Republican Tax Breaks: "So Much For So Few"

As Americans well know, today is the deadline for filing tax returns.  (By the way, anyone reading this who has had delays in getting assistance or having questions answered by the Internal Revenue Service should read this.)  Death and taxes, the Great Levelers -- or not so much if the bill endorsed by media-designated genius wonk Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (Galt's Gulch-WI) gets enacted (spoiler alert:  it won't).  Here's frequent blind squirrel Dana Milbank:

Give credit to Republicans in Congress.

They’ve discovered, belatedly, that income inequality is a problem, and they’re no longer proposing to give tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Now they are proposing to give tax breaks to the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent of Americans.

On Tuesday afternoon, the House Rules Committee took up H.R. 1105, the “Death Tax Repeal Act of 2015,” with plans to bring it to a vote on the chamber floor Wednesday — Tax Day. It is an extraordinarily candid expression of the majority’s priorities: A tax cut costing the treasury $269 billion over a decade that would exclusively benefit individuals with wealth of more than $5.4 million and couples with wealth of more than $10.9 million.

That’s a tax break for only the 5,500 wealthiest households in the country each year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Of those, the 318 wealthiest estates each year — those worth $50 million or more — would see an average windfall of $20 million each, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (our emphasis)

As the op/ed goes on to explain, the Republican talking points that the "death tax" (or as normal people call it, "estate tax") represents double taxation and a "devastating" hit on small businesses and family farms are, as one should expect, preposterously bogus. Meanwhile, they would be opening the Treasury for an average windfall of $20 million for each of the 5,500 wealthiest households, the shortfall largely coming from cuts to programs for the middle class and poor (Medicaid, food stamps, etc.).  In other words, your typical discredited trickle-down, makers vs. takers Republican philosophy untethered from, and antagonistic toward, the real world.

(Image:  Buff Bro' Ryan, still pumping out the tax breaks for the ultra-rich.)