NC NAACP Statement on the Recent Tax Bill

RALIEGH – The NC NAACP stands with and defends all who are colored by the sin of discrimination.

Those who have created and lobbied for the US Senate Tax "Reform" Bill--including Acting-President Trump--are guilty of not one, but three sins:



1.The sin of oppression. The bill is a scam and a sham. To reform something means to improve it. The bill improves the lives of the ultra-wealthy, and of the massive corporations who have funded the campaigns of many who occupy seats in the government; The centerpiece of the bill slashes corporate tax rates from 35 to 20 percent.

But for the 99% who are purportedly represented by our government, the bill will further ravage their lives

, including many provisions "tacked on" to the bill motivated by a government Of the alt-right, By the Koch Brothers, and For the ultra-privileged.



2.The sin of willful ignorance, concealment of facts, and self-delusion. As has been proven by the current North Carolina Jim Crow supermajority legislature, when legislation is rushed through, "rammed through" as reported in the Washington Post, giving lawmakers and experts little or no time to review the contents, its results are devastating for The People--Of, By, and For whom the government exists.

In the law, deliberately concealing facts is prima facie evidence of fraud. Concealing termite damage is grounds for voiding the sale of a house? What are the grounds for voiding this bill of goods we're being sold?



The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office--the office that exists for the purpose of determining the economic effect of legislation--calculates a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR deficit resulting from this bill. Majority-leader McConnell's analysis?--"I think it will produce more than enough to fill that gap.” If our country's economic analysis is going to be guided by what Mitch McConnell thinks, why have a Congressional Budget Office at all? McConnell has a bachelor's degree in history. Perhaps McConnell should go review his notes. Slavery was also sold to the American Public as "wise economic policy."



3.The sin of outright lies Acting President Trump continues to affirm that the American People cannot distinguish between reality and his boldface assertions of his own "alternative truth." On Thursday, the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org published a tax bill summary entitled "Trump's Claims Don't Add Up."



In 1996, the Harvard Business Review published an article entitled "A Country is not a Company," which offers the hope that " By understanding that difference, we can begin to understand what it means to do good economic analysis and perhaps even help some businesspeople become the great economists they surely have the intellect to be. " Unfortunately, understanding differences does not appear to be a strength--or even a goal--of the man who purports to represent The People. "



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