This morning, a new report from ProPublica revealed how Republican senators, including Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, leveraged their votes on Trump’s 2017 tax scam to secure tax cuts for the billionaires who fund their campaigns.
Senator Johnson was called out for making demands to specifically help Dick and Liz Uihlein and Diane Hendricks, who together spent $20 million to get Johnson elected in 2016, obtain a tax cut of $215 million in 2018 alone.
In exchanging his vote to get a massive tax deduction for his billionaire donors, Senator Johnson showed how corrupt he is and proved that he is spending his time in Washington fighting for his wealthy donors, not the people of Wisconsin.
See below for key points from the article:
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“Johnson’s demand was simple: In exchange for his vote, the bill must sweeten the tax break for a class of companies that are known as pass-throughs, since profits pass through to their owners… The Trump administration championed the pass-through provision as tax relief for ‘small businesses.’”
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“Confidential tax records, however, reveal that Johnson’s last-minute maneuver benefited two families more than almost any others in the country — both worth billions and both among the senator’s biggest donors.”
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“Dick and Liz Uihlein of packaging giant Uline, along with roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, together had contributed around $20 million to groups backing Johnson’s 2016 reelection campaign.”
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“The expanded tax break Johnson muscled through netted them $215 million in deductions in 2018 alone, drastically reducing the income they owed taxes on. At that rate, the cut could deliver more than half a billion in tax savings for Hendricks and the Uihleins over its eight-year life.”
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“[W]hen Johnson faced long odds in his reelection bid against former Sen. Russ Feingold, the Uihleins gave more than $8 million to a series of political committees that blanketed the state with pro-Johnson and anti-Feingold ads.”
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“Johnson’s campaign also got a boost from Hendricks… She gave about $12 million to a pair of political committees, the Reform America Fund and the Freedom Partners Action Fund, that bought ads attacking Feingold.”
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“In the first year of the pass-through tax break, Hendricks got a $97 million deduction on income of $502 million. By reducing the income she owed taxes on, that deduction saved her around $36 million.”
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