Senate GOP Tax Plan Would Raise Taxes On 20 Million Working Families

By Travis Waldron/Think Progress

Republicans have consistently denounced President Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000 to expire at the end of the year. “We ought not raise taxes on anyone at the end of the year,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has said of the Obama plan, which would raise taxes on roughly 2.1 million high-income earners (while still preserving a piece of the tax cut for them).

A new Senate GOP tax plan released by McConnell and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), however, raises taxes on nearly 10 times as many Americans by allowing certain tax breaks signed into law by President Obama expire at the end of the year. Putting an end to those three tax breaks — the Child Tax Credit, a tax break on college tuition, and a more generous Earned Income Tax Credit — would raise taxes on 20 million families, as shown by this chart from Seth Hanlon, the director of fiscal reform at the Center for American Progress:

According to Hanlon, 13.1 million families would see higher taxes if the enhancements to the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit are allowed to expire. Another 9.1 million benefited from the American Opportunity Tax Credit, a break on college tuition.

The Senate GOP claims it wants to prevent tax hikes on Americans at the end of the year. The McConnell-Hatch plan, however, is yet another example of the fact that the only tax hikes Republicans can stomach are those that only hit the poor.