Hi,
My name is Rob Hansen. I'm a proud Wisconsin guy, just like Randy. I cheer for the Milwaukee Brewers, enjoy a Miller beer now and then, and support hometown companies large and small.
But this headline from Vox about Wisconsin's Harley-Davidson has me hanging my head in shame: "Harley-Davidson took its tax cut, closed a factory, and rewarded shareholders."
This is not what Paul Ryan and Donald Trump promised. In fact, back in September 2017, Ryan visited a Harley-Davidson plant in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin to tout the "benefits" his tax scam would give the company -- even going as far to say it would "get their tax rates down so it makes more sense to stay here, to make things here."
Sure, Harley-Davidson's tax rates might be down. We know that 83 percent of Trump and Ryan's tax "relief" was targeted to big corporations and the super-rich, not working folks like us. But instead of keeping jobs in America, or rewarding American workers with a raise, just nine months later, Harley-Davidson has outsourced factories to Thailand, closed down factories here at home, and given hundreds of millions of dollars to corporate shareholders.
The Republican promise has always been that tax cuts for the rich will "trickle down" to the rest of us. But even a great Wisconsin business like Harley-Davidson used their tax scam giveaway from Trump and Ryan to enrich their shareholders and ship jobs overseas. The Trump/Ryan tax scam incentivizes corporations to reject our communities and our people in favor of profits.
Sadly, this probably sounds all too familiar to Ryan's handpicked replacement, Bryan Steil. Since entering Wisconsin's First District race, Bryan Steil has been claiming he's a "manufacturer" because he worked for a manufacturing company. Steil wasn't a manufacturer -- he was a corporate lawyer for Regal Beloit and helped outsource over 300 jobs to Mexico while he was representing them.
The harm to the working-class has been devastating since Ryan and Trump passed their tax scam -- and we can expect more of the same from Steil. According to Vox, corporate stock buybacks hit a record high of $178 billion in the first three months of 2018, while the average hourly earnings for American workers have only increased 67 cents over the past year.
It's a rigged system, and working people will continue paying the price for this tax scam if we don't elect leaders like Randy Bryce, who will fight for the workers here at home, this November. We need to elect representatives who stand with working people, not corporate executives and big businesses.
Thank you,
Rob Hansen
Randy Bryce for Congress
P.S. This is a grassroots campaign supported by over 100,000 contributors chipping in an average of $25. If you can afford to make a contribution and help keep this campaign moving forward, you can chip in using this link.