$1.5 Trillion GOP Tax Cut Thread

[junior chįmp]

You know the reason GOP kept the individual rates temporary is that it allows them to pass it with 50 votes , and then even when the Democrats win there is no way Dems will let them expire , so they basically made the tax reform permanent with just 50 votes.

Naw....Dems can just junk this whole piece of shít tax "reform" under reconciliation again with 50 votes

[Keep cool-idge]

Well, looks like we had our first debate of the midterms today:

https://mobile.twitter.com/RosenforNevada/status/937173454742200320

https://twitter.com/deanheller/status/937173955726622720

This is verbatim a Greedo comeback.

Kalama please stop!

[Holmes]

If Heller's (or anyone) response to "your tax bill hurts the middle class and only helps the rich" is "fake news" then they're not going to have a happy midterm.

[Sestak]

Wow: https://mobile.twitter.com/RosenforNevada/status/937174962376290304

Heller is getting torched.

[BlueSwan]

Sorry for asking a stupid question. I haven't been following the tax debacle all that closely. How are the senate getting around the Byrd rule to pass this with 51 votes?

I'd like to see an answer to that too.

I don't think anybody answered this, or did I miss it?

[The Ex-Factor]

Sorry for asking a stupid question. I haven't been following the tax debacle all that closely. How are the senate getting around the Byrd rule to pass this with 51 votes?

I'd like to see an answer to that too.

I don't think anybody answered this, or did I miss it?

They used the FY 2018 reconciliation instructions for this bill, so they only needed 51 votes period.

The vast majority of tax proposals are related to the budget, so it's not that hard to construe an all-encompassing tax bill without violating the Byrd Rule. Some minor stuff was removed but overall the bill doesn't increase the deficit after 10 years (due to budget gimmicks) so it passes the Byrd Rule.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Sorry for asking a stupid question. I haven't been following the tax debacle all that closely. How are the senate getting around the Byrd rule to pass this with 51 votes?

I'd like to see an answer to that too.

I don't think anybody answered this, or did I miss it?

They used the FY 2018 reconciliation instructions for this bill, so they only needed 51 votes period.

The vast majority of tax proposals are related to the budget, so it's not that hard to construe an all-encompassing tax bill without violating the Byrd Rule. Some minor stuff was removed but overall the bill doesn't increase the deficit after 10 years (due to budget gimmicks) so it passes the Byrd Rule.

The bill also had stuff unrelated to the budget (abortion, ANWR, etc.). How did they survive the Byrd bath?

[Person Man]

Sorry for asking a stupid question. I haven't been following the tax debacle all that closely. How are the senate getting around the Byrd rule to pass this with 51 votes?

I'd like to see an answer to that too.

I don't think anybody answered this, or did I miss it?

They used the FY 2018 reconciliation instructions for this bill, so they only needed 51 votes period.

The vast majority of tax proposals are related to the budget, so it's not that hard to construe an all-encompassing tax bill without violating the Byrd Rule. Some minor stuff was removed but overall the bill doesn't increase the deficit after 10 years (due to budget gimmicks) so it passes the Byrd Rule.

The bill also had stuff unrelated to the budget (abortion, ANWR, etc.). How did they survive the Byrd bath?

Personhood didn't.

[BlueSwan]

Sorry for asking a stupid question. I haven't been following the tax debacle all that closely. How are the senate getting around the Byrd rule to pass this with 51 votes?

I'd like to see an answer to that too.

I don't think anybody answered this, or did I miss it?

They used the FY 2018 reconciliation instructions for this bill, so they only needed 51 votes period.

The vast majority of tax proposals are related to the budget, so it's not that hard to construe an all-encompassing tax bill without violating the Byrd Rule. Some minor stuff was removed but overall the bill doesn't increase the deficit after 10 years (due to budget gimmicks) so it passes the Byrd Rule.

Thank you for the explanation.

Is the lesson from this that the senate can pass just about anything with 51 votes as long as they employ the right shenanigans?

[Shadows]

Jeff Merkley is only Democrat to get amendment in GOP tax reform bill

As Senate Republicans geared up to pass sweeping changing to the tax code early Saturday, senators offered a number of amendments aimed at making the bill better. Oregon's Jeff Merkley is the only Democrat to get one included in the final bill.

"Senate just passed my amendment to strike the terrible DeVos Tax Earmark – a handout for a wealthy, DeVos-funded private school that refuses to comply with federal non-discrimination laws," Merkley tweeted after the vote. "Like all these special interest giveaways, it never should have been in this #TaxScamBill."

