Concerned Hoosiers today protested Vice President Pence’s rally to support the McConnell tax plan outside the Marriott Hotel in downtown Indianapolis.
The former governor is trying to escape an increasingly poisonous national spotlight by returning to Indiana to sell the tax plan that Republicans like Rep. Braun are pinning their electoral hopes on, but voters today were on hand to remind him that it explodes the deficit and drives up health care costs.
Despite receiving billions of dollars in new tax breaks, health insurers are dead set on wiping out any gains for middle class Hoosiers by raising health care premiums by double digits in response to the GOP sabotage of our health care system. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has said that premiums for health insurers will rise by more than a third next year, primarily because of provisions in the McConnell tax plan that will cause up to 13 million Americans to go without health care within a decade.
The tax plan is also a deficit-buster that will add as much as $2.2 trillion to the national debt when all is said and done. Allies of Pence and Rep. Braun like Speaker of the House Paul Ryan have already made clear that they plan to pay for the new debt by cutting Hoosiers’ Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
“It’s disappointing that Vice President Pence is back to push the McConnell tax plan that will jack up our health care costs and help Republicans cut our Medicare and Social Security,” said Karen Rutledge, an Indianapolis resident. “While he’s here, he may want to remember that we expect the folks who represent us in Washington to work together and deliver commonsense results – not to come back and celebrate disastrous, partisan bills”
“Returning to Indiana to sell this disastrous tax plan won’t reduce the increasingly harsh glare Mike Pence faces in Washington or make Hoosiers forget his disastrous years as governor,” said IDP Chairman John Zody. “Hoosiers already know that the McConnell plan will cause our health care premiums to skyrocket and would explode the deficit, leading to massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and HIP 2.0. It’s another reminder that even from Washington, Mike Pence will find ways to harm our state with reckless policies.”
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