Economist warns GOP tax plan 'is a big, beautiful, huge Christmas gift to the Trump family'

A Columbia University economist told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the Republican tax overhaul is essentially a giveaway to President Donald Trump, his children and his grandchildren.

Jeffrey Sachs, who's known as one of the world's leading experts on poverty and economic development, said the GOP bill would require future cuts to entitlement programs to pay for the transfer of billions of dollars to the richest Americans.

"I think it's a big, beautiful, huge Christmas gift -- but to who?" said co-host Mika Brzezinski.

"For the Trump family," Sachs said, without hesitation.

"Billions of dollars in ending the estate tax, in these gifts to the billionaires," he continued. "It's not only worthless for most people in this country, it's actually a huge burden on them. It's going to raise the debt phenomenally, so it's going to mean future cuts in Medicare, it's going to mean future cuts of basic services in this country -- and there are already saying it, that it's going to automatically trigger Medicare cuts just after this starts. It's the most outrageous policy we have seen in budget policy -- I can't even remember a comparable deal."

Sachs couldn't name a single redeeming quality about the tax bill -- which Republicans admit won't even do what they say it will.

"I'm going to put it this way," he said. "To create some incentives for investment, the Senate says, 'No no no no no, those (incentives) will be temporary because they are not affordable.' So what they are doing is giving a gift of $1.5 trillion to rich people and they are saying, quote, 'We'll have incentives, but those go away after five years.'

"You can't even make this stuff up, actually, how completely crude it is," Sachs continued.

Sachs said Republicans were selling the tax plan as a boost to Americans workers, but he said it risked their future economic security -- and possibly worse.

"We have already a deficit of $700 billion right now, the debt is rising rapidly and we're playing games with the future of this country that's really -- you can't even imagine," Sachs said.