Senator Ron Johnson has a point. He’s the first Republican to officially declare his opposition to the Senate’s tax plan, citing evidence the plan greatly favors corporations while continuing with oppressive taxes on sole proprietorships, limited liability companies, S corporations, and partnerships whose owners pay taxes based on individual income tax rates for the owners rather than the corporate rates.
In an interview with WSJ, Senator Johnson was clear with his opposition to the plan:
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson Opposes GOP Senate Tax Package
“If they can pass it without me, let them,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview Wednesday, adding that the plan unfairly benefits corporations more than other types of businesses. “I’m not going to vote for this tax package.”
In addition to his concern about the details of the Republican proposal, he also complained about a process that he said has been closed to his input and also misleads the public about the nature of the tax overhaul.
“I don’t like that process,” Mr. Johnson said. “I find it pretty offensive, personally.”
The Senator from Wisconsin is correct in his assessment. This makes one wonder why GOP leadership didn’t take this into account before they started promoting it as a pro-growth plan. The majority of businesses in America will not qualify as true corporations and therefore will not receive the big tax breaks promised by its champions. In fact, many businesses will end up paying more under this plan.
Could it be that the GOP simply hoped nobody would call them out on this little detail? Yes. Though the number of businesses that qualify is lower than the number that don’t, the corporations that do qualify employ more total Americans. This means that when viewed through a lens of overall economic growth, it’s still a beneficial plan for most Americans in that it will increase the number of jobs available and make room for increased wages. Nevertheless, the millions of Americans who will be hurt by this are not an insignificant minority.
Can it be fixed? Probably not. To do so would mean reworking a huge chunk of the overall bill in order to keep it from being so massive of an overall revenue cut that the government would run into shortfalls. Of course, they could always cut expenses rather than passing a massive budget, but that doesn’t seem to be on the GOP’s agenda anymore. Perhaps it never was.
