“I am horrified that Republicans in the House and Senate have chosen to pass a tax bill that they know benefits the top one percent at the expense of the majority of people in America,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority. “Republican leadership has made it very clear that their real allegiance is to wealthy donors and large corporations, not women.

“This bill will raise taxes on 53 percent of people in the United States, increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion, and do away with the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, which will cause everyone’s premiums to go up approximately 10 percent and kick 13 million people off of their health insurance. The Republicans who rammed this bill through did not reform the American tax code. They participated in a forceful redistribution of wealth from the majority of people to the top 1 percent, pushing the myth of trickle-down economics.

“We can predict with sickening certainty that we will next see Medicaid and Medicare on chopping block, along with after-school programs, food-assistance programs, and more, as Republicans look for ways to pay for their tax giveaway to the rich. Not only do women disproportionately depend on these social safety net programs, but they‘re also more likely to be employed through them.

“Threatening programs that women, especially women of color, disproportionately rely on in order to give a tax cut to the wealthiest Americans, who are disproportionately white men, is not right. It is a cruel and blatant display of the institutional barriers that women and people of color face in this country every day.”

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