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/12/jeff_merkley_is_only_democrat.html

[Holmes]

Jeff Merkley is only Democrat to get amendment in GOP tax reform bill

As Senate Republicans geared up to pass sweeping changing to the tax code early Saturday, senators offered a number of amendments aimed at making the bill better. Oregon's Jeff Merkley is the only Democrat to get one included in the final bill.

"Senate just passed my amendment to strike the terrible DeVos Tax Earmark – a handout for a wealthy, DeVos-funded private school that refuses to comply with federal non-discrimination laws," Merkley tweeted after the vote. "Like all these special interest giveaways, it never should have been in this #TaxScamBill."

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/12/jeff_merkley_is_only_democrat.html

In the margins of what page did they hand write this amendment? Or did they make a huge X over the text the amendment strikes down?

[Yank2133]

You know the reason GOP kept the individual rates temporary is that it allows them to pass it with 50 votes , and then even when the Democrats win there is no way Dems will let them expire , so they basically made the tax reform permanent with just 50 votes.

The Democrats are going to let them expire.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

You know the reason GOP kept the individual rates temporary is that it allows them to pass it with 50 votes , and then even when the Democrats win there is no way Dems will let them expire , so they basically made the tax reform permanent with just 50 votes.

The Democrats are going to let them expire.

They may not make it the full 10 years even. If Dems have the Trifecta after 2020/22/24, depending on which democrat is elected President, they may push through congress a substantial amendment to the legislation that establishes a top rate of something like 50% to help pay for Single Payer.

[Indy Texas]

You know the reason GOP kept the individual rates temporary is that it allows them to pass it with 50 votes , and then even when the Democrats win there is no way Dems will let them expire , so they basically made the tax reform permanent with just 50 votes.

The Democrats are going to let them expire.

They may not make it the full 10 years even. If Dems have the Trifecta after 2020/22/24, depending on which democrat is elected President, they may push through congress a substantial amendment to the legislation that establishes a top rate of something like 50% to help pay for Single Payer.

My hope would be that they just pass a bill restoring everything to the current status quo.

Then do a revenue positive tax reform that (1) lowers the top corporate rate to something like 28%; (2) raises taxes on upper brackets for income, dividends and capital gains; (3) gets rid of the ability to deduct interest expense, effectively smothering private equity firms with a pillow.

[Virginiá]

You know the reason GOP kept the individual rates temporary is that it allows them to pass it with 50 votes , and then even when the Democrats win there is no way Dems will let them expire , so they basically made the tax reform permanent with just 50 votes.

Not necessarily. I don't get why this idea is being pushed so hard. Look at the Children's Health Insurance Program, which at face value seems like a much harder thing to allow to expire, yet Republicans have basically done just that. Whether the tax changes expire or not probably depends on how much power Republicans hold in Washington when that time comes. If they are in the minority and do not control the White House, it's easy to see the rates lapsing.

[GeorgiaModerate]

In a pro-Trump area, many voters are skeptical of GOP tax plan (Washington Post article)

[OSR stands with Israel]

You know the reason GOP kept the individual rates temporary is that it allows them to pass it with 50 votes , and then even when the Democrats win there is no way Dems will let them expire , so they basically made the tax reform permanent with just 50 votes.

Not necessarily. I don't get why this idea is being pushed so hard. Look at the Children's Health Insurance Program, which at face value seems like a much harder thing to allow to expire, yet Republicans have basically done just that. Whether the tax changes expire or not probably depends on how much power Republicans hold in Washington when that time comes. If they are in the minority and do not control the White House, it's easy to see the rates lapsing.

Most democrats would not let the tax cuts on the Middle Class Expire. Democrats from the Bernie Wing sure, but they are not taking over the party.

[jaichind]

A number of my left-wing friends have said, "as much as it sucks that it's a corporate give away, I desperately need to keep some more money." Most of my friends makes between $35k and $55k (myself included). What's the best argument to use to encourage my friends not to support this tax plan?

If all your friends are in NY, their taxes are probably going up because of no SALT...

Also the cuts are temporary.

Well, if this person's friends have income of 35K-55K then SALT going away as deductions will not affect them since their NY state and NYC taxes are not going to be high enough to be above Standard deduction of 6.5K.  Now that the Standard deduction will go to around 12K pretty much all of them will get a tax cut under this plan. 

[Virginiá]

Most democrats would not let the tax cuts on the Middle Class Expire. Democrats from the Bernie Wing sure, but their not taking over the party.

But you are practically acting like taxes just can't ever be raised again, even though this is hardly raising them outright, considering the cuts were temporary to begin with. If Democrats want to deliver on something beneficial to the middle class that requires the extra revenue, they can easily rebut arguments against allowing temporary cuts to lapse.

