Tell Your Republican Senator: #NoJonesNoVote

Doug Jones was elected to represent Alabama in the US Senate on December 12, 2017—but he won’t be seated until early January. The people of Alabama deserve to have their duly elected Senator vote on the Tax Scam, not a lame duck Senator appointed by a Governor that resigned in disgrace.

Remember: this is a bill that repeals a key feature of the Affordable Care Act, leaving 13 million more people uninsured and spiking premiums an extra 10%. It gives huge tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations while RAISING taxes on 83 million families. And it adds $1 trillion to the deficit, which will force deep cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and more down the road.

The Tax Scam is currently being finalized by the “Conference Committee,” a group of members from the House and Senate that are resolving the differences between the House and Senate bills. Both the House and Senate have to take one more vote on the final version of the bill that the Conference Committee produces. Your Senator should refuse to cast a final vote on the Tax Scam “conference report” until Doug Jones is seated. Call them at 1-855-980-2350 today.

SAMPLE CALL DIALOGUE

Caller: Hello! My name is [___] and I’m calling from [part of state]. I want [Senator] to refuse to take a final vote on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act until the new duly-elected Senator from Alabama is seated.

Staffer: Senator [___] is in favor of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and thinks the American people can’t wait to reform our broken, complex tax code. There is no need to wait until the New Year to vote on it.

Caller: That’s terrible. The people of Alabama deserve to have their voices heard and be represented by the Senator they elected. Keep in mind that [Senator] helped Mitch McConnell keep a Supreme Court seat vacant so that “the people could decide.” Well, here the people have decided and their will should be respected. After Scott Brown was elected in a special election in Massachusetts, there were no further votes on the Affordable Care Act until he was seated. That’s the approach [Senator] should follow here.

Staffer: Thank you. I’ll let the Senator know your thoughts.

Caller: Yes please do, and please take down my contact information so you can let me know what the Senator decides to do. He/she can do the right thing with his/her vote alone. I will be watching to see that he/she does.

- Indivisible 

GOP Tax Conference starts next week, but Conservative groups are already lobbying tax conferees. Time for a counter attack!

Somehow I got on a conservative e-mail list. I got an e-mail entitled our "Our Spending Problem." What they are referring to is our social safety net, Obamacare, the EPA, and tax deductions for medical expenses and student loan interest.  Essentially anything that might cost multi-billion dollar corporations any profit. I am posting it here so you will know what we are up against in fighting the GOP tax plan.

Included is a link to the letter that the Club for Growth president wrote to the tax conferees that Speaker Ryan and Majority Mitch McConnell appointed. I think we should write our own letters in response. 

The Honorable Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, 230 United States Capital, Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Paul Ryan, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, H-232, The Capital, Washington, D.C. 2015

We can also call or e-mail the tax conferees listed below. This is all out war. We are fighting for the America we love - against greedy corporations and billionaires who have a stranglehold on our government. #GOPtaxscam

Jana Segal

Club for Growth e-mail about :

This week in Washington, Congress passed a stopgap measure to fund the government for another two weeks.  This is another way of saying that once again, Congress has chosen to kick the can down the road setting themselves up for a series of last-minute funding battles right before Christmas. 

Delaying tough decisions never bodes well for taxpayers who have to pay for all the spending.  Club for Growth will continue to do what we do best on this front and that is to fight to curb wasteful spending and seek to implement spending caps, not to mention spending cuts.

What the most recent tax reform discussions have reminded us is that Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem, it’s got a spending problem.

The Latest on Tax Reform

On the topic of tax reform, here’s the latest from this week.  On Monday, Speaker Ryan named the Republican House members who will serve as tax conferees.  This list includes: Kevin Brady (TX), Devin Nunes (CA), Peter Roskam (IL), Diane Black (TN), Kristi Noem (SD), Rob Bishop (UT), Greg Walden (OR), John Shimkus (IL), and Don Young (AK).

On Wednesday, Leader Mitch McConnell announced the Senate Republicans who would comprise the tax conference.  Those members include: Orrin Hatch (UT), Mike Enzi (WY), Lisa Murkowski (AK), John Cornyn (TX), John Thune (SD), Pat Toomey (PA), Tim Scott (SC), and Rob Portman (OH).
 
While the first conference meetings are not expected until next week at the earliest, Club for Growth was ready to weigh in on what factors the conferees should be (or not be) considering. 

Club for Growth led the pack in urging conferees to further cut individual rates and keep the corporate tax rate at 20 percent. 

Below is an excerpt of the letter Club for Growth President David McIntosh penned.

“As conference discussions begin, Club for Growth wants to ensure that the most significant pro-growth provisions in the House and Senate legislation are preserved and not lost in an effort to appease special interests pleading to retain their particular tax benefit.  In other words, we want to make sure that what comes out of the conference committee is more pro-growth and not less than what went into it.”

- David McIntosh

The letter went on to draw a line in the sand on a few policy areas.  As Club for Growth President David McIntosh noted, “Club for Growth urges the conferees not to increase any marginal tax rates.

• Stand firm and keep the corporate rate at 20 percent.
• Adopt at least the Senate’s top individual marginal tax rate and reject the House’s proposal.  Further reductions in the top individual rate would create even more economic growth.
• Include the Senate’s repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate.”

In his conclusion, McIntosh explained that “Conference meetings inevitably require tradeoffs to rectify the differences between the legislative texts.  In making those tradeoffs, Club for Growth strongly urges conferees to stand strong and fight for the most pro-growth policies that benefit all Americans and not diminish them by giving in to class warfare or social engineering arguments.”

You can read the letter in its entirety here.

On Friday, Club for Growth joined with over twenty other conservative groups calling for the corporate rate to remain at the 20 percent rate.  As the letter explained,

“The U.S. House of Representatives passed a tax cut bill with this exact rate cut. The U.S. Senate passed a tax cut bill with this exact rate cut. We strongly urge the conference committee to report a tax cut bill with this exact rate cut.”

We remain hopeful that the conference committee will do what is in the best interest of American taxpayers and companies.  Club for Growth will continue to keep you posted on all the latest tax updates in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned!

More information:

Business Week Article: The conference committee has barely started, and the GOP tax bill already has some big problems

CNN Politics Article: Where Congress stands on GOP tax plan, shutdown

Be sure to watch the video (on the page from the link above) about Section 520l of the tax plan that will roll back campaign finance laws by rolling back the Johnson amendment. It will allow corporations to write off their bribes to politicians.