By Marc Stier
This week, the Trump–Republican assault on the working people of the United States continued moving full-steam ahead on three tracks.
On track one is the Senate budget resolution, which would advance the effort to take health care and food assistance away from tens of millions of Americans (and three million–four million Pennsylvanians) in order to extend and expand the 2017 Trump tax cuts that go overwhelmingly to the top 5% of people. The total cost of these tax cuts would be over $5 billion over ten years. Meanwhile, Medicaid would be cut by $880 billion and SNAP by $230 billion, potentially knocking three quarters of a million people off Medicaid and reducing already low SNAP benefits by 20%. The Senate is debating the resolution today and we expect it will pass after Republicans reject a Democratic amendment to prohibit any cuts to Medicaid.
On track two are the tariffs announced by President Trump this week. Trump has proposed massive tariffs, increasing the average rate from 2.7% to 22.5%, far higher than the Smoot–Hawley tariff that made the Great Depression worse (and at a time when foreign trade is 15% of our economy, not 4.5%). Tariffs are the equivalent of a sales tax increase that will cost American consumers about $6 billion over ten years. Families at the bottom and the middle will pay far more in the tariff tax than those at the top. The tariffs are likely to lead to the worst of all economic worlds, “stagflation,” that is a combination of an economic recession and much higher prices. A recession would drive up unemployment and poverty levels while increased inflation would make it harder for everyday Americans to make ends meet.
On track three are the illegal and unconstitutional Trump actions to stop government spending, spending that has already been approved by Congress. These impoundments have already cost the jobs of 220,000 Americans, and we estimate 6,000 to 8,000 Pennsylvanians, and the number goes up every day. The cost in lost government services that we all rely on is incalculable. Social Security recipients can’t get their questions answered, and soon their benefits may stop flowing. Research on preventing and curing illness is being shut down at our universities as well as at the National Institutes of Health. Other advanced research of the kind that generates new technology that improves our lives is also being drastically reduced. The National Weather Service has been crippled, making it harder for us to know about storms, droughts, and heat emergencies. Efforts to track and contain infectious diseases at the CDC have been hobbled. The US Forest Service has been shrunk, increasing the risk of huge, deadly forest fires. Federal support for the Head Start program, which helps improve education outcomes and increases incomes over a lifetime, has just been cut. The National Park Service is being gutted, which may ruin many summer vacations this year, hinder the agency’s efforts to control invasive species, keep park visitors safe, protect park land from poaching and unauthorized logging, and maintain our national monuments, including Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Cuts to the IRS will enable the ultra-rich and wealthy corporations to avoid even the reduced taxes they are still required to pay. And just yesterday, the LIHEAP program, which helps low-income people pay for heating and other utilities, was shut down. These and other cuts in federal spending are already having an impact on state and local programs on which so many Pennsylvanians rely.
Estimating the impact of the trains on all three of these tracks hitting American families at once is difficult. But the estimate of our national partner, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, is below. It shows that the extraordinary redistribution of income from the top to the bottom estimates that would result if Trump and the Republicans have their way. Families in the bottom 20% of incomes would lose 9% of their income, or $2,030. But families in the top 1% would gain 2% more income, or on average $29,360.
No matter what we look like, how much we have, or where we live, Americans and Pennsylvanians are going to suffer when the trains on each of these tracks roll over us, one after another. But those at the very top will eventually benefit from deep tax cuts while those of us with low and moderate incomes are going to be hurt badly.
No matter who we voted for in November, no one voted for these three misguided and foolhardy attacks on American prosperity and equality.
Use our online tools to tell your member of Congress to say NO to these efforts. Join Hands Off protests on April 5th. Come with us to Washington, DC, on April 10th. And join “Tax Day” protests on April 15th.