Following the release of a slew of analyses showing that the GOP tax plan would raise taxes on many middle class families—despite repeated promises to the contrary by the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) conceded in an interview with the New York Times Friday that he “misspoke” when he declared last week that “nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase.”
“‘I misspoke’ is the thing you say when you can’t get away with lying anymore.”
—Judd Legum, ThinkProgress
“I misspoke on that,” McConnell told Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg. “You can’t guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase, but what we are doing is targeting levels of income and looking at the average in those levels and the average will be tax relief for the average taxpayer in each of those segments.”
McConnell’s reversal on a talking point that has become a mainstay for Republicans over the last several months as they attempt to sell their tax proposals to a skeptical public comes just 24 hours after the Senate unveiled its own tax plan. Like the House version, the Senate bill calls for massive tax cuts for wealthy Americans and large corporations.
A Times analysis published Friday found that while middle class Americans would fare better under the Senate’s plan than the House’s, “both bills would disproportionately benefit high earners and corporations and raise taxes on millions of middle class families.”
The analysis continued:
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