U.S. Tax Plan’s Spiraling Consequences for Human Rights and Poverty – At Home and Abroad
As the United States Congress considers drastically altering its tax code, my organization — the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) — has brought the spiraling human rights costs of the proposed U.S. tax cuts to the attention of a leading UN human rights official visiting the U.S. to look into poverty in the country.
On Dec. 1 – the morning before the U.S. Senate rushed through a lopsided and dysfunctional tax plan to unfairly benefit the top tiers of the economy while costing ordinary people within and outside the U.S. dearly — the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston launched his official visit to the US to investigate the links between the growing phenomenon of poverty and human rights deprivations there.
In advance of his visit, we made a formal submission entitled Fiscal Impoverishment in the United States, warning that the Republican-backed tax plans would only deepen poverty and inequality within the U.S., while also enabling transnational tax abuse and undermining the ability of countries around the world to invest in human rights.