The Republican crime syndicate takes control - Salon

It should have been evident to all that something was afoot when the first order of business for the GOP-controlled 115th Congress was to try to abolish the Office of Congressional Ethics. After all, why let a little thing like ethics stand in the way of the Republican agenda?

And quite an agenda it is! Rapacious from every aspect, it constitutes nothing less than a hostile takeover of the United States of America by an economic elite bent on financial gain for financial gain’s sake alone.

The most recent manifestation of Republican corruption is its tax bill, which is nothing other than a massive giveaway to the GOP donor class. It does some good things, like cutting the corporate tax rate and getting rid of the Alternative Minimum Tax, but fails to do much of anything else right.

While the tax bill gives one multi-million-dollar break after another to the donor class, including the elimination of the inheritance tax, it doles out nickels and dimes to the United States’s working and middle classes.

Trump’s broken campaign promise

In a nausea-inducing demonstration of pay-to-play politics, the bill doesn’t touch the carried interest deduction. This tool is used by hedge fund operators to pay taxes at significantly lower rates than the average U.S. worker. Significantly, repeal of the carried interest provision was a ubiquitous Trump campaign promise!

But there’s more. The tax bill contains provisions that will raise medical insurance costs, eliminate deductions for the interest paid on student loans and eliminate deductions for certain urgent health care costs.

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