Great Republican Lie (tax "reform")

Flies in the face of basic, rational sense. There is no way, nor has there ever been a way, on God's green Earth that cutting colossal amounts of taxes magically pays for itself.
I know it won't, you know it won't, everyone knows it won't. But the point isn't for it to magically pay for itself; never has been. The point is to funnel tax dollars to private interests while wrecking the budget so thoroughly that cutting popular social programs becomes a necessity. Win win.
They wont cut the popular programs thats not the entire point of the far right
Theyl bleed em dry and them fake outrrmage at how shitty the programs are due to the cuts they themsleves pushed.
Then theyl talk about a need for reform and with next to no formal bidding they will let their buddies from the private sector feast on the programs!
 
It passed 51-49

Corker has cemented is legacy as a fake deficit hawk. He could have prevented it from leaving committee. He could have lobbied other Republicans to vote no.

McCain has completely tarnished his legacy. He kept calling for a return to normalcy but he voted to pass this think at 2am on Saturday with hand written amendments on the bill

McCain has been a POS for years. He almost always votes with the party over country.
 
Why do people have a hard time understanding that nothing in this bill deals with “waste”? Raising revenue and waste/corruption are two different things.

I agree there isn't anything specifically in this bill about cutting waste but taking less of my paycheck to fund waste is what I am for.
 
I agree there isn't anything specifically in this bill about cutting waste but taking less of my paycheck to fund waste is what I am for.
Ok cool but it’s not relevant to the discussion about tax policy. Separate issue.
 
Ok cool but it’s not relevant to the discussion about tax policy. Separate issue.

Not sure how, I said I am happy I will get to keep more of my money instead of going to wasteful programs thanks to this tax policy.
 
Not sure how, I said I am happy I will get to keep more of my money instead of going to wasteful programs thanks to this tax policy.
You can reduce taxes and do jack shit about waste. You can leave taxes or raise them and make efforts to reduce waste.

Get it? I understand your rationale. Waste is bad so I want to pay less. But they’re not linked in that way. Separate issues. The only way your argument makes sense is if you killed a program all together to lower taxes, like social security for example. But that’s not what is happening in the bill that passed the senate.
 
The political calculus could be that they know it’s unpopular and will have negative effects but they are delivering to donors and will have their support going forward. They’ll lose seats in 2018 and maybe lose control of a house but failure would have had the same result. Maybe they’re willing to accept future political losses to deliver this to donors. Plus we know a lot of the country voted R no matter what. With Trump in office maybe they’d even like a Democrat president and can spend 4 years obstructing.

Just a theory. Dangerous because they can end up with President Sanders.

The corporate mantra.

Quarterly profits over long term viability.
 
Republicans list of 137 Economists who supported their Tax Plan was BULLSHIT -

GOP’s List of Economists Backing Tax Cut Includes Ghosts, Office Assistants, Ex-Felons, and a Sprinkling of Real Economists

But a review of the economists listed on the letter reveals a number of discrepancies, including economists that are supposedly still academics but are actually retired, and others who have never been employed as economists. One might not even exist.

One of the signatories, Gil Sylvia of the University of Georgia, does not have a biography page or any online trace of employment at the university. A university representative told The Intercept that no one with the name Gil Sylvia is employed there

Another signatory to the RATE letter, Seth Bied, is not an economist. He is a low-level office assistant at the New York State Tax Department, whose spokesperson said Bied does not remember signing the economists’ letter

The RATE Coalition letter lists 13 economists as having emeritus status. But a closer look shows that many other individuals listed as currently employed are also retired. Professor Ashley Lyman is listed as a signatory who works at the University of Idaho, but his biography page shows that he is actually retired. The same goes for Richard Kilmer of the University of Florida, Jerold Zimmerman of the University of Rochester, Stephen Happel of Arizona State University, and William R. Allen of the University of California, Los Angeles. All are listed as current academics while they are, in fact, in retirement.


