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November 28, 2017 02:38 PM UTC

Gardner promises trickle-down benefits from tax reform bill

1 Comments
by: Jason Salzman

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner sounded like Ronald Reagan himself this morning on KOA radio, when he claimed the Senate’s tax-reform bill would help the poor with trickle-down wage increases.

Still, he said, he was uncertain whether he’d ultimately vote for the measure–just as he’s been undecided before voting in favor of all Obamacare-repeal bills this year.

KOA MORNING NEWS CO-HOST APRIL ZESBAUGH: First off, do you like the Senate’s current plan?
GARDNER: You know, I think this is a great opportunity for us to take a bill, that I like the direction it’s heading. I hope I’ll be able to support this. I think it’s something I will be able to support, once we finish the debate, markup on the floor. I’ll have some amendments that I hope are included….
ZESBAUGH: There’s a new nonpartisan analysis that found the Senate plan would really benefit those who make one hundred grand or more a year, but would hurt the poor by raising health insurance premiums and adding [$]1.4 trillion to the deficit. Do those figures worry you, and is that something you want to tweak?
GARDNER: Well, I think what they’re talking about is they’re actually saying that if you remove the penalty, if you remove the fine under the Affordable Care Act — if you don’t buy insurance — they’re saying that you don’t get a tax credit and therefore you have a tax increase. Look, the mandatory requirement that people buy insurance — forced to buy a product they can’t afford under the Affordable Care Act — is one of the least popular aspects of the Affordable Care Act. In fact, 126,000 Coloradans had to pay a fine for not buying insurance as required under the Affordable Care Act. The reason they couldn’t do it is because they don’t earn enough money to pay for the outrageous premiums of the Affordable Care Act. Seventy-five percent of Coloradans who paid that fine earned less than $50,000 a year. And so what we’re doing is, we’re saying you have the freedom to buy what you want, not being forced to buy something you can’t afford. But with tax reform, we know that average Colorado families will see after-tax wage increase — for middle-class families — of over $3000. If you live in the western slope of Colorado, that’s going to be closer to $3500. This is a chance for us to grow wages. It’s a chance to see real wage growth that we haven’t seen in over a decade, and an opportunity to help middle-class families.

Is a trickle-down wage increase really the best Gardner can do?

Gardner did not return a call in search of the source for his wage-increase figures, but it appears to be a report from Trump’s White House Council of Economic Advisers, whose chair, Kevin Hassett has been promoting this information.

A former chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers was quoted in the New York Times as criticizing the study:

Jason Furman, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former Council of Economic Advisers chairman in the Obama administration, called Mr. Hassett’s findings “implausible” and noted they were rooted in studies that had not been published in major academic journals.

“This lies outside the mainstream of economists,” he said.

The consensus among nonpartisan analyses is not only that, as a result of the repeal of the individual mandate in the Senate bill, 13 million Americans would lose health insurance over the next decade, but also that the tax-reform bill would hurt lower income earners and be boon for the rich, especially in the long run. The New York Times summed this up yesterday:

The Congressional Budget Office said this week that the Senate bill, as written, would hurt workers earning less than $30,000 a year in short order, while delivering benefits to the highest earners throughout the next decade. Those estimates echo other analyses, like that by the Joint Committee on Taxation, which have found the biggest benefits of the bill increasingly flowing to the rich over time. By 2027, the budget office said, Americans earning $75,000 a year and below would, as a group, see their taxes increase, because individual tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2025.

One thought on “Gardner promises trickle-down benefits from tax reform bill”

mamajama55 says:

November 28, 2017 at 10:12 pm

Wanna see Gardner sweat? Check him out at ~10:00 in this video from the Maddow show, where his committee voted 12 R to 11D (incl Sanders*) to report out the GOP tax bill from Committee.

There is also some footage of a protest at Gardner’s office in Durango.

The protesters yelling their stories and "Don't kill me! Kill this bill!" are absolutely wrenching. Gardner may have sweated, but he voted the way his paymasters told him to vote.

*Sanders haters may insert your obligatory remarks about him not being a Democrat here.

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Gardner promises trickle-down benefits from tax reform bill

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