Following passage of Senate tax bill, US ruling class takes aim at Social Security and Medicare

The passage by the Senate of the Trump administration’s tax bill is a landmark in the decades-long ruling class offensive against the working class in the United States.

With no serious opposition from the Democrats, and with final passage of a tax bill by the end of the month following negotiations with the House all but assured, congressional Republicans are moving on to the next stage of the class war agenda: the gutting of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The Senate version of the bill adds $1.5 trillion to the federal budget deficit, triggering automatic cuts in spending for Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly, of half a trillion dollars over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and setting the stage for massive cuts in other social programs.

Last week, Trump declared at a Missouri rally, “We’re going to go on to welfare reform.” On Wednesday, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida told business executives: “Many argue that you can’t cut taxes because it will drive up the deficit.” On the contrary, he argued, the costs can be offset by imposing “structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future.”

Talk of “structural changes” is political jargon for the privatization of these bedrock programs upon which hundreds of millions of people depend and their destruction as guaranteed entitlements.

The envisioned cuts to entitlements will come on top of the hugely regressive provisions of the bill itself. Within 10 years, the Senate bill will increase taxes for households making under $75,000 while cutting taxes for households making more than that amount, with the richest 5 percent of the population getting the lion’s share of the total benefits. By 2027, the top 0.1 percent will see a two percent increase in their after-tax income, while the bottom 20 percent will suffer a decrease.

Both the Senate and House versions of the bill cut the corporate tax rate nearly in half, from 35 percent to 20 percent. They allow corporations to repatriate profits stashed overseas at a bargain basement tax rate of 14.5 percent or less, a windfall worth hundreds of billions of dollars for the world’s largest companies, already flush with cash.

The Senate version sharply reduces the estate tax on inherited wealth; the House version eliminates it entirely. The richest 0.2 percent of households, those with estates of $11 million or more, will be able to pass on their wealth to succeeding generations virtually intact, creating a modern version of a dynastic aristocracy. The House version of the bill imposes a huge tax increase on graduate students and the Senate version shifts funds from public schools to private and religious schools.

This brazen plundering of society by and for the rich is sailing through Congress with no real opposition from the Democrats. They support a massive tax cut for corporations, proposing only a somewhat smaller reduction, and have repeatedly complained that the Republicans are shutting them out and refusing to negotiate a bipartisan tax cut for the rich……more here

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Following passage of Senate tax bill, US ruling class takes aim at Social Security and Medicare