by Rep. Jamie Raskin US Representative for Maryland District 8
'I originally thought the GOP tax plan would be traditional run-of-the-mill upside-down class warfare, and on that front, of course, it does not disappoint: 80 percent of the proceeds of the proposed tax cut go to people making $912,000 a year or more, the top 1 percent of earners, and it reportedly repeals the estate tax for the lucky heirs of the same tiny group while abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax (which is clearly Donald Trump’s personal nemesis). But it turns out there is a very special giant worm tucked in this newly delivered legislative apple: a shocking provision changing our tax system over to a “territorial” principle, which would mean a massive flight of capital and jobs out of America. Under this principle, if I set up a factory with 1,000 jobs on Main Street, I pay full taxes on profits every year to the IRS, but if I locate the factory and 1,000 jobs in Mexico, Singapore, or Switzerland, I will pay ZERO taxes on the profits—forever! Where do you think most businesses and jobs will be located and relocated from now on, at home or abroad? This dreadful lobbyist-concocted idea slipped into the Ryan-McConnell tax plan is a dagger pointed at the heart of our already battered American manufacturing sector, as well as our beleaguered unions and working class majority. How can we capture the extremism of this betrayal of our people or the sinister bait-and-switch involved in Donald Trump campaigning on a platform of putting America First and bringing jobs back home but the GOP Congress now proposing to ship millions more jobs overseas with these outrageous tax incentives? Where are the purported “economic nationalists”? Where is Steve Bannon? We must stand with labor to fight tooth-and-nail this 100 percent tax bonus for offshoring American jobs.'
