With a new Republican controlled House of Representatives,
the very first thing they did was passed a bill, I should say,
that will allow for wealthy tax cheats to get away with dodging their taxes.
They said they wanted to do this, and they did it and
it is in fact about the wealthy getting away with not paying their taxes.
Now, what is the measure?
Well, the measure dubbed hilariously the Family and
Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act passed in the House 221 to 210 along party
lines with every Democrat in opposition and Republicans applauding the passage.
Now we've been following this story from the very beginning.
Usually when Republicans say they're going to do something, they'll do it,
especially when they have a whole media apparatus behind them,
when they have their corporate donors behind them.
And of course the corporate donors and wealthy donors do not want to be audited.
They don't want the IRS to look into their taxes to see whether or
not they're paying their fair share.
Now, I should be clear, the bill does absolutely
nothing to protect American families or small businesses.
In fact, quite the opposite.
The legislation would rescind $72 billion of the 80 billion worth
of new IRS funding authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Now, that investment in the IRS which of course was effectively gutted by
Republicans in previous years was meant to actually
provide a significant return on the investment.
Because there are so many wealthy people who avoid paying their taxes,
who are tax cheats.
That beefing up the IRS so they can actually do the audits necessary into
the complicated taxes of these wealthy individuals made all the sense and
would bring in revenue that we should have had
in the first place if these individuals didn't dodge their taxes.
And well, Republicans don't want that.
Republicans want to assist the rich, the wealthy in screwing over the American
people, screwing over the American government.
They never fight to lower your taxes if you've noticed.
They won't fight to make the tiny tax cuts for ordinary people permanent,
but they will fight to make sure tax cut for the rich corporation are permanent.
And I just find all of this so interesting, because this is what they
care about, this is what the populist right is really about.
>> Yeah, so look, the law in this case is indisputable.
They're adding the IRS Agents and
it very clearly says that they are not to audit people making under $400,000.
So when the Republicans want to reverse this,
they are protecting people making above $400,000.
And that is their entire intent.
Do you know how much the top 1% avoiding
taxes every year, $163 billion okay?
So even what the Democrats put in is not enough to get back all of that money or
even a huge chunk of that money.
But it brings back enough that you wind up reducing
the deficit by well over $100 billion.
That's great news, right?
This is the Republican party that pretended to be in favor
of deficit reduction, their whole existence.
Now they're like, who cares about the deficit, serve the rich, serve the rich.
Now, is that the sense you get from American media at large?
Of course not, so right wing media predictably pretends that this is for
small businesses but mainstream media assists a little bit.
So I'm gonna read you one of the first paragraphs in the New York Times
coverage of this story.
They said the Republican focus on the IRS Comes after years of complaints from
the party that the agency had unfairly targeted conservative groups and
small businesses and middle class families.
Well, why are you printing their lies?
Our middle class families making 400,000 or $401,000 a year?
Are they making 500000 or 800000, 8 million, 8 billion?
What do you mean middle class families?
Yes, the Republicans lie about protecting middle class families, but
this doesn't affect middle class families at all.
So why are you reprinting their lives if it might be true?
And did you notice what they said earlier,
cuz Republicans complain that the agency targets them.
But we know if the agency targets them or not.
There was an investigation done into that and
they found out the IRS actually targeted liberals more than conservatives.
Just because the Republicans yell their lives out loud doesn't mean that
the New York Times has to repeat them, and especially without fact checking them.
And by the way, the facts about affecting 400,000 and above and
costing all this money, that's buried at the very end of the article.
And was presented not as a fact, but as Democrats say this, Republicans say that.
Well, are you a reporter or aren't you a reporter?
What is the truth?
We know what the truth is, but you don't want to say it because of political
correctness, cuz you're afraid of offending Republicans.
>> Look guys, this isn't gonna pass in the Senate.
So I guess that's the only silver lining to this story.
I think it's important and they know it's not going to pass in the Senate.
But they did the symbolic vote anyway to posture for their donors.
Because two thirds of American voters are not in favor of this according to polls.
But they did it anyway to show their love and devotion to their corporate donors.
It's a symbolic vote that they know will not ultimately pass in the Senate, okay?
But this is what Republicans want and what some corporate Democrats want.
Okay, they love to help their donors because money talks, okay?
People are motivated by incentives and disincentives.
So all the incentives for them right now while the left is weak,
while the left is unorganized,
while the left is basically engaging in an endless circular firing squad,
there is no accountability, there is no outside strategy really.
And so this is what we've got.
We've got a pathetic, weak Democratic Party.
We've got an insanely corrupt system where the media is owned by corporations.
Our politicians are owned by corporations.
I mean if you made $600 on Etsy last year, you better claim it,
you better report it cuz you will be audited.
I guarantee it.
But the rich skirting their taxes and
I'm talking about millions in some case billions
of dollars they get away with that, cuz this country is owned by corporate donors.
This country is owned by the wealthy.
This entire system is crafted and rigged to the advantage of the powerful.
And unless we change that again, policy debates are cute, but
there's a reason why the outcome of these policies tend to
overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and the powerful.
>> All right, my last point here is that, look,
I'm not even positive that it's not gonna pass the Senate, cuz to your point about
corporate Democrats, there's certainly plenty of them in the Senate.
And I can see mansion and cinema saying like, well,
I'm so bipartisan, I love the rich too.
But remember Biden can veto it anyway.
So that's why it is just posturing and Biden would veto it.
And now, rare credit to the Democrats.
They did pass this bill that does audit the rich,
that's kind of unprecedented in Washington.
And there you go, there's a difference between the Democratic Party and
the Republican Party.