Tag: GOP House

NRCC Lies, Again, in Ad Titled “All True”

Credit: Fibonacci Blue

Excelsior, MN – Erik Paulsen and the special interest PACs and outside groups bankrolling his campaign are continuing to run a dishonest campaign, seeking to distract attention from Paulsen’s voting record on healthcare, taxes, and gun violence prevention that are deeply unpopular in his district. A new ad released today by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), ironically titled “All True,”  continues this well-coordinated disinformation campaign.

The latest ad repeats a debunked attack on healthcare benefits at Penny’s Coffee, which has been debunked as false and misleading by local TV stations, and was called mostly false, distorted, and out of context by Politifact just this week. The ad also repeats the false claim that Phillips sought to profit off a marketing campaign that was the subject of a complaint filed by a private citizen. Phillips challenged this claim in a letter to the FTC earlier this week, citing that the complaint was filed by a private citizen to an industry group two years after he had stepped down from his position as CEO of Phillips Distilling and had no financial stake in the company.

A stinging report by Politico, released today, outlines Republicans’ coordinated effort to buy seats with attack ads full of lies and distortions in districts like MN03: Continue reading “NRCC Lies, Again, in Ad Titled “All True””

These representatives voted to keep Trump’s sketchy tax practices hidden from the public

NOTE:  Rep. Erik Paulsen sits on the House Ways and Means Committee and is one of the representatives who voted to keep Trump’s taxes private — more than once.

21 House Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee blocked disclosure of Donald Trump’s tax returns last month.

The New York Times published a lengthy investigative report on Tuesday accusing President Donald Trump of participating in “dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud.” Despite his many 2016 campaign promises to eventually release his tax returns, he refuses to do so, and the public is still in the dark about his personal finances. Now, thanks to a vote last month by the 21 Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee, those tax returns are unlikely to come to light in the foreseeable future. Those Republicans voted to keep the president’s tax returns hidden.

Relying on a “vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records,” the Times determined that Trump “helped his parents dodge taxes,” established with his siblings a “sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents,” assisted their father in taking “improper tax deductions worth millions more,” and formulated a “strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.”

A Trump lawyer claimed these “allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory,” but the president didn’t deny them. In a tweet, he repeated his standard and false claim that the paper is “failing” and described their story as “a very old, boring and often told hit piece.”

View the complete October 3 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

Voters Know Republicans Won’t Fight For Them On Health Care Or Tax Cuts

Voters know that Republicans don’t have their backs on health care or tax cuts. While Republicans only want to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, Democrats are fighting to increase access and affordability of care. The Trump tax law has not raisd workers’ wages as Republicans promised, but Democratic-led efforts to raise the minimum wage have increased wages for workers in states across the country.

Voters have switched parties for the midterm elections because they know that Democrats will fight for them on health care.

CNN: “The issue of health care has made Hansen a Democratic voter in the upcoming midterm elections. And in this ruby red area of Kentucky, it seems he is not the only one. Indeed, there are some signs of a blue wave in a corner of the Bluegrass State.” Continue reading “Voters Know Republicans Won’t Fight For Them On Health Care Or Tax Cuts”

New Poll: Voters Trust Democrats More Than Republicans On Health Care, By 15 Points

Health care is a top issue for voters and it’s clear why they trust Democrats more than Republicans to better handle the issue: Democrats want to expand access to care while Republicans only want to continue their health care sabotage.

Health care is a top issue for voters. They trust Democrats more than Republicans to better handle health care issues.

  • Voters believe Democrats can better handle health care issues by a 15-point margin.

  • 55 percent of Americans say a congressional candidates positions on health care will be extremely important to their vote.

Continue reading “New Poll: Voters Trust Democrats More Than Republicans On Health Care, By 15 Points”

House GOP rejects bill to make Trump turn over docs from Putin meeting

What are Republicans so scared to uncover?

President Trump, left, and Russian President Putin after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. Credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

The secretive summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in July will remain shrouded in secrecy, thanks to the complicit GOP majority in Congress.

Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee rejected a request Thursday from Democratic lawmakers to access details about the one-on-one meeting in July that even Trump’s own intelligence chiefs weren’t briefed on afterward.

The procedural resolution would have compelled the executive branch to turn over “copies of all documents, records, communications, transcripts, summaries, notes, memoranda, and read-aheads” that may shed light on Trump’s discussions with Putin, including whether he made any agreements or promises to the Russian president.

