New York Yankees president: GOP tax deal helps special interests, hurts middle class

The president of the New York Yankees is blasting the GOP tax plan, saying it helps special interests and hurts the middle class.

In an open letter published in Newsmax, Randy Levine, who backed President Trump, called for the president to “revisit” his support for the tax-reform package, saying it needs a “big fix.”

“Republican leadership in Congress has disappointed you time and time again. Now your good intentions on tax cuts are following the same path. The plans on the table are not middle-class tax cuts. They may not even be tax cuts at all,” he wrote.

{mosads}”When you ran and won, you ran on draining the swamp, not giving new life to it. You ran on tax cuts, not on the swamp’s idea of tax reform where special interests win.”

Levine said the GOP tax plan helps Wall Street, hedge funds, private equity managers and people who “disguise income as profits or distributions.”

“If we want to raise revenue, pay for tax cuts and control the deficit, then all income should be taxed at the same rates. It cannot be reclassified as profits or distributions,” he added.

“This is a giant loophole that needs to be closed so that it will not permit some of the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers to pay a rate below what their income requires and in effect brings them below this plans [sic] lowest rate of 12 percent.”

He continued: “Mr. President, this is not what you campaigned for on or intended.”

Levine referred to the tax plan as a “bad deal” and urged Trump to “step back, reconsider and renegotiate.”

“You may think the present deal is a win because something (anything) will get passed and be chalked up as an accomplishment for your administration. Nothing can be further from the truth,” he wrote.

“Very shortly after this legislation takes effect it will be revealed that the so-called win will turn into a loss for both you and American taxpayers.”

Levine wrote that Trump was elected by people who “work hard, pay their mortgages, interest and property tax.”

“Not the special interests who benefit most under this plan. A tax cut should help all,” he wrote.

“This, Mr. President, is a swamp deal.”

Trump on Monday appeared to call for changes to the Republican tax plan even as he claimed it has “great support.”

“The Tax Cut Bill is coming along very well, great support,” the president wrote on Twitter. “With just a few changes, some mathematical, the middle class and job producers can get even more in actual dollars and savings and the pass through provision becomes simpler and really works well!”

His tweet came hours before he was expected to meet at the White House with top Republican tax writers in the Senate.

GOP leaders are looking to advance the tax bill in the upper chamber this week in a race to get a bill on Trump’s desk by the end of the year. House Republicans passed their version of the plan before Thanksgiving.

One Republican senator has come out against the bill, while the positions of six others are uncertain, according to The Hill’s Whip List.