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‘Over my dead body’: Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana slams Republican ‘Fair Tax’ scam [1]
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Date: 2023-01-26
When the vote for leadership of the House debacle took place and finally came to a conclusion with the selection of Kevin McCarthy, it was hard to know exactly what he had agreed to do in exchange for the votes. It was clear that ill-advised committee assignments and carte blanche wasteful investigations into penis pictures of former vice presidents’ children would be a part of the deal. But what else had the so-called Freedom Caucus demanded for their acquiescence? Public canings? New committees like the ‘Marjorie Taylor Greene is the Bestest Person House Committee On Being CrossFit’?
One thing that became clear very quickly: McCarthy’s desperation to have the title of House speaker meant more to him than having any convictions. An example of his clear powerlessness in whatever deals he agreed to were reports that he would bring a ludicrous tax proposal for a vote on the House floor. It’s the Fair Tax Act, a deal first created as a way to get out of taxes by the Church of Scientology, back before they were finally granted tax-exempt status for their religion in 1993. Before then, the Fair Tax Act was called the national retail sales tax (NRST) and was promoted by Scientology by way of Citizens for an Alternative Tax System.
The basic idea is to do away with all of the taxes that might affect anyone with money and put all of those taxes on retail—passing off tax burdens on to consumers and making the lives of people with the least amount of money far more miserable. It is an easy tax plan to dismiss because it is such a transparently terrible idea. It has also been kept off the floor of the House by both political parties because it is a no-win plan for virtually everyone, including big business.
The Democratic Party has been playing offense in pointing out how bottomless the Republican Party’s hypocrisy is at this point and on Wednesday night, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana went on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to make it very clear what he and Americans think about this conservative giveaway.
RELATED STORY: There’s lots of reasons this ridiculous national sales tax bill never made it to the House floor
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