IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
“Hardworking Americans are seeing the Republican tax scam for exactly what it is – a tax giveaway for big corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the middle class,” said DCCC spokesperson Tyler Law. “House Republicans across the country, and in Pennsylvania’s upcoming special election, are beginning to run away from their failed tax messaging and are left flailing without a popular legislative accomplishment to speak of.”
Blue-Collar Trump Voters Are Shrugging at Their Tax Cuts | New York Times
By Michael Tackett
March 7, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/politics/tax-cut-offers-working-class.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpolitics
At Slyder’s Tavern, Matt Kazee, a machinist, drank a couple of beers as he waited for burgers to take home for dinner. His tab was about equal to the increase in his take-home pay after President Trump’s tax cut found its way into the nation’s paychecks.
“I have seen a little uptick in my paycheck, about what I expected, about 30 bucks,” said Mr. Kazee, who voted twice for President Barack Obama before backing Mr. Trump in the 2016 election. “It felt to me about like where things were 15 years ago.”
His underwhelmed reaction was not what Republicans had in mind.
The white working-class voters in the industrial Midwest who helped put Mr. Trump in the White House are now seeing the extra cash from the tax cut, the president’s signature domestic policy achievement and the foundation for Republican election hopes in November.
But the result has hardly been a windfall, economically or politically.
Other workers described their increase as enough for a week’s worth of gas or a couple of gallons of milk, with an additional $40 in a paycheck every two weeks on the high side to $2 a week on the low. Few are complaining, but the working class here is not feeling flush with newfound wealth.
And some are convinced that what the tax cut has given them upfront will ultimately fade.
“He’s pulling out jazz hands and shiny stuff up front and will screw us on the back end,” said Brian Barkalow, a worker at Requarth Lumber, where the Wright Brothers once bought wood for their planes.
In 2016, Mr. Trump tapped into similar suspicions, particularly among white men who were crushed by the financial crisis and are clinging to jobs that are being transformed by technology and global competition. He narrowly won Montgomery County, in greater Dayton, the first Republican to do so since 1988.
And Republicans will need those voters to return in the fall if they are to maintain control of Congress.
The increase in take-home pay for Mr. Kazee was near the top among those for the more than two dozen workers interviewed — at the tavern, the lumberyard, a machine shop, a restaurant and a municipal building — about how the tax cut has affected them. Mr. Trump often spoke of how the average worker would receive $2,000 or more, but most workers said they did not expect anything close to that.
[…] Several said they were most concerned about the rising cost of health care, and others questioned whether getting more money now would mean paying more later.
[…] At Requarth Lumber, on the edge of downtown, Matt Higgins paused after moving a load of wood onto a forklift. He said he backed Mr. Trump “only because I don’t trust Hillary.” The change in his paycheck is modest and difficult to calculate because his hours fluctuate, he said, but he knows one thing: “It’s definitely not going to change my life.”
One of his younger co-workers, Mr. Barkalow, was more skeptical than thankful. He said he was concerned that he would end up owing more taxes next year. He noticed a small increase in his check. “It’s about gas money, but that’s about it,” said Mr. Barkalow, who did not vote for Mr. Trump.
[…] “It’s always nice to get a few more dollars in the pocket,” Mr. Marker said. But, he added, “probably my bigger concern here is that if Washington cuts taxes, fine, what services are they going to do without?”
Back at Slyder’s, Al Yarcho, 63, who has been retired for five years, is not a beneficiary of the tax cut, but he expressed worry about its consequences for the nation’s finances and entitlement programs.
“I just know this,” Mr. Yarcho said. “When you cut revenue, you either have to find new revenue streams or you have to cut expenses. They’ve covered all the cuts. How are you going to pay for it?”