During Sunday’s Iowa 3rd Congressional District Debate, Cindy Axne, the Democratic nominee, called the Republican tax plan passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump “disastrous.”
This Republican tax bill is disastrous for this country. As a small business owner and a family, with a family of two boys, I am consistently sitting down with the checkbook to make sure that we not only have enough to make sure my family can get by but certainly that our business has what it takes to be successful and continue to grow and give people opportunity.
So what we are seeing with the tax bill is putting the burden on hardworking, working families in Iowa. Over 80 percent of the provisions give opportunity to corporations and the wealthy – the top wealthy by the way.
We’ve reduced taxes for them, you know there have been reduced taxes for working-class families, but that has been offset by the inability to deduct elements that we used to be able to do here in Iowa like state and local taxes so it certainly is a wash. I want to make sure any tax plan works for hardworking Iowa families and not for corporations and wealthy like this one is doing.
However, back in May when meeting with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Axne admitted that her small business did benefit from the Republican tax plan.
Kathie Obradovich: You are a small business owner, doesn’t this tax bill benefit you and give you the opportunity to expand, grow, and create jobs?
Cindy Axne: It absolutely does benefit my business. Though I’m grateful for that as a business owner, 92 percent of the businesses in this country are small businesses and they need support, something that hasn’t happened much. The tax rate has been higher, the access to capital has been limited, and there has been more opportunity for large corporations.
It is good to see that small businesses are getting something, however, I have always approached the way I look at things as how does this fit with the benefit for everybody. It’s not right to think, well this works for me so I don’t need to be concerned about how this doesn’t help others. So that is my philosophy of thinking is that’s great that is going to give us the opportunity to expand our business, to hire more people, to deliver better services, but we, but in general, the tax bill is not doing that across this country. It’s short-term breaks for middle-class families, but long-term breaks for the rich and corporations and also it is off-set by write-offs that the middle class can’t take and it is putting the debt burden on us from here
to I don’t know when.So that is why it is important that we address this. It’s not about what I get, it’s about what works for our country.
It’s disastrous, but yet it helps small businesses which Axne said makeup 92 percent of the businesses in the United States?
Then, the 80 percent claim is just simply false. Regarding tax cuts for the middle class being “short term,” there is a simple solution – make the tax cuts permanent. The tax cuts were sunset because the bill was passed in the budget reconciliation process.
Just make them permanent or extend them, which is what Republicans are trying to do through the Protecting Family and Small Business Tax Cuts Act of 2018.
What Axne fails to mention is that the standard deduction doubles and the child tax credit increased. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered taxes for almost everyone.