Republicans who want to use
the pandemic relief funds from the
Joe Biden Coronavirus Relief Bill
to subsidize tax cuts for the rich
look like they'll be able to do so.
Even though there were supposed to
be safeguards in place to prevent
this from happening.
Now, the Treasury Department under
the Biden administration has
essentially indicated that they
will not enforce some
of the rules pertaining to how that
state funding can be spent.
Which basically opens this pathway
for these Republican state
legislatures to use some of that
funding in order to subsidize tax
cuts for the wealthy.
So let me set this up,
give you a little more context.
Then I'll give you some specific
examples of what various states
are doing.
So the American Rescue Plan,
passed in March, delivered nearly
$200 billion in aid to states with
a number of stipulations about how
the funds could be used.
Including a provision designed
to prevent states from
using the money to cut taxes.
Now, the problem here is that
they draft the bill,
they're about to vote on it.
And then Democrats realize, wait,
wait, we gotta do something about
the fact that Republican lawmakers
on the state level might want to
take the stimulus money and
subsidize tax cuts for the rich.
So let's put something in here,
a provision if you will,
that prevents that from happening.
A last minute provision, added to
the American Rescue Plan by Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,
was intended to prevent states from
using the influx of federal aid to
subsidize these types of tax cuts.
But the interim rule published by
the Treasury Department to enforce
this provision seems to have been
written broadly enough that even
billions of dollars of regressive
tax cuts fall within the rules.
And so what's happening now?
Well, let's take a look at
the state of Arizona.
Where its
legislature recently passed
a $1.9 billion income tax cut,
designed to benefit the wealthy,
with a whopping 93% of the benefits
going to the top 20% of earners,
and over half going to the top 1%.
I want to stop for a second and
just really think about the broader
picture here.
And the messaging that we've heard
from right wing lawmakers regarding
unemployment benefits.
Remember, there are dozens of red
states that prematurely cut
unemployment benefits in order to
make Americans so
desperate that they'll take any job
regardless of the pay.
Regardless of the possible
vulnerabilities these workers might
have to coronavirus, regardless of
any type of immune issue,
doesn't matter.
Let's cut them off early because
we want to force
them to go back to work.
We can't have Americans sit around
and collect unemployment checks
when there's a labor shortage.
But in the meantime,
you have red states like Arizona
essentially cutting the income tax,
which overwhelmingly benefits
the wealthy.
Ohio is also one of these states,
they passed $1.7 billion in
tax cuts.
Over half of which will flow to the
top 5% of earners, and over a third
of which will flow to the top 1%.
And Wisconsin passed more than $2
billion in tax cuts,
about three quarters of which will
go to individuals
who make $100,000 or more.
I mean, it's just, this is it,
this is the system.
We're constantly redistributing
wealth from the bottom to the top,
and this is yet
another example of that.
>> Yeah, this is actually almost
a perfect example, because Biden
comes in with big fanfare, saying,
we're going to get COVID relief
checks to the average American.
Now, to be fair,
is there a difference between
Republicans and Democrats?
Yes, they did actually get bigger
checks to the actual
average Americans.
Whereas the Republicans in
the beginning of COVID relief
gave trillions of dollars,
mainly to giant corporations, then
to small business, and then a small
amount to average Americans.
Okay, so there was a difference,
that's true, right?
But then Trump has this,
well, Biden loves to carry forward
Trump's policies.
But in this case,
he's actually just doing
the Republican governor's bidding.
So Biden says, no, no this is for
the average Americans,
you're not allowed to use it for
tax cuts for
the rich at the state level.
Then the governors come in,
they're Republicans,
well in the state legislatures and
they go, no, no, no.
We want to give things to the rich
no matter what.
You said average Americans,
I don't care.
I just want to take it and
instead of giving it to them, I
want to give it to the rich, right?
And then another classic move in
American politics.
The Democrats then bow their head,
probably on purpose, and
go, okay, fine.
I guess there was nothing we could
do, give it to the rich, right?
Well, actually,
there's everything you can do,
you can just say, no,
we're going to enforce the law.
And you're not allowed to give
it to the rich.
You said that you would, every one
of these states signed a document
saying we accept your rules as is,
and we are not allowed to cut taxes
if we meet certain metrics, right?
And so here they are, and they go,
we don't care,
I just want to cut taxes for
the rich immediately.
And Biden goes,
I was hoping you'd ask, right?
>> Well, I mean,
Ohio literally went to the courts
to whine and
complain about the broad rule that
was implemented in the stimulus
package.
And I'm wondering, Adrian, as
someone who's trained as a lawyer,
what are your thoughts on that?
