Border adjustment tax will devastate poor

Our Republican leaders in Washington are about to rewrite federal income tax codes. What they plan will not be good for people who work for a living. From the 1950s through the 1970s the federal income tax rate on the highest income people in our country was never below 70 percent. And this was during the time when we had the largest and wealthiest middle class in the world.

During the 1980s, with Reagan’s trickle down economic theory the top rate was dropped to 28 percent. How much of the wealth actually trickled down to us? The tax rate had to be raised and is now at 39 percent for the wealthiest. One plan being proposed by Trump and Ryan in Washington would drop the rate on the wealthy to 33 percent, and cut corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 15 percent.

The Republicans say that even with these huge tax cuts, the deficit won’t go up. So what is the plan to replace the tax dollars? The tax Trump and Ryan are proposing is called a Border Adjustment Tax, appropriately called the BAT because it is like a vampire sucking blood out of regular folks... This would be like a 20 percent sales tax on top of the 8 percent sales tax you already pay on things that are imported from other countries.

Go to Walmart and see how many of the things you buy are made in the USA, whether it is the fruit in the produce section or the clothes on your kid’s back. Imagine every one of these things goes up 20 cents on every dollar you spend.

The folks in Washington will tell you your income tax will go down if you are poor or middle class. But then think about how much you spend of your paycheck on things like food and clothing, and how much it will really hurt you if prices go up 20 percent on imported products due to this vampire BAT tax.

Sales taxes hurt the poor and middle class more than any other type of tax. Why? Because if you make $20,000 or $2,000,000 you still have to buy the necessities of life. So a 20 percent Border Tax hurts a lot more if you are poor or middle class. Call your Senators Blunt and McCaskill, and our Representative Jason Smith and tell them no unfair BAT tax.