Last week, we found out that Democratic party leaders also have been making other promises, this time to the donor class: A $275 billion tax break for millionaires and the very wealthy over five years. This giveaway is engineered by lifting the cap on the state and local tax deduction…

To add insult to injury, this provision applies retroactively, allowing wealthy people to rake in windfalls from the past year, while the programs in the Build Back Better Act that would help working middle class people — like capping out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors — are delayed or expire after just a few years.

This should be an outrage to working middle class Americans. I know it enrages me. Fighting for the working middle class shouldn’t first require a payoff to the millionaire class. Cleaning up the environment shouldn’t start with a political bribe to the millionaire CEOs who get rich polluting it. We should be able to put money in the pockets of working families without stuffing cash in the pockets of millionaire campaign donors. I reject this tradeoff — it’s a sham and it’s just one more sad example of the corrosive force of money in politics.