Warner & Kaine Slam GOP Tax Bill for Raising Taxes on Working Families to Fund Windfalls for the Ultra-Wealthy

GOP plan would hike taxes by more than 53% on the lowest earners, while gifting the top 0.1% a tax cut worth $188,000 per year
WASHINGTON, D.C. –Today, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) issued the following statement blasting the GOP’s partisan tax bill that would raise taxes on the lowest-income Americans while handing six-figure windfalls to the wealthiest 0.1% of taxpayers:
“At a time when working families are struggling with the rising cost of living, Donald Trump and Washington Republicans are asking them to pay more so the ultra-rich can get a handout. The numbers speak for themselves: under the terms of the tax plan championed by President Trump and Republicans in Congress, the bottom rung of the income ladder will see their taxes hiked by more than 50% in order to give the richest 0.1% a $188,000 tax cut. That’s not what Virginians sent us here to do, and we will fight tooth and nail to stop it. We call on Republicans to drop this sham of a bill and instead work with us to provide meaningful relief to working families by bringing down housing and child care costs, cutting taxes for working- and middle-class Americans, and lowering prescription drug prices.”
Thenonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimatesthat in the year 2029, when the permanent effects of the GOP tax plan are felt, those earning less than $15,000 a year would see a 53.5% increase in their federal taxes compared to current law. Meanwhile, the top 0.1% – roughly 197,000 taxpayers – would receive a collective $37.1 billion tax cut, amounting to $188,324 per person.
New analysis from the Yale Budget Labfurther underscores just how skewed the GOP bill is in favor of the wealthy. The lowest-income households would lose about $800 a year because of the GOP bill, amounting to a 4% hit to their budgets, while the richest 5% would walk away with an average annual windfall of $27,000. Overall, nearly 80% of the bill’s total benefits would go to the top 20% of earners.
Warner and Kaine have been sounding the alarm about the effects of the GOP plan on Virginia if Republicans in Congress continue to insist on gutting vital programs in order to pay for tax breaks for the richest Americans, noting that the GOP bill wouldstrip health insurance from more than 262,000 Virginians,raise energy costs for Virginia households, andjeopardize more than 20,000 Virginia jobsat clean energy and manufacturing facilities benefiting fromInflation Reduction Actinvestments.
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