The American people, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or Independents, understand that we have a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaires and their lobbyists to play an enormously powerful role in electing candidates, defeating candidates and in crafting legislation. This is true of the Democratic Party and it is true of the Republican Party.

Today, with Republicans in control of the White House, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, we are seeing how this corrupt process plays out for the priorities of the Republican party and for their billionaire campaign contributors.

This so-called reconciliation bill, President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that the Republicans are rushing through the House right now is a rather extraordinary piece of legislation. In many respects, given the crises facing our country, this legislation does exactly the opposite of what should be done.

It is no secret that we have more income and wealth inequality in our country today than we have ever had.

Today, the wealthiest man in the world, Mr. Elon Musk, who is now worth more than $400 billion, owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American society. The top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 93%. And CEOs of large corporations now make over 350 times what their workers make.

Unbelievably, according to the RAND Corporation, over the past 50 years, nearly $80 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% of the American people to the top 1%.

What we have seen is the very wealthiest people in America are becoming much richer while at the same time, 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and many millions of families are struggling to put food on the table. That is the economic reality of today.

What does President Trump and Republicans’ reconciliation bill do to address this grossly unfair and unstable situation? What are they doing when the very rich are becoming much richer while working families struggle?

Here’s the answer: this legislation makes the rich and wealthy campaign contributors even richer while making life harder and more stressful for the working families of our country.

This legislation provides massive tax breaks to the top 1% and large corporations in our country and pays for these tax cuts by cutting Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, nutrition, education and other programs that are life and death for working families.

Let me give you one example of how outrageous this legislation is.

As currently written, this bill provides a $235 billion tax break to the top two-tenths of 1% by increasing the estate tax exemption for couples to $30 million.

The estate tax is only applicable to the very wealthiest people in this country who inherit substantial sums of money from a relative.

Under this provision, a couple that inherits $30 million would now pay ZERO tax on that inheritance. Once again, this provision applies only to the top two-tenths of 1% of Americans – the very, very wealthiest people in this country. 99.8% of Americans would not benefit by one nickel under this provision.

Further, this legislation would provide a $420 billion tax break to large, profitable corporations that are stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands........

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