This article laid out a case for why Democrats may want to just let certain things expire and get rid of/mitigate the unpopular parts of the tax changes - namely those that benefit corporations/wealthy people, while raising taxes further on them:

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-bill-democrats-2017-11

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Who knows what they end up doing, but I think you are seriously overestimating how likely it is that these cuts are just automatically made permanent/re-upped upon expiration. Again, it will likely come down to how much influence Republicans have at that point in time.

[jaichind]

Most democrats would not let the tax cuts on the Middle Class Expire. Democrats from the Bernie Wing sure, but their not taking over the party.

But you are practically acting like taxes just can't ever be raised again, even though this is hardly raising them outright, considering the cuts were temporary to begin with. If Democrats want to deliver on something beneficial to the middle class that requires the extra revenue, they can easily rebut arguments against allowing temporary cuts to lapse.

This article laid out a case for why Democrats may want to just let certain things expire and get rid of/mitigate the unpopular parts of the tax changes - namely those that benefit corporations/wealthy people, while raising taxes further on them:

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-bill-democrats-2017-11

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Who knows what they end up doing, but I think you are seriously overestimating how likely it is that these cuts are just automatically made permanent/re-upped upon expiration. Again, it will likely come down to how much influence Republicans have at that point in time.

I totally agree the Dems can and will raise taxes once they have full control.  I do not think they will reverse everything in the current plan.  For example the tax cuts that the 50K-100K bunch gets because of the higher standard deduction I doubt they can reverse.   I doubt they can bring back SALT deductions as given the higher standard deduction they will be called out for a tax giveaway for the wealthy in NY NJ CA.  What they will do is the raise the top rate from 38.5 to some higher rate and perhaps remove some corporate rate deductions.

[jaichind]

As much as I back the Senate plan of eliminating the individual mandate for health insurance I am not sure it will actually generate as much revenue the CBO claims that it will.  Here some "dynamic scoring" is needed.  The whole premise is that without the individual mandate for health insurance a lot of young healthy taxpayers will not choose to sign up for health insurance and as a result will not require subsidies.  On the other hand having all these young healthy taxpayers out of the insurance market (or at least they would sign up for cheap catastrophic non-Obamacare insurance plans) would also mean that insurance premiums on Obamacare exchanges will rise, and perhaps rapidly, over time.  Since Obamacare subsidies are calibrated around cost of insurance premiums as a function of income of the subsidy recipient, a surge in healthcare insurance premiums will also mean that the federal government will have pay out more Obamacare subsides with the net affect of reducing the savings from the federal government of view. 

Of course a logical next step would be to remove these subsidies and also remove community rating.  Then the true removal of Obamacare would be complete.  If the subsidies and community rating  are not removed which is also very likely then it would be a good experiment in economic theory to see if there will be a death spiral in the Obamacare healthcare insurance markets.  It would be interesting to watch either way. 

[jaichind]

Just walk into a Walmart in the Ozarks of Missouri and you'll see how the GOP is screwing over their own voters. This plan is literally a Mr. Burns on The Simpsons level of evil parody. And jaichind is Mr. Burns

I am honored that you would associate me with someone with such high net worth as Mr. Burns.  I always thought of myself as a high income Smithers given my role in my mega-corp.   

I totally agree this plan partly about is about shifting wealth toward capital.  But that is only half the story.  It is also about, now we are talking about TV shows,  the transfer of wealth from people depicted in "Sex and the City" to people as depicted in "Leave it to Beaver." 

[Indy Texas]

http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/362949-ceos-agree-corporate-tax-cuts-wont-trickle-down

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[Matty]

To counterpoint IndyTexas, here is a bloomberg economist arguing that the academic literature on corporate taxes reveals they do have negative effect on investment.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-17/yes-a-corporate-tax-cut-would-increase-investment

Recent dartmouth study.

http://faculty.tuck.dartmouth.edu/images/uploads/faculty/jonathan-lewellen/Investment_and_cashflow.pdf

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https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2895161

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[GeorgiaModerate]

To counterpoint IndyTexas, here is a bloomberg economist arguing that the academic literature on corporate taxes reveals they do have negative effect on investment.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-17/yes-a-corporate-tax-cut-would-increase-investment

Recent dartmouth study.

http://faculty.tuck.dartmouth.edu/images/uploads/faculty/jonathan-lewellen/Investment_and_cashflow.pdf

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https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2895161

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If encouraging investment is really the goal, perhaps they should keep the R&D credit that the Senate bill apprarently removes: https://www.wsj.com/articles/passage-of-senate-tax-bill-puts-r-d-tax-credit-in-doubt-1512328243