Issued April 26, 2017
WASHINGTON— SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry issued the following statement on the efforts by President Trump and congressional leaders to benefit corporations at the expense of working families:
“The Trump administration and its allies in Congress have once again made it clear that when it comes to enacting economic reforms they prefer to rig the rules to favor greedy corporations over America’s working families. Despite campaign promises by this President and Congressional Republicans to look out for working people, they are not only advocating cutting affordable healthcare for millions of Americans, including giving states the choice to prohibit those with pre-existing conditions from gaining coverage, they also want to ensure that all Members of Congress and their staffs are exempt from this provision. At the same time, they moved to enact the largest corporate tax cut in our history.
“Trump wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, the lowest since at least the 1950s, while making no real impactful changes for working families who need it most. What’s worse, he stands to personally gain from his proposed tax cuts for pass-through corporations. Trump has 500 of these entities, collectively referred to as The Trump Organization.
“The MacArthur Amendment on healthcare is nothing more than an attempt to resurrect the failed anti-worker healthcare reform policies Republicans tried and failed at before. America’s working families came out strongly against any plans to eliminate affordable coverage for millions of Americans, which hurts their families and only boosts the bottom line of greedy insurers. They all support cuts for working families but have exempted themselves and their staffs from facing these catastrophic cuts.
“At the same time they want to gut and effectively repeal the ACA, they want to give corporations the largest tax cut in our nation’s history. Working families across this country have been at the forefront of the resistance to such measures and will continue to flood Congressional offices with calls and show up at town halls with questions about whose side their members of Congress are on.”