WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today blasted Senate Republicans for ramming through their partisan tax plan, which would hurt working families in Illinois and across the country. 
In a speech on the Senate floor, Durbin explained that at the heart of the Republican playbook for how to bankroll massive tax cuts for the wealthy few and the largest corporations is the elimination of three vital tax breaks for working families in this country. The House Republican plan, which will be voted on this week, eliminates the medical expense deduction—making it so that struggling seniors will no longer be able to deduct costly out-of-pocket medical expenses. The House plan also eliminates the student loan interest deduction. There are more than 1.5 million Illinoisans who collectively hold $51 billion in federal student loan debt. And Republicans want to take away one of the most valuable deductions for working families in this state—the state and local tax deduction. While the House Republican Plan was forced to include a “compromise” on the state and local tax deduction after Republican leaders faced strong opposition within their ranks, the Senate Republican bill abandons this pretense and completely eliminates the deduction. Nearly two million Illinoisans—roughly one-third of taxpayers in the State—claimed more than $24 billion in state and local tax deductions in 2015 alone.
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“This week, Republicans in Congress are determined to barrel ahead at full speed in a rushed, partisan effort to pass a tax plan at any cost. Make no mistake, for working families in Illinois and across the United States, this is a mistake. Preliminary analysis from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation revealed that by 2019, more than 13 million Americans who make less than $200,000 a year will experience not a tax cut, but a tax increase under the Senate Republican plan. That number jumps from 13 million to 21 million by the year 2025,” Durbin said in a speech on the Senate floor. “This tax reform plan, which has been proposed by the Republicans who are determined to get it done in just a matter of a few days, is going to be damaging to so many, and it’s not going to help America grow. Middleclass families are going to pay for the costs of giveaways to the wealthiest taxpayers in America.”
