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Kevin O'Leary rails against ‘anti-American' GOP tax plan: ‘It's gotta get fixed'

Kevin O'Leary rails against ‘anti-American' GOP tax plan: ‘It's gotta get fixed'

New York Post15-05-2025

One popular investor and entrepreneur has aired his grievances with the proposed tax plan in President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill.'
'This is anti-American. It's against small business. I've never seen anything like it. You want to talk about [a] big, beautiful bill? This is a big, ugly piece of that bill. It's gotta get fixed,' Kevin O'Leary said Tuesday on 'Varney & Co.'
'For small business[es], I'm their advocate,' he added. 'So I read all these bills.'
The Trump White House did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment at the time of publication.
The O'Leary Ventures chairman put the onus on the end of the pandemic-era Employee Retention Credit (ERC), which gave government money to businesses that kept Americans employed throughout COVID.
'That program's over. They want to give new powers to the IRS to audit all those small businesses for up to nine years. That's unprecedented. Why would we want to do that to small business?' he posited.
'So many of these audits would occur after the period where they don't have their records,' O'Leary expanded. 'This is war on small business.'
Kevin O'Leary claimed that GOP's proposed tax plan is 'anti-American' and would hurt small businesses.
Photo byHouse Republicans released a portion of Trump's tax agenda late on Friday evening, bringing them one step closer to completing the commander-in-chief's federal budget proposal.
The legislation draft includes an increased child tax credit (CTC), a higher threshold for estate tax liability and codifying the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The full legislation is expected to advance through the Ways & Means Committee this week before reaching the president's desk by July 4.
Notably absent from the rough draft was legislation around state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps, a new millionaires' tax bracket, eliminating taxes on tips, overtime wages and Social Security checks for retirees.
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaking to reporters at the Capitol amid negotiations over the GOP's budget bill on May 15, 2025
Photo byBut O'Leary insists some changes must be made before the president puts pen to paper and makes the plan law.
'I read it and said, 'This can't be right. Why would they do this?'' he said. 'It's outrageous that they would attack small business like this, and unprecedented to get powers to the IRS like this because it won't stop there.'
'They're looking to save money. I get it, ERC saved millions of businesses,' O'Leary clarified. 'And some people claimed it was fraudulent. Sure, there's fraud in every government program. But 95% of these businesses deserve that money and are still in business because of that money. And now somebody says, give the IRS power to go rip into them. That's not okay.'
Fox News' Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

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‘We've lost the culture war on climate'

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This will reveal paid fake thugs posing as protesters becoming violent. ….The rest of us will demonstrate our non-violent innocence and retain our Constitutional right to peaceful protest.' Craig Silverman, a journalist and cofounder of Indicator, a site that investigates deception on digital platforms, said that reporting on the context and true scope of the protests would have a hard time competing with the visceral images broadcast into Americans' homes. 'It's inevitable that the most extreme and compelling imagery will win the battle for attention on social media and on TV,' Silverman said via email. 'It's particularly challenging to deliver context and facts when social platforms incentivize the most shocking videos and claims, federal and state authorities offer contradictory messages about what's happening.' Dan Schnur, who teaches political science at USC and UC Berkeley, agreed. 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And sending the Marines to L.A. was an even more extreme approach, with experts saying challenges to the deployment would test the limits of Trump's power. The federal Insurrection Act allows the deployment of the military for law enforcement purposes, but only under certain conditions, such as a national emergency. California leaders say Trump acted before a true emergency developed, thereby preempting standard protocols, including the institution of curfews and the mobilization of other local police departments in a true emergency. Even real estate developer Rick Caruso, Bass' opponent in the last election, suggested Trump acted too hastily. 'There is no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in Los Angeles,' Caruso wrote on X Sunday. 'And absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets of this or any other Southern California City.' 'We must call for calm in the streets,' Caruso added, 'and deployment of the National Guard may prompt just the opposite.' Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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