AFT on Senate GOP Tax Proposal

WASHINGTON—Statement of AFT President Randi Weingarten on what we know so far about the Senate GOP’s tax proposal:

“Remember when President Ford told New York to ‘drop dead’? Well Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republican leadership just told the middle class in New York, New Jersey, California, Virginia and other states to do the same.

“The Senate GOP tax bill keeps the same basic strategy of the House bill—giving big tax breaks to the rich and corporations, which the middle class is left paying for. A few pieces here and there in the Senate bill are better than in the House version, but why would the Senate GOP leadership pick and choose between what help hard working families get in order to fund the same giveaways to the rich?

“And in what appears to be a petty, cruel and partisan shot at states that have elected Democratic senators, the GOP leadership is hurting middle-class families—taking a hatchet to local services like public schools, police departments and fire departments—by completely eliminating the state and local tax deduction.

“The Senate bill’s total elimination of the state and local tax deduction should be a stark warning to Republican House members that if they vote for the House bill in its current form, they are setting themselves and their constituents up to get rolled by the Senate.”