Cheer on Speakers Who Denounce GOP Law That Heavily Favors the Wealthy

Grassroots tax-fairness activists from communities all around America gathered at a press conference on Capitol Hill to show their opposition to extending the Trump tax law for the wealthy. The rally highlighted a two-day citizen lobbying push by members of Fair Share America (FSA), a new coalition anchored at the federal level by the national tax coalition Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and at the state level by the State Revenue Alliance (SRA).

ATF executive director David Kass was one of the speakers at the gathering, alongside Sen. Michael Bennett (D-CO), Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Gwen Moore (D-WI) and national and state leaders from organizations including National Education Association, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Arizona Center for Empowerment and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Most of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law, which heavily favors the wealthy, is set to expire at the end of next year. ATF, FSA and other tax-fairness advocates want the provisions that exclusively benefit those with incomes over $400,000 to expire on schedule. They also want to use the opportunity of a major tax-code rewrite to insert progressive reforms, such as raising the corporate tax rate and enacting a special tax on billionaires. 

“If we pass the Biden-Harris Billionaire Minimum Income Tax, if we raise the corporate tax rate, if we raise taxes on the rich and big corporations,” Kass said in his remarks, “we could invest in the care economy, expand the Child Tax Credit, housing, and health care and other needs.”

The citizen lobbying and press conference are the opening salvo in a 15-month contest with the army of professional lobbyists for corporations and the wealthy swarming Capitol Hill in an effort to get all the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy permanently extended. Such an extension would add nearly $5 trillion to national debt and once again heavily benefit the rich over working families. 

Several speakers noted that prior to the enactment of the Trump tax law, corporate lobbyists were seeking a corporate tax-rate cut to 28%. The Republican law went further, cutting the rate to 21% at a cost of over $1.3 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years. Now those same lobbyists are claiming raising the rate to 28% as part of a legislative package to raise more revenue—an idea widely discussed in Congress—would be a disaster.