A little less than a month ago, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that "nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase." Within days, he had to walk that back a bit, to "You can’t guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase." After passage of his tax bill, his singular legislative achievement as leader, he's now explaining away the fact that it doesn't do much for the middle class because it's "impossible" to write a bill that helps everyone, and that won't hurt someone.
"You can't craft any bill that would guarantee no one was in a special category that might get a tax increase. What I can tell you is that every segment of taxpayers, every category of taxpayers on average gets significant relief," McConnell said Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation."
"Clearly most people, middle income taxpayers, an overwhelming majority of them will get tax relief," he said. "And because of the business tax changes, it's much less likely that the job they currently have is going to end up in another country because we are clearly uncompetitive in the global economy with the current tax rates."
They'll be thanking McConnell for their job in the U.S., even when they have to declare the $25 gift card they got at work as income.
What McConnell did absolutely guarantee, however, is that lots of special categories that include his big donors got relief. If you want to guarantee McConnell looks out for you, you've got to bring the very big bucks.
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