The New York Times editorial board quickly slammed the Senate's passage in the early hours on Saturday of a tax reform bill, calling it a "tax heist" and claiming the goal of Republicans was "to enrich the country's elite at the expense of everybody else, including future generations who will end up bearing the cost."
Early Saturday the Senate passed the tax overhaul by a 51-49 margin amid last-minute amendments to entice skeptical Republicans to approve the measure. In an editorial on Saturday, the Times called it a "looting of the public purse by corporations and the wealthy."
"The bill is expected to add more than $1.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade, a debt that will be paid by the poor and middle class in future tax increases and spending cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. Its modest tax cuts for the middle class disappear after eight years.
"Republicans somehow found a way to give a giant and permanent tax cut to corporations like Apple, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, saving those businesses tens of billions of dollars," the Times maintained.
The Times predicted "many unpleasant surprises" as details of the final rewrites to the legislation come to light when the House and Senate work on final legislation for President Donald Trump to sign into law.
Particularly "disheartening" by the Times editors was the support of Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, John McCain, R-Ariz., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who had held up previous GOP-led legislation on reforms for healthcare, tax reform and immigration law.
The Times editors argued that "most credible economists" didn't accept the "fantasy" that cuts to corporate taxes would benefit the economy.
"Republicans offered one fantasy after another to make the case for their budget-busting tax cuts. For example, the White House has said that cutting the corporate tax to 20 percent from 35 percent will lead to a boom in investment and wages — an argument disputed by most credible economists," the Times' editors maintained, adding the results would be extra profits to "enrich senior executives and shareholders."
However, as CNBC reported on Wednesday, 137 economists wrote an open letter to Congress in support of the tax reforms under consideration, stating it would result in economic growth "leading to more jobs, higher wages, and a better standard of living for the American people."
However, the Times pointed out that the "Joint Committee on Taxation, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and other experts say that the bill would not come close to paying for itself."
The Times disputed the assertion that Trump has made, arguing the tax bill would hurt him due to his family businesses.
"For his part, Mr. Trump has repeatedly asserted with a straight face that the tax bill would hurt him. In fact, it will give him and his family a windfall," the Times' editors argued, while predicting more "lies" from Republicans about the tax reforms.
"You can expect the lies to become even more brazen as Republicans seek to defend this terrible bill. But no amount of prevarication can change the fact that Congress and Mr. Trump are giving a giant gift to their donors and sticking the rest of the country with the tab," the editorial concluded.