House GOP Unveils New Tax Reform Plan, Other GOP Members Already Against It

Republicans in the House of Representatives today unveiled their plan for tax reform in a sweeping document that would constitute the biggest rewrite of the tax code in decades.

Politico reports that the tax reform features huge tax cuts, particularly to the corporate tax rate. It would also repeal the estate tax, “retain” 401(k) savings plans and “allow people to write off the cost of state and local property taxes up to $10,000,” in addition to introducing new family tax credits and limiting mortgage interest reductions. These new features water down tax breaks for homebuilders, which has led to the homebuilding market dropping at the stock market, CNN reports.

The plan was unveiled by Representative Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means committee. Republicans cheered the plan, but Politico reports that many of them have no idea what’s actually in it.

Of course, this didn’t prevent Republicans from selling this as a victory for the working class and the small business owner, which is how they sell pretty much anything they do. In reality, though, the proposed plan would be much more beneficial to the wealthy, which also happens to be the reality of pretty much anything they do. The repeal of the estate tax coupled with the huge cuts to corporate taxes would give billions to corporations and wealthy landowners.

Some Republicans realize that this plan doesn’t actually help the working class much. Senator Marco Rubio has already tweeted criticism of the plan, saying it doesn’t achieve the goal of “helping working families.”

House #TaxReform plan is only starting point.But $600 #ChildTaxCredit increase doesn’t achieve our & @potus goal of helping working families

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 2, 2017

Senate Republicans will unveil their own version of the tax reform plan sometime next week, and they plan to reach some kind of compromise between the two proposals before presenting the bill to Trump. Republicans are desperate to make this bill work, after an entire year of failures, before the upcoming midterm elections.