laying off thousands of workers.
• Pharmaceutical companies are hoarding multi-billion dollar GOP tax scam payouts, spending tens of billions on buybacks to enrich wealthy shareholders while continuing to raise drug prices on seniors and families.
• Deficits from the GOP tax scam continue to grow, as last week the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the Republican tax bill will add even more to deficits than originally estimated: now nearly $2 trillion.  

Calculations from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center show that, nationwide, the GOP tax plan will ultimately raise taxes on 86 million middle class families and hand 83 percent of its tax breaks to the wealthiest 1 percent alone.  The Tax Policy Center calculations also suggest that a full-time unmarried worker without kids, earning the California minimum wage, would see a tax payout of only $10 in their twice a month paycheck. According to a recent CNBC poll, more than half of working Americans – 52 percent – say they’ve seen no change in their withholding taxes.

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