LAWRENCE, MASSACHUSETTS- Protesters swarmed House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday, holding a demonstration as Ryan spoke about tax reform. Ryan was speaking at a New Balance factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a heavily democratic area that the Speaker is visiting to promote tax overhaul, one of the President’s highest priorities. The protest was organized by members of the Service Employees International Union, a union which represents healthcare workers. Demonstrators rallied, chanted, and displayed signs with messages like “Health care for all” and “No hate. No fear. Paul Ryan is not welcome here.”
Philip Marcelo with the Associated Press and the Wisconsin Gazette reports:
More than 100 demonstrators rallied against House Speaker Paul Ryan after he toured a New Balance sneaker factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Protesters chanted and held signs reading: “Health care for all” and “No hate. No fear. Paul Ryan is not welcome here.”
The Massachusetts chapter of the Service Employees International Union, which represents healthcare workers, organized the demonstration in response to plans by Ryan’s and Republican representatives’ plans to enact massive tax cuts for the wealthy and to scrap former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Ryan had traveled to the heavily Democratic state to promote two of Donald Trump’s top priorities. Ryan delivered a stinging indictment of the current tax code, calling it inefficient, unfair and too complicated. He said the tax code puts U.S. businesses at a disadvantage against foreign competitors and overwhelms families who can’t fill out their own tax forms.
A House Republican plan would lower the top corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. Trump’s plan would lower it to 15 percent.
The White House and congressional Republicans have been privately negotiating their tax package for weeks, with no public sign that they’re near a consensus. Democrats have been excluded from the talks.
Read more at the Wisconsin Gazette.
