House to Vote on Tax Bill This Thursday—Contact Your Reps NOW!

Congress continues to move swiftly on passing a tax bill that trades tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthiest corporations and individuals while potentially raising tax burdens and cutting programs that help middle and low-income households.

The House will likely vote on H.R. 1 this Thursday. The key takeaways for this tax bill are as follows:

• It proposes to raise our nation’s deficit by over $1.5 trillion to provide tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthiest individuals and corporations. The increased deficit sets the stage to implement the deep cuts to essential needs programs like SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security Income, and TANF as planned in the budget resolution adopted by both the House and Senate last month.
• Very few, if any, middle and low-income families will benefit from the proposed tax cuts, and in some cases, such as the proposed change to the Child Care Tax Cut, many working families, including 181,000 Washington children, will be completely left out of this benefit under proposed changes.
• The financial stability of nonprofits, including food banks, could be harmed as proposed changes decrease the incentive to itemize deductions, including charitable contributions.

The Senate tax bill that may be voted on next week differs in some details but is largely the same framework, passing deficit raising tax cuts to set the stage for cutting trillions from programs that help struggling individuals and families. The Senate bill is now also a vehicle for yet another attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, calling for a repeal of the individual mandate to offset an additional $300 billion in tax cuts over ten years. The combined effect of an eroded safety net with less financial contributions from individual donors could overwhelm our emergency food system, setting us all back from the progress that has been made towards building healthy communities that are free of hunger.

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