As House Republicans left Miami without a firm plan to extend expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA, P.L. 115-97), a new campaign, Families Over Billionaires, is taking aim at any proposals that would benefit the wealthy and corporations over working families.
House Republicans wrapped up a three-day issues conference on January 29 without an agreement on what 2025 tax reform would look like. With many TCJA provisions expiring at the end of the year, many Republican lawmakers are pushing for an extension. But that comes at a high cost — over $4 trillion says the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — that House Freedom Caucus members and other deficit hawks find unpalatable.
Amid the dispute, labor unions, grassroots advocates, and other organizations backed the launch of a new “campaign war room” to highlight how some of the TCJA extensions and other tax cut proposals would negatively impact families.
Families Over Billionaires, launched January 30, is an “eight-figure effort will include paid media, rapid response, surrogate operations, and grassroots mobilization to hold Republicans accountable,” according to a press release. The goal is to “lift up the voices of the broad and bipartisan coalition of Americans who oppose giving more tax cuts to the rich.”
The campaign aims to be a resource amid the broad arguments about what to prioritize in the 2025 tax fight, a spokesperson told Checkpoint. It will operate “rapid response war room accounts” to get the word out about the impacts of various tax proposals. Community engagement, TV and radio spots, and social media efforts are underway.
Those backing Families Over Billionaires include Representative Pat Ryan (D-NY), former Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and former director of the Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young.
Partner groups include the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Americans for Tax Fairness, National Education Association, the National Women’s Law Center, and Service Employees International Union.
For Brown, the key question is, “Are you fighting for the people who make this country work, or more handouts for the wealthy and the largest corporations?” Families Over Billionaires, he said, aims to “make that contrast clear.”
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