WA GOP Refuses to Defend Trump’s Decades of Tax Avoidance
Heading into the first presidential debate, the party of Trump has no response to revelations that he paid merely $750 in federal income taxes during his first year in office
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | September 29, 2020
SEATTLE — As the New York Times continues to release damning evidence of Trump’s total ineptitude in managing his finances that undermines Trump’s core argument that he can be trusted to manage our economic recovery, Washington state Republicans who have proudly aligned themselves with the least popular president in a century are making no effort to defend his decades of tax avoidance.
State Republican legislative leaders like JT Wilcox and Mark Schoesler, both so allegedly concerned about fiscal responsibility that they pushed for months to make needless budget cuts to services supporting working families during this pandemic, have not made a single statement in support of the president on the eve of his first debate.
Joshua Freed, the GOP’s write-in candidate for Lt. Governor after his failed bid for the top of the ticket, has also remained silent on the president he wholeheartedly pledged fealty to cheating the American public out of millions of dollars in tax revenue. Freed’s silence is perhaps even more surprising than his hypocritical allies in the state legislature, as he can personally relate to Trump’s penchant for faulty accounting to mislead government regulators. Unlike Trump, however, Freed hasn’t been able to dodge accountability for his malfeasance by continuing to run for public office.
Loren Culp, Republican candidate for governor, has similarly remained silent on the Times’ revelation that Trump’s reputation for success in business is nothing but possibly illegal accounting tactics. Instead, he continues to imitate Trump’s anti-mask rhetoric and complete disregard for the rule of law, holding in-person rallies that violate public health orders that are keeping the coronavirus from running rampant throughout our state.
Vulnerable Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler also refuses to address the president’s latest potential legal troubles despite pledging to vote for him this November after refusing to commit to supporting Trump in his 2016 campaign. Herrera Beutler has consistently been a staunch supporter of Trump’s in Congress, standing with him in attempts to weaken labor laws, opposing additional economic aid to working families and small businesses, and voting more than 80 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act without proposing a replacement.
With Herrera Beutler’s silence on the president’s shady financial dealings there’s no way to know why she apparently condones his tax evasion, but one explanation might be that it seems like business as usual to her after a decade of benefitting from more than $1.6 million in corporate PAC money and hundreds of thousands of dollars in dark money to run misleading ads about her record on health care in her most recent reelection campaign.
“Up and down the ballot, the silence from WA GOP candidates on Trump’s indefensible refusal to pay his fair share in taxes is deafening,” said Tina Podlodowski, chair of the Washington State Democratic Party. “Washingtonians need leaders they can trust to lead our economic recovery from this pandemic and dismantle the massive advantages the super-wealthy like Trump regularly take advantage of to skirt their responsibilities to the rest of us. Time and time again, the WA GOP’s inability to hold Trump accountable for his limitless greed proves they cannot be trusted with our economic recovery.”
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