View the complete September 14 article by Caroline Orr on the ShareBlue.com website here.

The Tax Bill That Would Launch More Than 13,000 Yachts

Credit: Xeromatic via Lifeofpix.com

The current congressional majority has made its priorities painfully clear. In 2017, the legislative calendar was dominated by an attempt to strip health care from millions of people in order to provide significant tax cuts to the wealthy. When that failed, Congress turned to a tax bill known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which was essentially a corrupt giveaway that provided massive windfalls to wealthy donors, special interests, and members of Congress themselves. The law will provide more than $84.7 billion in tax cuts to the top 1 percent of Americans in 2019, while increasing health insurance premiums for millions of people and resulting in nearly 9 million fewer people with coverage.

Many of the staffers who were most involved in the TCJA’s passage have left the Hillfor lucrative jobs as lobbyists for the special interests to whom they provided special tax breaks. Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH), who helped draft the TCJA, left shortly after its passage to become the head of the Ohio Business Roundtable—many of whose members benefited substantially from the bill.

Perhaps the most ostentatious example of this corruption came from Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan (R). Rep. Buchanan sits on the House committee that was charged with drafting the TCJA—a bill that gave him millions of dollars in special tax breaks. On the same day that he voted to pass the bill, Rep. Buchanan purchased a brand new 73-foot yacht with a base price of nearly $3 million.

View more of the article by Sam Berger and Galen Hendrickson on the Center for American Progress website.

8 weeks out: Dems see narrow path to Senate majority

Eight weeks out from the midterm elections, both Republicans and Democrats find themselves with a path to a Senate majority.

For Democrats, it is a surprising development given this year’s difficult political map: The party is defending nearly two-dozen seats, including 10 seats in states won by President Trump in 2016.

Yet if the party can sweep every race considered a toss-up, it would end up with a 52-48 majority in the next Congress — even while losing Texas, where Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) is giving GOP Sen. Ted Cruz a stronger-than-expected challenge.

View the complete article by Lisa Hagen and Max Greenwood on the Hill website (posted 9/11/18).

Trump Tax Law 2.0: Republicans Double Down On Tax Cuts For The Rich

The Trump tax law sent the deficit skyrocketing and gave a majority of the benefits to the richest Americans, while doing nothing for working families. Now, Republicans are doubling down on that unpopular law with more tax cuts for the wealthy.

The nonpartisan CBO says the deficit has skyrocketed by more than $200 billion over the last year, in large part because of Trump’s corporate tax cuts.

Axios: “The U.S. deficit grew by $222 billion from this time last year — reaching a total of $895 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office… This increase was due mostly to the new Republican tax law and Congress’ routine decision to increase spending, which grew by 7% compared to revenue growth of only 1%. The CBO says the deficit will approach $1 trillion by the end of Fiscal Year 2019.”

Washington Post: “Corporate tax receipts fell 30 percent in the past 11 months, the CBO said, precipitated by the large reduction in rates from the massive tax overhaul passed by Congress last year.” Continue reading “Trump Tax Law 2.0: Republicans Double Down On Tax Cuts For The Rich”

Our taxes are up 23 percent, thanks to Erik Paulsen

To the Editor:

Remember the Republican tax cut bill that Rep. Paulsen worked so hard to pass? It’s the one that massively cut taxes for corporations and the top 1 percent.

For us, it will mean a 23-percent increase in our taxable income and a 35-percent increase in our federal tax bill. We are retired and pay estimated taxes throughout the year. Our CPA did the arithmetic with the new tax bill and our 2017 income to figure out what we should be paying in estimated taxes for 2018 and he shared all the numbers with us. The result has been a 23-percent increase in our estimated tax payments; the final results are above.

We know this tax bill cut taxes for corporations and the top 1 percent; they are undoubtedly grateful to Rep. Paulson (sic). Wonder what it did for your 2018 tax bill.

Gwen and Mason Myers, Minnetonka
Minnetonka Sun-Sailor, September 10, 2018

Anti-Trump Fervor Puts Senate in Play

The following article by Shawn Zeller was posted on the Roll Call website September 7, 2018:

Democrats “definitely have a chance to win the Senate,” election analyst Nathan Gonzales tells CQ on Congress. He maps out where Democrats can pick up Senate seats in the midterm elections as well as which races they are most likely to lose.

View the article here.