A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

Mitch McConnell: Republican tax reform plan aims to put more money into pockets of American families


For the last decade, many Kentucky families have been left behind by the Obama economy. It seemed like only the wealthy or the well-connected were able to succeed, leaving the rest behind to struggle through the slowest economic recovery following a major recession since the Great Depression. With stagnating paychecks, vanishing opportunities, and work difficult to find, the pain for far too many Kentucky families has been all too real.

This Republican-led Congress believes that Americans deserve better. And that’s what we’re working to deliver. Tax reform is the single most important thing we can do right now to get the economy moving again to support the middle class.

Working with President Trump and his team, we want to fundamentally rethink the complex and outdated federal tax code. This is our once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape our tax system to make it actually work for middle-class families and small businesses.

The House, the Senate and President Trump are united on these goals. They’re also the same goals of Americans calling out for relief.

For families, we want to make your taxes lower, simpler, and fairer. Middle-class families are the main focus in our tax reform efforts. We want to promote fairness by closing loopholes that only the wealthy know how to exploit, while also protecting incentives for the middle class.

Under the Senate proposal, families in the middle tax brackets will receive the largest proportional tax cut. One study estimates that a typical family of four making the median family income could see a tax cut of nearly $2,200.  That’s money that you can put toward making a car payment, paying for college, or saving for retirement. The Senate’s plan also doubles the child tax credit, preserves the adoption tax credit for Kentucky families looking to open their homes to children in need, and it roughly doubles the standard deduction to reduce how much of your income is taxed in the first place.

For small businesses, we want to make it easier to grow, invest, and hire. It’s time to help our job creators be more competitive in an increasingly competitive global market. By eliminating incentives for companies to ship investments and jobs overseas, we can help spur job growth here in Kentucky.

A different study estimates that under the Senate’s plan, Kentucky could add more than 12,000 new jobs. That’s great news for men and women across the Commonwealth looking for work and opportunity.  

In addition to these important provisions, the Senate’s bill will also repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate tax. By repealing this burdensome tax, we can provide even more tax relief to low- and middle-income families. The goal is to repeal an unpopular tax from an unworkable law to deliver relief to those who need it the most.

The bottom line is this: we want to take more money out of Washington’s pocket, and put more money back in yours. This is our plan to unleash the potential of our economy, to create jobs and keep them here.

Both the House and the Senate are working at full-steam to pass tax reform. The House recently passed its tax-reform bill, and the Senate Finance Committee recently passed its proposal after more than 70 hearings and an open committee process where hundreds of amendments were filed. As the Senate considers the bill on the floor after Thanksgiving, we will continue that open process. We are working together to pass a bill so President Trump can sign it into law – and you can begin to see relief.

Reforming our outdated tax code shouldn’t be a partisan issue. In fact, many prominent Washington Democrats used to support many of the underlying ideas in our bill, including middle-class relief and preventing jobs from being shipped overseas. That all seemed to change after the last election.

Since President Trump entered the White House, Democrats in Washington have become a party bent on opposition. Now, they seem to even oppose tax relief for hardworking families. I hope they put their obstruction aside and choose to work with us to deliver real reform for the American middle class.

You deserve better. In the coming weeks, we will keep working to deliver much-needed relief to help lift the burden that middle-class families in Kentucky have carried for far too long.

Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, is U.S. Senate Majority Leader


Related Posts

5 Comments

  1. Roger Auge II says:

    McConnell is an outrageous liar and he continues the trend regarding the dastardly tax bill that should go down in flames just as other initiatives of the Chump Administration.

  2. Anna says:

    It took no time to google how untrue this is.

    Republicans keep saying that CEOs will use their corporate tax breaks to boost the economy.

    CEOs keep saying that Republicans are wrong.

    “Major companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. say they’ll turn over most gains from proposed corporate tax cuts to their shareholders, undercutting President Donald Trump’s promise that his plan will create jobs and boost wages for the middle class…. Instead of hiring more workers or raising their pay, many companies say they’ll first increase dividends or buy back their own shares.”

  3. Tom Sketch says:

    Mitch also says that he’ll “respect you in the morning.” And, “The check is in the mail.”