Other signatories are far from independent voices. One is an in-house economist at a financial services firm based in Illinois. Another is an in-house economist with Bank of America.
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/01...x-felons-and-a-sprinkling-of-real-economists/

 
Negligence.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/tax-plan-glitches-mistakes-republicans-208049

As tax experts get their hands on this they are left scratching their heads. It seems that there are unintended consequences of the bill, like the corporate AMT which hurts a lot of the companies that would get helped by the rate reduction and it's ripe for abuse (as some wr posters have pointed out). Also hurts the R&D credit for businesses, which most would argue is a bad thing.

Given how fast they're ramming this through it's no wonder there are problems and there will be more if they insist on passing before Christmas.

Also curious how this effects the models that measure deficit levels. Seems to me it would be very hard to figure out how much abuse will occur.
 
^From that same article -

Some provisions are so vaguely written they leave experts scratching their heads, like a proposal to begin taxing the investment earnings of rich private universities' endowments. The legislation H.R. 1 (115) doesn't explain what's considered an endowment, and some colleges have more than 1,000 accounts. […]

"The more you read, the more you go, 'Holy crap, what's this?'" said Greg Jenner, a former top tax official in George W. Bush's Treasury Department. "We will be dealing with unintended consequences for months to come because the bill is moving too fast."
 
^From that same article -

Some provisions are so vaguely written they leave experts scratching their heads, like a proposal to begin taxing the investment earnings of rich private universities' endowments. The legislation H.R. 1 (115) doesn't explain what's considered an endowment, and some colleges have more than 1,000 accounts. […]

"The more you read, the more you go, 'Holy crap, what's this?'" said Greg Jenner, a former top tax official in George W. Bush's Treasury Department. "We will be dealing with unintended consequences for months to come because the bill is moving too fast."
It's mind boggling. GOP goal was to pay donors back as fast as possible via tax cuts. Everything else is secondary, including damage done.
 
It's mind boggling. GOP goal was to pay donors back as fast as possible via tax cuts. Everything else is secondary, including damage done.

A bunch of rich arseholes that want to tank the economy and the country out of insane greed. Get your zhit together Murka.
 
A bunch of rich arseholes that want to tank the economy and the country out of insane greed. Get your zhit together Murka.
As much as I despise people with that attitude it’s far worse that elected officials would pass unpopular policy out of greed.
 
I'm hearing we'll have a Joint Resolution by this Friday
Heard the same. Did you get details? I'm hearing 37% top individual rate (came down more) and they'll lower top corporate tax rate to 21% (instead of 20%) and it kills the corporate AMT, but I'm not seeing good pieces on it (and don't have a WSJ subscription).
 
A bunch of rich arseholes that want to tank the economy and the country out of insane greed. Get your zhit together Murka.
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Heard the same. Did you get details? I'm hearing 37% top individual rate (came down more) and they'll lower top corporate tax rate to 21% (instead of 20%) and it kills the corporate AMT, but I'm not seeing good pieces on it (and don't have a WSJ subscription).

Just looking for Corporate stuff and the same as you with rate being applied in 2018 (Senate was 2019).
 
President Obama warned Democrats not to "jam" a health care reform bill through now that they've lost their commanding majority in the Senate, and said they must wait for Brown to be sworn into office.

"Here's one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table: The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated," the president told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview. "People in Massachusetts spoke. He's got to be part of that process."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/...rush-health-care-scott-brown/story?id=9621040

Reid got the message.

"We're not going to rush into anything," the Senate majority leader said on Capitol Hill Wednesday. "As you've heard, we're going to wait until the new senator arrives before we do anything more on health care. There are many different things that we can do to move forward on health care, but we're not making any of those decisions now."
And John McCain then -

"The American people have spoken," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on the Senate floor Wednesday. "The people of Massachusetts have spoken for the rest of America. Stop this process."

"Sit down in open and transparent negotiations, let's begin from the beginning," urged the former GOP presidential candidate.
 
