Politicians in Washington are looking out for themselves and their donors at your expense. Rep. Culberson is part of the problem.
The tax scam
- Average tax cut for Texas’ top 1 percent: $80,350
- Average tax cut for Texas’ working and middle class: $688
- Average Affordable Care Act health care premium hike in Texas caused by the tax bill: $1,730
- Amount added to U.S. debt, which congressional Republicans want to pay for with cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits: $1.9 trillion
Prescription drug industry
- Tax breaks for the industry: Investors in nine major drug companies received $50 billion in tax windfalls this year alone.
- Total industry contributions to Culberson: $61,950
- What it costs you: Some of the most popular brand-name drugs saw an average retail price increase of 15.5 percent in 2015. Prices continue to soar under the Trump administration, with 20 prescription drugs seeing price increases of more than 200 percent over a 14-month period.
Wall Street
- Tax breaks for the industry: Five of the largest U.S. banks reported $2.5 billion worth of tax breaks in the first quarter of 2018.
- Total industry contributions to Culberson: $320,204
- What it costs you: Wall Street continues to lobby Congress to roll back reforms put in place after the Great Recession, and the Republican Congress continues to oblige, putting our economy at risk of another financial crisis and allowing Wall Street to scam working Americans.
Big Oil
- Tax breaks for the industry: Five of the largest oil and gas companies received $11.5 billion in tax benefits in 2017.
- Total industry contributions to Culberson: $922,886
- What it costs you: Within President Trump’s first year and a half in office, gas prices rose by almost 18 percent. That price hike could lead to the average family spending about $350 more on gas each year. President Trump also plans to undo car fuel efficiency standards that would save consumers more than $1.7 trillion at the pump. Additionally, members of Congress looked the other way as President Trump’s former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt corruptly billed taxpayers for millions of dollars and pushed policies that benefit polluters but will cost Americans more than $260 billion per year.
Lobbyists
- Lobbyist benefits: Six thousand lobbyists worked on the TCJA, and they expect new loopholes in the bill “to generate paydays for years,” according to Politico.
- Total lobbyist contributions to Culberson: $179,134
- What it costs you: Tax lobbyists donated almost $10 million to members of Congress leading up to the tax bill’s passage, and many officials who wrote the bill have now become lobbyists.
Corporate PACs
- Total tax cuts for businesses: $744 billion over 10 years
- Total industry contributions: Three of the largest corporate PACs have donated $6.3 million to candidates for the 2018 election.
- 2018 corporate PAC contributions to Culberson: $327,581
- What it costs you: Despite congressional Republicans’ claims that the tax bill was aimed at assisting the middle class and boosting wages, real wages for typical workers have remained stagnant since its passage, while corporations have spent more than $500 billion buying back their own stock.