Alan Essig: Unpopular GOP Tax Bill Revision Rewards Party Donors, Exacerbates Inequality

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

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JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

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Unpopular GOP Tax Code Revision Rewards Party Donors, Exacerbates Inequality

Posted Dec. 20, 2017

Interview with Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, conducted by Scott Harris

[UPDATED] With House and Senate passage of a final version of the Republican tax reform bill, Donald Trump and GOP legislators are celebrating their first major legislative win since the 2016 election. But in the long run, that partisan victory will be felt as a net loss for millions of Americans. The tax reform bill will permanently lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Businesses will be taxed at a lower rate than the majority of American’s who are wage earners. For individuals, the top income tax rate will be reduced to 37 percent from its current level of 39.6 percent. The super wealthy will also see benefits from reductions in the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax.

Analysis by the Tax Policy Center finds that in 2018, working families will see some modest reductions in their taxes, but overall, the benefits of the new tax law will be concentrated among the wealthiest sector, with nearly two-thirds of the benefits going to the richest one-fifth of Americans. Because the individual tax cuts are temporary, by 2027, 53 percent of all Americans will pay more in taxes under the GOP tax bill. That year, 82.8 percent of the bill’s benefits will go to the top 1 percent. Many observers believe the tax bill, which will add $1.46 trillion to the national debt over 10 years, will be used by the GOP to justify major cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Republican tax bill’s inclusion of a provision to eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, will result in 13 million Americans losing their health insurance coverage and facing higher premiums overall. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, who assesses the GOP’s very unpopular tax plan’s long-term impact on working families and rising economic inequality in the U.S.

ALAN ESSIG: It's basically a Christmas gift to the most profitable corporations and the wealthiest Americans. It is a bill that has been written for and geared towards – and most benefits – that group. There are individual tax cuts included in this also. The individual tax cuts as a share are much smaller than the tax cuts that go to businesses and to the wealthy. The individual tax cuts actually are temporary. They phase out and go away in 2025 while the corporate tax cuts are permanent.

As unfair as the bill is when it is implemented in 2018, 2019 – it gets worse over time. It cuts the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. It cuts the top income tax rate from a little over 39 percent to 37 percent. By 2027, 10 years from now, it actually raises taxes on the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers. It does not simplify the tax code at all. It actually makes it much more complicated. It is an accountant and lawyer bill – if there's one sector of the economy that going to do really well, it's going to be tax lawyers and accountants to try to figure out what this does, and to take advantage of not only the existing loopholes that they kept, but the new loopholes they bought in.

Again, as a whole, this is something that does not necessarily benefit the middle class. If you look at actually the middle 20 percent, which we consider actually the middle class – in 2019, they will get on average about an $800 tax cut, while the richest 1 percent will get a tax cut of over $55,000. And it's not just as some folks say, "The wealthy pay more, so of course, they will have more dollar amount." But it's not just increased dollar amount they're getting. As a share of their income, they're getting a bigger break than anybody else.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Tell us how this tax bill will affect already record income inequality in the United States as compared to the rest of the industrialized world.

ALAN ESSIG: Oh, it's just, again, it'll just make it worse. The overwhelming benefits of this are to the top 1 percent. The top five percent. Right now, income inequality has gotten considerably worse over the last 40 years. This is something that will make it even more unequal. There'll be more money flowing to the top, less money flowing below. The estimated wage increases that the administration talks about is a fantasy. Anyone who's look at it, any economist, any group, the benefits clearly flow to the top, which again, will just make a bad inequality situation even worse.

BETWEEN THE LINES: If, as expected, this tax bill passes and it's signed into law by President Trump, how can the Democrats – if they retake Congress and the White House over the next four years – repeal the Trump GOP tax cuts? Is it pretty easy to undo these tax cuts and to revisit changes in the tax code that would truly benefit people in the middle and among working families? Something that this current legislation really does not do.

ALAN ESSIG: For the Democrats to do it, they would need to control both houses of Congress and the White House, because obviously, any one can control and veto it, can stand in the way of doing rational tax policy. The ideal thing would be, if the Democrats were in the control is to truly do a bipartisan fix to this. To truly simplify our tax code, to get rid of corporate loopholes that are in and that makes this bill even worse. To really gear the tax code to the benefit of low-, moderate, middle-income folks.

It might maybe my Mr. Smith goes to Washington view of things, but I do think that it's possible. But it would take a truly bipartisan effort to do that, to really put the focus on the middle class, on low, moderate-income folks. It needs to be done for the right reasons, for the right economic reasons, for the right tax policy reasons, and not for just for pure political reasons to pay off those donors who donate money to the political class. I think that's possible to do, but is it easy? No. But I think it is a worthy goal to have.

For more information, visit the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy at itep.org.