Washington, D.C. – Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet today issued the following statement in response to the newly-announced House Republican tax plan.
“Tax reform is hard-and the only way hard things get done the right way is through a bipartisan, consensus-building process,” Bennet said. “The House Republican tax plan takes the opposite approach. It relies on the tired notion that huge giveaways at the top eventually trickle down to everyone else-yet no good evidence supports this. It’s time for Republicans to work with Democrats on real, lasting reform that will spur job creation, grow paychecks, and help real small businesses.”
Earlier today, Bennet held a press conference with U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) to highlight the similarities between the failed 2012 Kansas tax experiment and the Republican tax plan. Jim Ward, Kansas State House Minority Leader, who led the bipartisan effort to overturn Kansas’ tax breaks, was also in attendance.
“Coloradans don’t have to look far to imagine the results of this misguided tax plan,” Bennet said. “In Kansas, after passing tax cuts for the wealthy that aren’t paid for, the economy stagnated, job creation lagged, and services were slashed. At the same time, right next door in my home state of Colorado, we brought unemployment down to the second-lowest rate in the country and growth boomed. If states are laboratories of democracy, the Kansas experiment was a five-alarm lab fire. We must not repeat this failed experiment across the entire country.”