Republicans Literally Laugh Off Idea of Taxing the Rich to Fix Budget

Republicans have said they want to reduce government spending and increase U.S. revenue—but not if it inconveniences rich people, apparently.

When a reporter asked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy if he would consider raising taxes on wealthy Americans, he answered with a short “No” before the question was even finished. Republicans standing around him groaned and shook their heads. They then began laughing when McCarthy asked where the reporter was earlier.

McCarthy explained that wealth taxes weren’t necessary because the United States has a revenue of 20 percent of gross domestic product, as opposed to 17 percent in previous years. Instead, inflation was due to the Democrats spending $6 trillion after winning the presidential election in 2020.

McCarthy’s statement about revenue is technically true: The U.S. revenues in 2022 totaled 19.6 percent of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office, compared to the annual average of 17.4 percent in the five decades prior. Most of that revenue comes from income taxes.

But raising taxes on the wealthy, even by a little bit, would produce huge amounts of revenue. In 2021, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed charging billionaires a 3 percent wealth tax, and households and trusts worth between $50 million and $1 billion a tax of just 2 percent per year.

This would only apply to a tiny fraction of Americans, but it could produce about $3 trillion in revenue over the next decade, University of Berkeley economists predicted.

In his budget, President Joe Biden proposed increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations and using the revenue to expand health care, childcare assistance, and housing aid. Not only have Republicans fought this plan, but their own budget proposes punishing lower-income Americans to benefit the wealthy.

Republicans’ solution to the debt ceiling crisis is focused on mere pennies in comparison to what a wealth tax would do. The bill calls for work requirements for Medicaid, food stamps, and cash assistance programs—which would barely make a dent in U.S. debt. Work requirements would save the government only about $1 billion per year, according to the CBO, nowhere near how much actually needs to be recouped. And that’s assuming, of course, that such requirements actually work.

The U.S. is just weeks away from defaulting on its debt, but Republicans and Democrats remain at a logjam over how to solve the problem. The GOP seems ready to take it out on the backs of people who can least afford it.

The Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block Illinois’s law banning assault weapons, a rare bit of good news as the U.S. continues to struggle with skyrocketing gun violence.

A total of 10 states and Washington, D.C., have laws banning assault-style weapons. Illinois joined the list in January when Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill prohibiting the possession or sale of such firearms, as well as high-capacity magazines. The ban came six months after a mass shooter opened fire on a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb, killing seven people with a legally purchased semiautomatic weapon.

“This assault weapons ban is a step in the right direction,” Pritzker said at the time. “But there’s no magic fix, no single law that will end gun violence once and for all. So we must keep fighting, voting, and protesting to ensure that future generations will only have to read about massacres like Highland Park, Sandy Hook, and Uvalde in their history books.”

Gun rights advocates in Illinois sued to block the law, saying the measure violates their Second Amendment Rights. But the Supreme Court issued a one-sentence unsigned order on Wednesday declining to block the measure.

But the fight in Illinois is not over. There are six cases challenging the law working their way through the appeals process.

The Supreme Court also refused in January to block New York’s expanded gun restrictions, while the legal challenge to the law plays out. The decisions are not necessarily indications that the justices support gun control, however. The court ruled 6-3 in June to strike down a form of gun carry restriction that only six states use, dramatically expanding gun access nationwide. Instead, the New York and Illinois rulings are more likely a sign that the high court is giving lower courts more time to weigh the potential effects of the June ruling.

Meanwhile, the effects of increased gun access are wreaking havoc on the U.S. People are being shot just for approaching the wrong house. There have been 226 mass shootings since the start of the year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Many states have weakened gun restrictions, and violence soon follows.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill Wednesday that will effectively stop all Pride parades and festivals in the state, a massive attack on LGBTQ visibility.

The new law prohibits government entities and employees from issuing permits to organizations that may hold “adult live performances” in the presence of minors. Anyone that does can be charged with a misdemeanor. The law is so vaguely worded, and the punishment so high, that at least one Pride Parade has already been canceled this year.

The measure would also ban businesses from allowing minors to attend an “adult live performance,” which is defined as a show performed in front of a live audience that “depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities … lewd conduct, or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.” Any business that breaks this law will face a fine of up to $10,000 and could lose its license.

The law’s supporters say that they are not targeting drag queens but instead trying to protect children. But Democratic Representative Fentrice Driskell pointed out that Florida already has laws in place to protect children.

“Even though the plain text of the bill may not say ‘drag’ … there’s a greater context happening here, and we all know it,” she said, just before the bill passed the House last month by a vote of 82–32, along party lines.