  4. Nisia Thornton says:

    11-30-17
    You’re right, Mitch McConnell – Americans deserve better.
    Better than your pablum.
    Pablum was a brand of soft, bland cereal for infants, then the name came to stand for empty, worthless, or simplistic ideas. In his Nov. 29th Northern Kentucky Tribune piece, McConnell cynically offered a bland substitute for information and in-depth discussion. He continues to insult our intelligence and callously disregard the concerns of middle to low income families.
    McConnell and his colleagues want the top tax rate of 39.6% to be lowered to 35 % for persons making more than $418,000, or $470,00 for a married couple – resulting in a cost to the economy of $1.169 trillion dollars over 10 years. And he is pushing this evening passage of a bill which has not been read, not been assessed by the Senate. Blind, deaf and dumb, like the three monkeys, our elected officials are robbing millions of their future.
    Yes, Americans deserve much better.
    McConnell wrote that “we want to fundamentally rethink the complex and outdated federal tax code” but…
    He and his colleagues have failed to honor the full transparency and open debate required for such a complex matter, hurrying the bill towards a vote for which Senators are not prepared. His goal? To pacify uneasy voters and donors concerned about Republican effectiveness in advance of the 2018 midterm elections.
    McConnell and his colleagues promote a tax bill that will “permanently cut the top corporate income tax (CIT) rate from 35 to 20 percent…[benefitting] the wealthiest domestic and foreign owners of corporate stocks” and will deeply cut the estate tax, eliminate the alternative minimum tax for high-income earners and cut ’taxes for corporations organized as pass-through entities “(Bauman, 2017).
    Pass-through income is taxed at rates on the individual side of the tax code, with the wealthiest tax filers with pass-through income paying as much as 39.6%. McConnell and others want the tax rate lowered to 25% at a cost of $769.6 billion over 10 years (TPC, 2017).
    McConnell states he wants “to make it [the tax code] actually work for middle-class families and small businesses” but…
    The tax bill…would raise taxes on at least 29 percent of Americans and cause the populations of 19 states to pay more in federal taxes in 2027 than they do today. The lowest-earning three-fifths of Americans would pay more on average in federal taxes, while the top 40 percent on average would receive a tax cut (ITEP, 2017).

    And the Senate majority leader further attempts to seduce us with the Senate proposal’s “largest proportional tax cut” for “families in the middle tax brackets”, but…
    The bottom 60 percent of Kentuckians, who make an average of $37,500 a year, will actually face more taxes from the plan with an average increase of $80 in 2027. High earners, in contrast, would receive tax cuts…with the richest 1 percent receiving an average cut of $4,760. The top 1 percent of Kentuckians based on income will take home 24 percent of the total tax cut in 2019 (Bauman, 2017).
    Americans deserve better than this.
    The Joint Commission on Taxation (JCT) has determined that even after accounting for the $407 net reduction in the deficit economic growth promoted by the bill would cause, the Senate bill would still cost $1 trillion (CBPP, 2017). This threatens programs for seniors.
    Also deeply concerning to seniors are the proposed $473 billion in Medicare cuts, $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts, and $800 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary programs like the Older Americans Act. Under to budget sequestration rules, passage of the House tax bill triggers $136 billion in program cuts next year, including $25 billion in Medicare cuts. The Prevention and Public Health Fund and the Social Services Block Grant, which funds home care and adult protective services in many states, are also subject t to cuts (Bedlin, 2017).
    Himself the possessor of high quality, guaranteed health care, McConnell dares cast himself as a savior come to release us: “the Senate’s bill will also repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate tax. By repealing this burdensome tax, we can provide even more tax relief to low- and middle-income families” but…
    The reconciliation rules allow this bill to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion over a decade…but this is not sufficient to allow all the tax cuts in the bill. So the Finance Committee senators…added a provision to cut the federal government’s spending on health care by repealing the health insurance mandate (ITEP, 2017).

    The benefits of the Affordable Care Act have been well-documented, but McConnell and colleagues, who don’t need health care assistance, dismiss yet another complex issue with disingenuous sighs of “burdensome.” Without the individual mandate, premiums would rise by 10 percent in 2019 and by 2025, 13 million fewer people would have health insurance (Berger & Gee, 2017). This is burdensome. We the People deserve better.

    Hold the baby food, Senator. We’re adults, and we can digest the facts.

    Nisia Thornton
    Camp Springs, KY

  5. Bob Miller says:

    The real blame is the voter. The ones that
    keep putting him back in office term after term.
    What has he done for the average family?
    Look at what he is worth on a salary of $179,000 a year? Where did the additional wealth come from? Big corporations, the
    same ones who will benife from this plan. It’s ok
    with me, vote these career politicians in again,
    but don’t cry when you pay more taxes. By the way he’s not the only one, look at your judge
    executive (Campbell co.). 12 years of steady
    increases in your taxes and last year even
    got around the 4% law to raise it to 5% and
    he keeps getting reelected. They both have the
    magic (R) behind their name so iit must be okay.
    Rand Paul (the preacher) he’s all for what’s right
    but when a it comes to a bill like this he votes
    for it. Let’s reelect him to. Making America great not again, still. What a joke.

Leave a Comment