Sen. Bernie Sanders said it’s a “disgrace” that Donald Trump intends to repeal the estate tax for the billionaires running corporations like Wal-Mart who are paying their employees “starvation wages.”
“If he does that and he got away with it … the Walton family alone … you know our good friends that own Wal-Mart that pay their workers starvation wages. The Walton family alone would get a would get a $53 billion dollar tax cut,” said the former presidential candidate at a Democratic campaign rally in support of Hillary Clinton in Madison, Wisconsin Wednesday. “We think that is a disgrace.”
Trump has admitted he himself has benefited in the past from the country’s tax code and he promised to “straighten it out and make it fair for everybody.”
Sanders cautioned during his speech that the Republican presidential nominee’s tax reform proposals would help line his own wallet. The progressive senator said though Trump thinks every idea he has is brilliant, “If you are a working person out there, ask yourself if it makes any sense to give hundreds of billions of tax breaks to billionaires.”
Though Sanders is known for targeting massive corporations, he has been particularly critical of Wal-Mart in the past few days, arguing that the massive supermarket chain is getting corporate welfare while paying its employees wages that almost ensure they will sign up for public welfare.
It’s insane that Walmart costs taxpayers $6.2 billion every year in public assistance programs by not paying their workers a living wage.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 5, 2016
Hillary Clinton is a former board member of Wal-Mart who has attempted to distance herself from the corporation. However, some of the heirs to the Walton fortune gave about $714,000 to her presidential campaign and the Democratic Party.