I mean, it's incredible how much
these stimulus bills were abused by
the very top.
Not just this stimulus bill, but
the previous stimulus
bills as well.
>> Yeah, absolutely, the abuse of
the system and the thing is that as
you all know it's we have a system
that is built to favor the wealthy.
So even if it is completely legally
okay and sound for
the system to continue,
people will exploit it, so that
they can continue to make money.
And as we saw during the pandemic,
with the wealthy gaining 54% more
in wealth,
going from what about 8.4 trillion
to just over $12 trillion.
This system is set up to operate in
a way that it continues
to maintain the class divide.
And the legal system has become
an arm of that, as it unfortunately
always was intended to be.
>> I want to build off that because
it's such a great point.
So they're not doing something that
is against this current what I
would consider corrupt system,
right, they're
following along in that system.
So we've told you many times on
the show, they legalized bribery
through campaign contributions and
independent expenditures.
They legalized loan sharks,
payday lenders,
they legalized heroin dealers,
that's oxy.
So they're just taking ways that
you basically rob the American
people, that the mob used to
literally do and gangs used to do.
And they put people in suits and
they make it legal and
they go forward.
So here the money was supposed to
go to you, the average American.
Well, again, Republicans decided
that they were going to rob you and
the Democrats were going to
let them rob you, but it's okay,
they're in suits.
They have very good ties, and
they switched, they have red ties,
they have blue ties.
And then, so when the rich rob you
of the money you were supposed to
have, the system says, that's
a-okay, that's fantastic, right?
And then another point that Adrian
made is really good, and
I want to also emphasize that one.
Remember, the whole point of this
relief package was relief.
A lot of you got fired during,
obviously, the COVID pandemic
situation, right?
And a lot of the small business got
shut down, there's a lot of people
that were desperately affected.
The states need money for
all these different programs for
the affected people.
And this is the states saying no,
we're not going to give it to
the affected people.
Remember, as Adrian pointed out,
the rich actually increased their
wealth during COVID,
significantly so.
We're going to give it to people
who actually did great during
this crisis and
don't need any relief at all.
But we don't give a damn because
their our donors, and
the Republican Party here is here
to serve the rich.
And the Democrats are here to do
likewise, while pretending that
there was nothing they could do.
>> In fact, just real quick,
I want to give you more details on
that lawsuit that was filed by
Ohio, because it's just so
incredibly egregious, it shows you
where their priorities are.
Which is of course
that redistribution of wealth from
the bottom to the top.
So the case brought by
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost,
and backed by the US Chamber of
Commerce, of course, and
National Federation of
Independent Businesses.
Argued that the federal government
was unconstitutionally
coercing Ohio into
accepting its tax policies.
The tax policy is hey, don't take
this stimulus money that's meant to
help your state in order to
subsidize tax cuts for the rich.
That's what they were
complaining about.
And unfortunately,
the judge appears to have ruled in
Ohio's favor.
In fact, Republicans have been
fighting the tax cut provision of
the American Rescue Package or
plan, since the moment it passed.
Senator Mike Braun of Indiana
introduced the Let States Cut Taxes
Act to repeal the provision and
here's his statement.
He said, quote, not only did the
blue state bailout bill penalize
states for reopening by calculating
state funds based on unemployment.
Now, they're trying to use it as
a backdoor to
ban states from cutting taxes.
My bill would make sure
that they don't get away with it.
No, in other words, no, we forced
the people of our state to go back
to work under unsafe conditions.
We prematurely cut their benefits,
the unemployment benefits.
And we took the stimulus money, who
the hell's the federal government
to tell us what we can and
can't do with that federal money?
No, I mean, it's disgusting,
it's just absolutely disgusting.
>> And of course, that was
the Republicans first priority.
I'm going to reiterate one last
thing here, because it's so
important, the percentages.
Because if you're not in news, or
you're not in politics, you don't
know the percentages, right?
And there's no reason
why you would.
But the politicians know
the percentages and
that's why they do what they do and
that's why Mike Brown and
everybody jumped in immediately.
The Republicans no,
we got to do tax cuts, why?
Remember the numbers about Arizona,
93% of those tax cuts are going to
go to the top 20%.
The bottom 80% needed the relief.
They're going to get
7% of the tax cuts.
And of the giant tax
cuts in the case of Arizona,
about $2 billion, 50%, so about $1
billion is going to go to the top
1% of the wealthy in Arizona.
Top 1% are going to get $1 billion
in so-called relief that
they clearly obviously do not need.
Brought to you by
the Republican Party and as usual
the Democratic Party surrender.