Tag Archives: Orrin Hatch

Secret IRS Files Reveal How Much the Ultrawealthy Gained by Shaping Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Tax Cut”

Billionaire business owners deployed lobbyists to make sure Trump’s 2017 tax bill was tailored to their benefit. Confidential IRS records show the windfall that followed.

by Justin Elliott and Robert Faturechi. Published 8-11-2021 by ProPublica

Image: Pixafree.org/CC BY-SA 3.0

 

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Series:
The Secret IRS Files

Inside the Tax Records of the .001%

 

In November 2017, with the administration of President Donald Trump rushing to get a massive tax overhaul through Congress, Sen. Ron Johnson stunned his colleagues by announcing he would vote “no.”

Making the rounds on cable TV, the Wisconsin Republican became the first GOP senator to declare his opposition, spooking Senate leaders who were pushing to quickly pass the tax bill with their thin majority. “If they can pass it without me, let them,” Johnson declared. Continue reading

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Amid Effort to Ram Kavanaugh Through Senate, House GOP Refusing to Reauthorize Violence Against Women Act

“Our efforts to combat violence against women should never waiver, should never be pushed to the margins, and should never be delayed or diminished by political gamesmanship or foot dragging.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-25-2018

Image: Jay Inslee/flickr

While Republican lawmakers have attempted to push through a vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination amid multiple sexual assault allegations against him, none of the party’s members have signed on to support a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which expires at the end of September.

Democratic legislators have joined women’s rights and anti-domestic violence groups in calling for the law to be fully reauthorized and strengthened with proposals put forth in a version sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), while Republican leaders want VAWA to be extended only until December 7 as part of the House’s stopgap spending bill. Continue reading

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Industry Was Doubly Generous with 13 GOP Senators Now Drafting Trumpcare

While baker’s dozen of Republicans’ all-male, all-white legislative team draft bill in secret, analysis reveals giving of insurance and pharmaceutical industries

By Common Dreams. Published 6-21-2017

According to Maplight, a watchdog that tracks campaign spending, those chosen by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to draft the Senate’s version of Trumpcare legislation have collected, on average, $214,000 from companies that that will be directly affected by major changes to the nation’s healthcare system. (Photos: Getty Images (5); AP (5); Reuters (3))

As a group of 13 Republican senators—all of them both white and male—continue to craft in secret their version of a major healthcare overhaul bill, a new analysis shows these lawmakers have received approximately double the amount of campaign contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries than their Senate colleagues who have been so far excluded from the process. Continue reading

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