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GOP lawmakers are laughing into their hats as they head home from Capitol Hill, thinking tax cuts for the rich – the ones they’ve wanted for so long – are finally within reach, if they can hold on a little longer.

There’ll be smiles all around the Thanksgiving table, they imagine, with a fat turkey in the middle of the feast, if they can just hang tight for a few more weeks.

They’re wrong; we're going to stop them.

There is a fat turkey in this story, but it’s not on the Thanksgiving table, surrounded by trimmings and gravy. It’s in the Senate, hoping to land on the President’s desk.

The GOP, desperate for a legislative win it can take home to donors, has shown itself willing to tell all lies, sacrifice lives, and pay any cost, as long as it’s borne by working people, and not by them or their rich friends.

But the GOP’s tax bill is a turkey no presidential pardon can save.

A Real Stinker

The House just narrowly approved – by only four votes – a budget resolution that balloons the deficit even as it robs hundreds of billions of dollars from seniors, veterans and rural America, vital infrastructure, job creation, clean energy and research.

Blinded by the fear deep-pocketed donors will abandon ship if they don’t come through with a win, GOP lawmakers have jettisoned all they once claimed to hold dear.

Gone is any hint of a balanced budget, in the present or foreseeable future. Why? Because this plan adds $1.5 trillion – with a T – to our deficit in its first ten years.

And while they trot out the Salesman in Chief to say they love the middle class, lawmakers know it’s not true. They virtually had to hold their noses to vote for this stinker.

A full twenty GOP Members of the House couldn’t stand the stench, and did the unthinkable - they reached across the aisle and joined Democratic colleagues to vote against the bill.

But if this budget stinks to high Heaven, what comes after it smells even worse.

Tax Cuts Around the Bend

With the budget blueprint in their back pockets, GOP leaders now hope to drive through a tax bill with $1.5 trillion in giveaways to those who – by their own admission - need them least.

These paybacks to rich donors are paid for by deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other programs that are essential to working families. Lives will be lost if their tax plan becomes law.

And that’s just the beginning. If these tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent in this country go through, our deficit will balloon by trillions more; more lives hang in the balance.

Not satisfied with what they’ve cut from the poor, they’ve now turned on the middle class. Retirement savings, state and local tax credits, and other programs working families rely on are all up for grabs.

They hope to rush this tax plan through before Thanksgiving, with only 51 votes and no time to read the fine print. They’ll vote in the dead of night if they have to.

But we won’t let that happen. We’ve stopped them before: in August, unprecedented numbers of us took to our phones, to the streets and to Capitol Hill to save health care.

We let lawmakers know, in their districts and in their offices, that we know exactly where they stand. And we won’t forget. Just as we held them accountable on health care, we’ll hold them accountable on taxes, and we’ll hold them accountable at the polls.

We turned the tide then, and we’ll do it again.

We Stand United

GOP lawmakers may feign unity, but they’re far from united in their support of this tax package. They try to keep a straight face when they call it “reform,” when they know that by every measure, their tax plan tips the scales farther in favor of the rich.

We, on the other hand, stand firm. We won’t stand by and watch working people pick up the tab, even if they're forced to clear up the mess the fat cats leave at the table.

We won’t let this stinker slide through.

So hold the dressing; don’t pass the gravy. Because just like your pardon can’t save that other turkey, we’ll send this one back to the farm, too.

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