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For generations, Republicans in Washington have relentlessly driven up the national debt by shoveling tax breaks to the rich. The cumulative impact has been staggering. In the 1950s, corporations paid 6 percent of the cost of running our country; today, that number has fallen<\/a> to 1 percent. <\/b>The 2017 Republican tax cuts were the latest blow \u2014 a $1.9 trillion giveaway to wealthy individuals and multinational corporations. And, as icing on the billionaire cake, decades of Republican attacks on the Internal Revenue Service have cut the risk of an audit in half for multimillionaires and corporate tax cheats.<\/span><\/p>\n Get Today in Opinion<\/span><\/p>\n Globe Opinion’s must-reads, delivered to you every Sunday-Friday. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Republicans don\u2019t really care about the national debt. In fact, the first bill that House Republicans advanced<\/a> would increase budget deficits in order to protect wealthy tax cheats. And new House rules say that additional tax cuts for billionaires and giant corporations don\u2019t need to be paid for. <\/b>It seems that <\/b>more debt is fine with Republicans in Congress, so long as it profits the wealthy and well-connected.<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u2019s not enough. Republicans have committed to vote on a MAGA tax plan to slash total taxes for the wealthy and corporations, while hiking overall rates for everyone else. The Republicans\u2019 30 percent national sales tax<\/a> will increase the cost of everything that families need, from food to diapers to gasoline \u2014 a hard punch in the gut for families already living on a budget.<\/span><\/p>\n Even after hiking taxes on millions of Americans, Republican schemes would not reduce the national debt. But that\u2019s no surprise. Republicans\u2019 one unifying principle is government help for their rich donors and economic pain for everyone else. In 2011, they got their way. After nearly a decade of reckless Bush tax cuts, they manufactured another debt ceiling crisis, which they then leveraged to push through a massive austerity program.<\/span><\/p>\n