Critics have slammed the bill as being overly broad, which could have unintended consequences. Republicans admitted that the measure would prevent performances of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the musical Hair.

But the measure will also have an intended consequence: “erasing” LGBTQ people from existence. Florida Republican Representative Randy Fine said outright that if passing the bill “means erasing a community because you have to target children, then, damn right, we ought to do it!”

Florida is now the second state to pass a law attacking drag performances, which have become a particular target for the right wing in recent years. In March, Tennessee became the first state to pass such a law, although the measure was blocked by a judge before it could go into effect on the grounds that it was overly broad and violated free speech rights.

DeSantis also signed an anti-trans bill the same day, which allows the state to remove trans kids from their families if they receive gender-affirming care. You can read more about that bill here.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a horrifying bill Wednesday that will let the state take transgender minors away from their families if they are receiving gender-affirming care.

The new law will allow the state to take custody of a child if they have been “subjected to or [are] threatened with being subjected to” gender-affirming care, which includes puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. Florida courts could modify custody agreements from a different state if the minor is likely to receive gender-affirming care in that second state. The text refers to gender-affirming care as “sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures” and qualifies this care as a form of “physical harm.”

Medical facilities would have to give the state Department of Health a signed attestation that they neither provide gender-affirming care to any patients under the age of 18 nor refer people to providers that do. Their medical license renewal is contingent upon sending in this attestation.

But the bill also targets trans adults: Only physicians are allowed to offer gender-affirming care (not nurse practitioners). Anyone who violates the law could be charged with a misdemeanor.

Minors who have already begun transitioning will be allowed to continue to do so, but they are no longer allowed to receive care via telehealth, including for prescriptions. Their doctors have to tell them about the “risks” of gender-affirming care, and patients will have to sign an informed consent form, which the ACLU has pointed out often contains misinformation. Doctors who violate any of these new rules could be charged with a felony.

Republicans across the country have introduced bills targeting gender-affirming care, but this is one of the most extreme measures yet. The people who support these bills insist that they are trying to protect children, but forcibly taking a kid from their loving family sounds more likely to traumatize them. What’s more, by passing legislation that describes LGBTQ health care as something that should be penalized, lawmakers are putting people of all ages at risk of real harm.

DeSantis also signed an anti-drag bill the same day, which is expected to end all Pride Parades in the state due to its vague wording. You can read more about that bill here.

Republicans have lost election after election in no small part because of their assault on, and now successful erosion of, abortion rights in America. From the crash of the predicted “red wave” in the midterm elections to numerous referendums protecting abortion in red states, to a key victory in Wisconsin just last month, attacking people’s bodily autonomy is a continually losing issue for Republicans. And Donald Trump, the party’s leading 2024 nominee, is now bragging about getting rid of people’s right to choose.

“I’m the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade,” twice-impeached, criminally indicted, and liable-for-sexual-abuse former President Trump boasted on Newsmax.

The comments came in response to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis criticizing Trump for not giving a definitive answer on whether the former president would sign the same six-week abortion ban that he had.

Trump, who up to this point seemed to have a comfortable hold on his relationship toward DeSantis, seems to be bungling his response now. Since his remarks on Tuesday, Trump has only doubled down on eroding abortion rights, an unpopular position among most Americans, while also trying to maintain his posturing that in doing so, he opened up room for the opposing sides of the debate to “negotiate.”

“I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday, “and for the first time put the Pro Life movement in a strong negotiating position.… Without me there would be no 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever is finally agreed to,” he continued, curiously showing he has no concern with what an actual outcome might look like. He oddly—and, at least, candidly—positions himself as someone who doesn’t care what people’s actual abortion rights are, as much as purports himself to be an effective mediator between the two sides.

“Without me the pro Life movement would have just kept losing. Thank you President TRUMP!!!” he finished.

Trump’s shakiness previews a likely continued messy debate between Trump and DeSantis. Up to this point, the Florida governor has not been avidly boasting about his radical move to ban abortions beyond six weeks—which, again, makes sense given how unpopular the policy is. But now DeSantis will likely see Trump’s vacillation as a gap for him to attack. The outcomes of such a circumstance bode very badly for the GOP. Trump may triple down on saying he was the one to get rid of Roe v. Wade, which basically writes the Democratic attack ads themselves. Or Trump may continue to appear confused and apathetic on the issue, which could actually generate some level of momentum for DeSantis or other candidates, making the entire primary much more competitive and potentially divisive. Trump may prevail in any case—but he’ll either come to be seen by the general public as the icon of the attack on abortion rights or, by Republicans, as weak and potentially marred by a much more competitive primary.

Go forth, DeSantis, take your shot.