Republican States Want To Use COVID Funds To Pay For Tax Cuts

Republican-controlled states are trying to use COVID funds given to them by the federal government to cut taxes - for individuals and businesses - ahead of the midterm elections. The law that provided the funds was written in a way to forbid this practice, but Republican attorneys general have been successful in court challenges to allow for the tax cuts to be paid for with the funds. This is setting states up for a disaster, and Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Republicans across the country are trying to use COVID relief funds in order to cut taxes for their Republican controlled states. Right now we have at least 21 Republican controlled states in this nation that are trying to again, use COVID relief funds to cut taxes in their states ahead of the 2022 midterms, Florida, of course, as typical pioneering, this whole effort, they've been filing legal challenges, cuz technically based on, you know, the way the COVID relief passed Congress, uh, you're not allowed technically to use it to provide tax cuts. That's actually something Joe mansion fought to get into that legislation, right? Like, Hey, we're gonna give the states all of this money, but you can't use it to cut your states taxes. You gotta use it for other projects. You know, COVID related things. Of course, if you want to use it for infrastructure, you can use it for infrastructure. You want to give money to, to local, uh, uh, cities and municipalities that are struggling to, to fill their coffers. You can do that, but you can't use it for tax cuts.

Except of course, then they came out and said, well, technically there's nothing stopping you from using it for tax cuts. And the courts where this has already been challenged have said, no, they can use it for tax cuts. So Republicans, as I said are using this to butter up the public a little bit and cut some taxes prior to the 2022 midterms. Uh, one of the most popular taxes that Republicans are aiming to cut is the fuel tax, which by the way, helps pay for infrastructure projects in your states. So you're gonna be in trouble because you actually have a bunch of money for infrastructure. But instead of using that, you're, you're gonna take the money that also would help pay for more infrastructure away. And then the money that was gonna pay for infrastructure has to cover the losses of the other program. You're Robin Peter to pay Paul at this point, folks, everybody would love lower taxes, right? But nobody wants to drive on roads, filled with potholes. Nobody wants to send their kids to schools that don't have air conditioning in the a hundred degree heat waves or heaters in the subfreezing temperatures. But that's the world we're creating because we're obsessed with cutting our frigging taxes or at least Republicans are. And again, they've argued in court successfully that they should be allowed to do this, but there's a bigger problem. The bigger problem is that this country, according to economists, we're headed for a recession probably pretty soon like within the next year.

And what happens when there's a recession? Well tax revenue in states falls

And it makes it more difficult for states to fund everything, everything within the state suffers. So by using up all of this COVID money by cutting taxes and reducing overall revenue at a time when economists say you guys kind of need to be stockpiling money. It's not only bad economics, it's bad government policy, but see these leaders don't care because all they want you to see is, Hey, we did a thing that lowered the price of your gas by 10 cents a gallon. Hey, vote for us again. That's what it's about. They're stealing this COVID relief money and using it to buy your vote.