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November 17, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NATIONAL
Top 7 reasons the Republican tax bill is
bad for working people
The House GOP is pushing an
unpopular plan to slash taxes for
the rich by cutting services and
tax breaks for working families.
America’s labor movement will
fight every attempt to give pref-
erence to millionaires and bil-
lionaires and hand working peo-
ple the tab. Here are the top
ways the Republican tax bill
will hurt working people:
1. This bill is a job killer.The GOP tax bill
would give companies a huge tax break
for outsourcing. U.S. taxes on offshore
profits would be eliminated, giving big
corporations even more incentive to move
jobs offshore.
2. Republicans are proposing to
(partially) pay for tax cuts with
drastic cuts to Medicaid, Medicare
and education. The GOP budget
includes $5 trillion in budget cuts,
including $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid
and Medicare, an increase in the Medicare
eligibility age from 65 to 67, and an end to
Medicare’s guarantee of health coverage.
3. But the GOP tax bill still won't be
paid for, so we can expect
Republicans to demand more
budget cuts that hurt working
people in the future. The Republican
budget allows for $1.5 trillion in tax cuts
that are not paid for in the first decade,
and these tax cuts are structured to cost
even more in future decades. First the Wall
Street millionaires throw themselves a
party, then they stick the rest of us with
the tab.
4. The GOP tax bill would increase
taxes on many middle-class
families, and most of its tax breaks
would go to the top 1%. According to
independent analysis of the previous
version of the GOP tax plan, 30% of
households making between $50,000 and
$150,000 would pay more in taxes, while
the richest 1% would walk away with
80% of the tax breaks. Republicans have
made some adjustments to their tax bill,
but it still is heavily weighted toward the
top.
5. The GOP tax bill would punish states
that make the kind of investments
that create good jobs. Republicans are
proposing to repeal the deduction for state
and local income taxes, making it harder
for states to raise enough money to invest
in high-quality education, infrastructure
and good jobs.
6. The GOP tax bill would tax long-
term care for seniors and people
with disabilities. Eliminating the tax
deduction for medical expenses would
force many middle-class Americans who
are chronically ill to pay thousands more in
taxes each year and spend down their
resources to qualify for Medicaid, and
would prevent millions of Americans from
deducting out-of-pocket medical or
dental expenses from their taxes.
7. The GOP tax bill would kill
construction jobs. Limiting the
mortgage interest deduction at $500,000
would discourage construction of new
houses.
— National AFL-CIO
Senate tax bill has same flaws as House
It increases deficits and tilts heav-
ily toward the wealthy
By Sharon Parrott
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
The Senate Finance Committee
tax bill, like the Republican tax
framework released in Septem-
ber and the House Ways and
Means Committee tax bill,
would drive up deficits by $1.5
trillion over the next decade and
give very large tax cuts to the
wealthiest households and prof-
itable corporations, but only to-
ken help to millions of low-in-
come working families.
The core of the bill is a large
corporate tax cut that would
overwhelmingly benefit wealthy
households, and an estate tax cut
worth $4.4 million (for estates
from couples) for the nation’s
very largest estates. These tax
cuts are so costly that they re-
quire offsets like removing the
tax deduction for state and local
taxes — in order to comply with
the limitation that the tax cuts
only increase deficits by $1.5 tril-
lion over the decade. They leave
little room for meaningful help to
low- and moderate-income fam-
ilies.
Even a provision touted as tar-
geting working families — an
expansion of the Child Tax
Credit — would do far more for
high-income families than low-
and moderate-income families.
Some 10 million children in low-
income working families would
get $75 or less, while families
with incomes between $150,000
and $1 million would become
newly eligible for the credit. A
married couple with two children
earning $1 million would newly
receive a full $3,300 Child Tax
Credit, on top of large additional
tax cuts from other provisions.
Creating massive deficits
The Senate bill would also in-
crease deficits by $1.5 trillion
over the coming decade. When
fully in effect, it would increase
deficits by more than $150 bil-
lion per year, in part because it
phases in certain costly provi-
sions, including the cut in the
corporate rate, to reduce its cost
over the first decade. In 2027, for
example, the bill would cost
$217 billion.
