Whenever Democrats propose policies to make college more affordable or to provide healthcare to all as a human right, there's always (always!) someone asking, "How do we pay for it?"
The mainstream (so-called "liberal") media is one of the worst offenders.
But when Donald Trump's Republican party proposed permanently cutting $1.5 trillion in taxes for their wealthy donors, no one--least of all the corporate media--asked how we were going to pay for it.
Of course we know how.
We pay for it the same way we have always paid for tax breaks to the rich: by cutting social safety nets and public programs that benefit lower- and middle-income Americans.
One of the most consistently starved areas is public education.
Today is no different.
Weeks ago Education Secretary Betsy DeVos proposed $6.7 billion in spending cuts for the 2020 fiscal year, and earlier this month she testified before Congress about "tough choices" she had to make influencing that decision.
A recent analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) indicates DeVos herself made enough from the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" to personally defray the programs she decided to eliminate.
According to 2018 personal financial disclosures, DeVos made between $46.8 million and $109 million, a $10 million savings under the new tax law.
Seth Hanlon, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress focusing on federal tax and budget policy, said:
"[DeVos was] illustrative of the windfall that extremely wealthy business owners were handed in 2017."
Tax changes in the 2017 law reduced the top rate for "S-corporation" holdings from 39.6% to 29.6%.
As an "S-corporation," the DeVos family business, Amway, is eligible for this deduction.
Hanlon said:
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