BU Economics Professor Weighs In On GOP Tax Plan
BOSTON (CBS) - For Laurence Kotlikoff, the GOP's tax plan means corporate cuts will trickle down to higher wages.
But Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University, worries that health care and education are being left out of the equation.
"We're seeing in this bill a limitation on property tax deductions and also the elimination of the ability to deduct state income taxes," he said. "Both of those taxes are funding public education in Massachusetts, for example, and many other states around the country."
Kotlikoff is calling the bill "a major concern."
"Will this really decimate public education around the country?" he said.
He spoke hours after the Senate passed its version of tax reform early Saturday morning, over the heated objections of Democrats, including Massachusetts senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey who lashed out against the bill.
The margin was 51-49, with not one Democrat voting yes.
Perhaps due to the late hour, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, was at times muted in his reaction.
"As you noticed, at the end, there was not a single Democrat who thought this was a good idea," McConnell said. "And so we're gonna take this message to the American people also in a year from now."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, denounced the bill.
"We understand they have the votes to pass their bill, despite a process and a product that no one can be proud of and everyone should be ashamed of," he said.
In Boston on Saturday, the vote drew protestors who criticized the tax plan outside the Apple Store on Boylston Street.
President Donald Trump praised the vote.
"We passed the largest tax cuts in the history of our country and many other things a long with it, tremendous tax reform," Trump said. "People are going to be very, very happy. They are going to get tremendous, tremendous, tax cuts."
