TUCSON— After the New York Times published a report on the President’s tax returns showing that President Trump paid only $750 in income tax in 2016 and 2017, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva issued the following statement:

“These reports show that Donald Trump is one of the biggest con artists in American history. Behind the smoke and mirrors of television shows and magazine articles, he’s nothing more than a failed businessman who has taken advantage of a rigged tax code to avoid paying income taxes. As President, he’s funneled millions of taxpayer dollars into his own properties and used his power for his own personal financial gain. That’s not leadership or ‘being smart.’ It’s being a crook and a freeloader.

“This goes further than Donald Trump. It’s about an unequal tax code that benefits the wealthy and powerful at the expense of working families who don’t have fancy high-powered lawyers and accountants to help them navigate a system already rigged against them. It’s about a system that has siphoned all the wealth to the very top and underfunded our national interests—including education and health care. Republicans have done nothing to address this and only exacerbated it further when they passed their tax scam in 2017 that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy while pushing budgets that slash Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, global health, research, and environmental programs to pay for it.  

“Donald Trump is not a man of the people. He has nothing in common with the workers and small businesses who are the heartbeat of this nation and actually pay their share of taxes. Congress must continue fighting for the President’s tax returns to fully assess the extent of his financial interests. In the meantime, we must close loopholes and reform the tax code so that opportunists like Donald Trump don’t bankrupt this country.”

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