With Susan Collins locked in her office hiding from constituents it looks like Rubio could be the 2nd GOP Senator to stop this bill.

Suppossedly he's No unless they expand the child tax credit.

http://www.businessinsider.com/marco-rubio-vote-no-tax-bill-child-credit-2017-12

Sen. Marco Rubio on Thursday said he will vote against the final GOP tax bill unless leaders meet his demands on the child tax credit.

Rubio told Republican leadership that he will not vote for the bill — the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) — unless the child tax credit is more generous.

"Senator Rubio has consistently communicated to the Senate tax negotiators that his vote on final passage would depend on whether the refundability of the Child Tax Credit was increased in a meaningful way," a Rubio spokesperson told Business Insider.

Rubio and Sen.mike Lee introduced an amendment during the first Senate vote on the TCJA that would have made the credit deductible up to the payroll tax level. The move would have made the credit more generous for many low-income families. The amendment was defeated.

A spokesperson for Lee said the senator has not made up his mind on the bill.



"Sen. Lee is undecided on the bill in its current form," the spokesperson told Business Insider. "Sen. Lee continues to work to make the CTC as beneficial as possible to American working families."

The TCJA is currently being debated by a conference committee to resolve the differences between the versions of the bill passed in the House and Senate.

Rubio was incensed when reports indicated that the conference committee was nearing an agreement to make the corporate tax cut less generous — to cut the individual tax rate on the wealthiest Americans.

"20.94% Corp. rate to pay for tax cut for working family making $40k was anti-growth but 21% to cut tax for couples making $million is fine?" Rubio tweeted on Tuesday.

If Rubio defects, that would leave the GOP with no room for error in the Senate. GOP Sen. Bob Corker voted against first version of the legislation in the Senate, citing concerns with the federal deficit increase form the bill.

The GOP can only lose two members in the Senate for the bill to pass.

The compromise TCJA will be released on Friday, according to GOP leaders, and a vote on the bill is expected early next week.
 
With Susan Collins locked in her office hiding from constituents it looks like Rubio could be the 2nd GOP Senator to stop this bill.

Suppossedly he's No unless they expand the child tax credit.

http://www.businessinsider.com/marco-rubio-vote-no-tax-bill-child-credit-2017-12

Sen. Marco Rubio on Thursday said he will vote against the final GOP tax bill unless leaders meet his demands on the child tax credit.

Rubio told Republican leadership that he will not vote for the bill — the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) — unless the child tax credit is more generous.

"Senator Rubio has consistently communicated to the Senate tax negotiators that his vote on final passage would depend on whether the refundability of the Child Tax Credit was increased in a meaningful way," a Rubio spokesperson told Business Insider.

Rubio and Sen.mike Lee introduced an amendment during the first Senate vote on the TCJA that would have made the credit deductible up to the payroll tax level. The move would have made the credit more generous for many low-income families. The amendment was defeated.

A spokesperson for Lee said the senator has not made up his mind on the bill.



"Sen. Lee is undecided on the bill in its current form," the spokesperson told Business Insider. "Sen. Lee continues to work to make the CTC as beneficial as possible to American working families."

The TCJA is currently being debated by a conference committee to resolve the differences between the versions of the bill passed in the House and Senate.

Rubio was incensed when reports indicated that the conference committee was nearing an agreement to make the corporate tax cut less generous — to cut the individual tax rate on the wealthiest Americans.

"20.94% Corp. rate to pay for tax cut for working family making $40k was anti-growth but 21% to cut tax for couples making $million is fine?" Rubio tweeted on Tuesday.

If Rubio defects, that would leave the GOP with no room for error in the Senate. GOP Sen. Bob Corker voted against first version of the legislation in the Senate, citing concerns with the federal deficit increase form the bill.

The GOP can only lose two members in the Senate for the bill to pass.

The compromise TCJA will be released on Friday, according to GOP leaders, and a vote on the bill is expected early next week.
Let's see if he has the balls to follow through or falls in line (as in the past).
 
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