Trump Tax Cut Proposal Underway

[Scot Dutchy]

What a bloody circus and they call it 'government'?

Like kids been set loose in a sweet shop (candy store).

[Brian Peacock]

12:31 pmADD A COMMENT
Sen. Collins is now talking, and describing her amendment that would allow a deduction of up to $10,000 for property taxes.

The House’s bill would retain that deduction, but not the Senate’s.

Votes on this and other amendments will be later Thursday.

Shouldn't they ave dealt with that in committee hearings? Oh, hang on...

[Animavore]

[Tero]

”In our universe, alas, things are different. Congressional Republicans are advancing a pair of tax bills—one passed in the House already and one could pass the Senate in a matter of hours—as quickly as they can, with seemingly little regard for the impact they might have on the economy. Principally, the goal of this round of tax reform seems to be to reduce taxes on corporations and wealthy heirs (the Trump family alone would save over $1 billion, according to one analysis). Middle-class people get tax cuts, too, but those cuts, unlike the giveaways to the wealthy, are set to expire as time goes on. Most people making under $75,000 will see their taxes rise by 2027 under the Senate bill because the elimination of the Affordable Care Act's mandate means a lot of them won't buy health insurance, and therefore won't get subsidies and tax credits to pay for it. Thanks to a set of deduction eliminations, some middle-class households could get a tax hike next year, according to a New York Times breakdown. And selected groups, like grad students and people living in California and New York, seem to have been singled out for punishment.

Even that summary glosses over many elements of the two bills. Yet this complicated legislation is being rushed through at breakneck speed. The Trump administration's Treasury Department promised it would come up with a model showing that though the plan costs $1.5 trillion in revenue over ten years it would pay for itself by growing the economy. But that model hasn't appeared, and even the rosiest expert estimates say it won't come close to being revenue-neutral. On Thursday, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation released an assessment of the bill that factored in growth effects and found the Senate version would still jack up the deficit to the tune of $1 trillion over ten years.”
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3xz ... g-disaster

[Brian Peacock]

Isn't there a requirement that limits spending and tax legislation against hikes in national debt?

[Tero]

There are vague rules. There was some law.

Meanwhile, McCaskill:
"This is so bad. We have just gotten list of amendments to be included in bill NOT from our R colleagues, but from lobbyists downtown. None of us have seen this list, but lobbyists have it. Need I say more? Disgusting. And we probably will not even be given time to read them."

[Rum]

Anyone else notice what 'slipped through' with this legislation?

Drilling for oil in national park land in Alaska.

[Tyrannical]

Anyone else notice what 'slipped through' with this legislation?

Drilling for oil in national park land in Alaska.

I'm sure the Caribou wont mind much.....


Alaska wanted it open......

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan joined their Republican colleagues in voting for the tax reform bill that narrowly passed through the U.S. Senate.

Murkowski released a statement that highlighted a section of the bill she wrote that would open up the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for energy development.

Sullivan echoed Murkowski, saying "allowing development in the coastal plain...is a win for Alaska and a win for the nation."

He also said, “I was proud to cast a vote to reform our nation’s outdated tax system, and to unleash America’s energy potential by opening up the 1002 area of ANWR for energy production,”

Speaking generally, Murkowski says the tax cuts will stimulate America’s economy, creating opportunities and putting more dollars back into the pockets of hard-working Americans.

[Tero]

Trickle down won’t work for Alaska! It would have to trickle up!

[Tero]

Not sure what is in effect now, but this is the rule that allowed Congress to reduce "welfare" every time they spent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAYGO

Currently

“We have to do two things. We have to generate economic growth which generates revenue, while reducing spending. That will mean instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future.” (A video of Rubio’s appearance is here, with his remarks on Social Security and Medicare beginning at the 21:45 mark.)
The only thing that’s new here is the explicit admission by a Republican officeholder that this is the GOP’s master plan to eviscerate the welfare and retirement of American workers. Budget analysts have seen it coming with all the subtlety of a freight train. As we reported earlier this month, the damage begins with the so-called Paygo law (for “pay as you go”), which requires Congress to offset any increase in the federal deficit with spending cuts.

The law limits Medicare cuts to 4% of its budget per year, or $25 billion of its $625-billion budget. Because the tax cut proposals the Senate was preparing to vote on late Friday would expand the deficit by about $1.5 trillion over 10 years, it’s likely to trigger the cuts.

But $25 billion a year is a drastic cut that "would undermine the delivery of care to the 57 million seniors and disabled Americans who depend on the program," Max Richtman, head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said a couple of weeks ago.

http://beta.latimes.com/business/hiltzi ... story.html

[Animavore]

Yay! Another recession on the way.

Thanks, dickheads.

[Tero]

GOP attempting some kind of shell game: where is the debt?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/01/politics/ ... index.html

[Tero]

We (most Americans) did not want the cuts for the rich. But even the business tax is not going to pay for itself with growth:
A provision making it easier to write off new investments should be particularly helpful, for example. What about a plan to cut the top business tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent? That's "probably a plus for investment," Wessel said, "but it rewards profits on old investments — not what we should want to do. It is also creating a huge [budget] hole that will have to be filled with tax hikes or spending cuts down the road."

In other words, no, it won't pay for itself. Ryan claims $1 trillion in additional revenue, but the Joint Committee on Taxation says the bill will actually cost $1 trillion.
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/02/56788207 ... -the-facts

[Tero]

The cut that isn't a cut. It does not do anything till after 2018 elections.
The GOP Tax Cuts Are Even More Unpopular Than Past Tax Hikes
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/th ... tax-hikes/

[Tero]

1 because it's the only bill they CAN pass? 2 Trump
Why Republicans who once fought budget debt now embrace it
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-republic ... 18317.html