Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen is paddling toward reclaiming his seat as quickly as he can, in part by promising to “stand up to” his party “and President [Donald] Trump” if push comes to shove.
Well, last month, he had his chance. He did not take it.
At issue were Trump’s tax returns, which have remained secret and are now back in the limelight. After 18 months of trawling through the Trump family’s financial dirty laundry, The New York Times published a scathing report accusing the sitting president of “dubious tax schemes” and “outright fraud,” helping his parents sidestep taxes, and undervaluing that money so he could siphon as much as possible to himself and his siblings.
A Trump lawyer has called these allegations “100 percent false.” Trump himself described the story as “a very old, boring and often told hit piece.”
The upcoming election is again subjecting voters to inflammatory and deceptive advertisements by candidates and special interest to artificial divide our country.
Recognizing that these divisive advertisements have some success in creating harmful divisions, I have faith we can still agree on something: Congress isn’t working as confirmed by Gallup Inc.’s 40 years of polling America’s approval of Congress. Since 2010 approval of Congress has hovered between 10 percent and 20 percent. The institution is broken. Why?
Listening to eulogies for Sen. John McCain, I was struck by one speaker’s words of the senator: “He did understand that some principals transcend politics, that some values transcend party. … he understood that if we get in the habit of bending the truth to suit political expediency or party orthodoxy, our democracy will not work.” Continue reading “Messages are dividing the country”
Later this week, the House of Representatives will vote on a second round of tax cuts once again favoring the rich. This new tax plan is a sequel to the tax law that the Republican-led Congress enacted in December, which is informally known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The TCJA was badly skewed to wealthy Americans, exacerbating the decades-long trend toward greater inequality of income and wealth. The law created new loopholes for well-heeled taxpayers to exploit. Moreover, its massive cost was financed by higher budget deficits that will put even more pressure on vital programs that serve all Americans. The newly proposed tax plan shares each of these failings. Congress should reject it. Instead, federal lawmakers should work toward real tax reform, beginning with undoing the damage caused by the TCJA.
Tax Scam 2 is just more of the same
During the week of September 24, Republican leaders plan to bring up a package of three bills that they call “Tax Reform 2.0”—that critics rightly call Tax Scam 2—for a vote in the House. The centerpiece of this package is H.R. 6760, a bill to permanently extend the individual and estate tax provisions of the TCJA beyond their scheduled expiration at the end of 2025. The reason these provisions were made temporary was that congressional leaders chose to move the TCJA through Congress using the process known as budget reconciliation, which enables bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority but only if they are not estimated to increase deficits over the long term. Under these procedural constraints, the TCJA’s authors chose to make the legislation’s corporate tax provisions permanent and its individual and estate tax provisions temporary (with some exceptions). H.R. 6760 would permanently extend both the provisions of the TCJA that cut individual taxes, including the reductions in individual tax rates and higher standard deduction, and the TCJA’s tax increasing provisions, including the elimination of personal exemptions and the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes (the SALT deduction).
The House Ways and Means Committee reported H.R. 6760 along straight party lines on September 13. The bill has been scored by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to increase deficits by $631 billion over 10 years. As discussed below, the cost over a longer time horizon would be much greater.
If you’re looking for something to take your mind off all those mudslinging attack commercials Erik Paulsen and his PACs are running, check out this site for a musical look at Rep. Paulsen and GOP’s voting record::
Roll Call elections analyst Nathan L. Gonzales has two dozen House race ratings shifts — and they’re all positive for Democrats. Nearly one month from Election Day, Gonzales discusses how it’s more a question of Democratic prospects being good or great in the House than anything else. See below for a full list of all the ratings shifts and watch the video for more analysis. Continue reading “24 House Ratings Change in Favor of Democrats, One Month Out”
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.”
As you may have noticed, Erik Paulsen and his special interest patrons are spending millions of dollars to flood the airwaves with negative attack ads again Dean Phillips. You might have questions, and Dean and his campaign team were happy to shed light on the truth:
[table id=21 /]
Dean Phillips is running a people-powered campaign because he believes that our politics are broken — and these kind of ads are part of the problem. Dean has taken $0 from PACs, lobbyists or members of Congress; instead, 64,000 individuals have contributed to the campaign, at an average donation of us $32. Change is coming, and everyone’s invited!
“Congressman Paulsen certainly has an interesting definition of the word accessible,” said DFL Executive Director Corey Day. “The only people Erik Paulsen is accessible to are the special interests and corporate PACs who have donated millions of dollars to his campaign. What’s more, Congressman Paulsen and his Republican allies have resorted to attacking Dean Phillips in ads that are consistently revealed to be inaccurate, misleading, and flat out false.”
“Dean Phillips is offering voters a clear alternative, showing them what true accessibility looks like. He’s appeared at over 120 public campaign events to which everyone is invited, not just wealthy donors. And unlike Erik Paulsen, the sixth biggest recipient of special interest money in Congress, Dean hasn’t taken a penny from PACS or special interests.”
Cartoon Shows Paulsen, Trump Canoeing Through Polluted Waters; Highlights Paulsen’s Votes to Dump Coal Waste Into Waterways & Gut Limits On Methane Pollution
Minneapolis, Minnesota– In a new TV ad, LCV Victory Fund calls out Rep. Erik Paulsen (MN-03) for trying to deceive voters about his record of siding with Trump and corporate polluters.
Last month, the Trump administration announced they will be allowing mining exploration just outside of the Boundary Waters and stopped an environmental review of how mining would impact the wilderness area.
