Cardi B wants to know what Uncle Sam is doing with her “f—ing tax money” — and the rapper wants receipts. On Sunday, John Oliver gave Ms. B some of the answers she was looking for, though they probably won’t prove very satisfactory.
“It turns out Cardi, your f—ing money goes to your f—ing military, your f—ing healthcare, and your f—ing social security and veteran and unemployment benefits,” Oliver explained. “Everything else is just some f—ing discretionary s—. And of course, interest.”
In other words, 40 percent of her (and yours, depending on your tax bracket) income is going to some useful stuff, yes, but it’s also going to a lot of waste — including the subsidization of corporate taxes, which have effectively been eliminated in certain cases.
“We just had a huge chance to reform our tax code and we absolutely blew it,” Oliver summed up the bill Trump signed in December, which didn’t close any means of evasion for businesses. “Effective tax reform is not just about lowering rates, it’s also about closing loopholes.”
“So, on Tuesday, as you scrape together your taxes and like Cardi B wonder what Uncle Sam is doing with your motherf—ing money, rest assured that Donald Trump’s tax reform continued to let companies engage in sophisticated tax avoidance schemes,” Oliver concluded.
We aren’t finding much comfort in that.
Watch the video above.