The following article by Sean Miner was posted on the Eden Prairie Sun-Sailor website November 23, 2017:
Retirees protest Rep. Paulsen’s support of tax overhaul legislation
More than 0 men and women, most of them retirees, gathered outside Third District Rep. Erik Paulsen’s office in Eden Prairie Nov. 16 to protest Paulsen’s support of the tax overhaul bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives later that same day.
The demonstrators, organized by the Minneapolis Regional Retiree Council, AFL-CIO, delivered a letter voicing their displeasure to the letter.
Afterward, they assembled at the nearby intersection of West 78th Street and Prairie Center Drive holding signs communicating similar sentiments.
“We are angry that you have voted to cut Medicaid and Medicare and weaken Social Security,” reads the letter delivered to the congressman’s office. “You and your colleagues have chosen to hide threats to basic health and income security in vauge budget resolutions and a misleading tax cut debate.”
The letter notes that the retiree council is composed of “active retired trade unionist concerned about [their] children and grandchildren,” also stating that many of the council’s members live and vote in the Third District.
The letter also claims that “the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts being proposed will make existing inequalities worse, hard to address, and seriously weaken health and income security.”
The letter implored Rep. Paulsen to ask for “analysis of the impacts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security over the next ten years” and to “commit to maintaining earned health security under Medicaid and Medicare for us, our children and grandchildren, and to make Social Security sounder by eliminating the payroll tax cap, which would make the wealthy pay for their fair share of Social Security.”
The letter was signed by Leif Grina, president of the Minneapolis Regional Retiree Concil.
In order to become law, the tax reform legislation must first pass the Senate, where the bill’s fate in its current form is uncertain.
The chamber’s Republican leaders have expressed hopes of getting a tax reform bill to the president’s desk by Christmas.
View the post here.