Under the rules governing the
legislative process the tax bill is
using — called “reconciliation”
— the bill cannot increase
deficits on paper in the decades
after 2027. Ultimately, the Sen-
ate will likely use a familiar gim-
mick to mask the bill’s true cost
after 2027: schedule some or all
of the tax cuts to expire so they
appear to have no cost after 2027.
Policymakers used this same
“sunsetting” gimmick to make
the 2001 Bush tax cuts appear
not to increase deficits after the
initial decade. When the tax
cuts neared expiration, policy-
makers made 82 percent of them
permanent, and higher deficits
resulted. The cost of the Bush
tax cuts from 2001-2018 (as
amended by later legislation) to-
day accounts for about one-third
of the federal debt.
Who’s on our side?
By Tom Chamberlain Oregon AFL-CIO President
Making the labor movement
safe for all workers
The face of the American labor movement is changing. Half
of our nation’s union members are women and almost a quar-
ter are people of color. The labor movement must be a safe
bastion for all workers: women, people of color, LGBTQ
workers and, yes, white men. While public support for unions
is at a two-decade high, we still are stereotyped. How many
times have we read stories about a union leader misusing
union (members’) funds? Thankfully, such stories are few and
far between. Nonetheless, they reinforce the stereotype that
unfairly paints all union leaders with a brush of corruption.
A Nov. 7 story in Bloomberg News identified high-ranking
union officials, one at the AFL-CIO and another at Service
Employees International Union, who used positions of power
to pressure women subordinates for sexual favors. I can think
of no greater sin than misusing a position of power to take ad-
vantage of workers. Not only does it send a message of cor-
ruption, it is an abuse of power reinforcing a stereotype of
union leadership as “good ol’ boys.” More importantly, it
sends a message to women that they are not welcome, that
our movement is not a safe place for them, that their input,
efforts, and leadership are less than their male counterparts.
The actions of two “good ol’ boys” who abused their power
distracts from the efforts of labor leaders and organizations
who have focused on addressing gender and racial equity for
the last decade. Progressive union leaders know it is impossible
to move forward as a movement until gender and racial justice
are ingrained in our strategic plans, trainings, and in all facets
of our movement. A recent article by Ana Avendaño, Vice
President of Labor Engagement at United Way, and Linda
Seabrook, general counsel for Futures Without Violence, pro-
vides a road map for taking the next step in gender justice:
1. Recognize that sexual harassment is a workers’ rights issue. Sexual
harassment weakens unions. When unions don’t take harassment seriously, they
send a message to women that the union is not the place for them.
2. Make sure that the union’s constitution and collectively bargained
agreements contain guarantees against sexual harassment and
retaliation. Include such provisions in collective bargaining agreements.
3. Address member-on-member harassment.
4. Create a union culture that connects union values and behavior and
welcomes women as equal partners in the struggle for social and
economic justice.
5. Focus on prevention. Unions should work with members, leaders, and staff to
ensure that they have a clear sense of what conduct is inappropriate and why, and to
foster a culture that believes and respects women.
6. Encourage men—especially male leaders—to step up, speak out, and
work to change the culture. Men have an important role to play in showing
other men that harassment is wrong.
7. Create channels for members, union staff and others to report
harassment quickly, before it escalates, without having to resort to
formal mechanisms. Most women who suffer sexual harassment are not
interested in filing complaints or engaging in legal battles.
8. Train stewards in trauma-informed practices on handling claims of
harassment. Part of any sexual harassment prevention and response training
should include education on trauma, responses to trauma, and best practices to
integrate knowledge about trauma into policies and procedures.
9. Protect victims who file charges of harassment against retaliation. Fear
of losing her job or demotion are among the main reasons victims don’t report
sexual harassment or violence.
10. Give women a voice in the grievance process, and include them as
active participants. Complaints of sexual harassment often go into a deep, dark
Human Resources hole.
The Oregon AFL-CIO is a 138,000-member-strong federation of labor unions.