Sen. Bernie Sanders called President Trump’s complaints about Democratic obstruction over the tax reform bill “total nonsense” and put the blame on Republicans for not including the minority party in negotiations.
Sanders, I-Vermont, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Trump’s complaint in a tweet Saturday — that Democrats don’t understand the power of low taxes and are only interested in obstruction — is mistaken on its face.
“Well, that’s total nonsense,” Sanders said. “Democrats have been completely shut out of this process just as they were shut out of the healthcare legislation process. Here’s the facts, and Trump should understand this: What this legislation is about is fulfilling the promises, Republican promises, made to wealthy campaign contributors. There is a reason why the billionaire class provides hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republicans. And now it’s payback time.”
Sanders said Democrats want to be at the table for negotiations over tax reform, but he sees the entire thing as a giveaway to the rich.
Sanders pointed to growing income inequality, the fact that there is no socialized medicine program in the United States and crumbling infrastructure as other priorities that should be addressed before tax reform.
“Does anyone really think that the major crisis facing this country is the need to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the very richest people in this country?” he said.
