Albany, NY — In response to the House passage of the tax reform bill, Citizen Action of New York Executive Director Karen Scharff and Central New York Citizen Action President John Furman issued the following statements:
“The passage of the House tax reform bill is a kick in the teeth to working families in New York State. This bill is nothing more than a giant bonus check for billionaires and large corporations. At a time of rising inequality, we can’t afford to shift more wealth from poor and working class families to the excessively wealthy. Rep. Tenney should be ashamed at supporting a bill that hurts so many of her constituents. The bill not only makes taxes more unfair to working people, but it also will lead to deeper cuts to education, health care, and other vital programs we depend on,” said Karen Scharff, Executive Director of Citizen Action of New York
“We are very disappointed that Rep. Tenney voted to pass a giant tax cut for corporations and the wealthy. We know from experience that instead of generating economic growth and jobs, tax cuts and the resulting lost revenue leads to unacceptable cuts in education, health care, and vital public services. Currently, corporations already pay far less than their top statutory tax rate of 35%. The tax bill will not bring jobs back but instead will encourage corporations to send work offshore, replace labor with machines, and give higher compensation packages to their CEOs. This tax bill is a disaster for Central New York families. Corporations and the wealthiest among us will receive trillions of dollars in tax breaks. At the same time, needed revenue for investments in education, infrastructure, housing, and health care will be taken away from Central New York communities. Low- and moderate-income families in our congressional district will pay twice–by seeing their taxes go up, and by losing services such as Medicaid, SNAP, housing vouchers, education, and child care,” said John Furman, President of Central New York Citizen Action.
###