So now the so-called fiscal conservative Republicans are resorting to dirty procedural tricks to avoid having to pay for their latest government pork
2
Estate Tax repeal
Dreams do come true
My kid will save MILLIONS
in taxes ....
Thank you President Trump
upper middle class @ 150-300k? maybe in nyc/sf but everywhere else that's wealthy.
Fiscal incompetence and environmental catastrophe, by any name.
Infrastructure money is coming from where?
1
There will be much for the next democrat elected to the white house to do
1. Sweep out the crooks and thugs in the white house and on capitol hill and end the darkest chapter in US history
2. Reestablish america's position as the true world leader with strong, steady and ethical leadership
3. promote universal health care, spending on schools and job skills advancement, and truly reform tax rules- close the loopholes exploited by trump and billionaires, get rid of the amt for all other than the wealthy(earning more than 400000) . Ensure that ultrawealthy taxpayers pay 42 percent in federal and state taxes.
4. Be a truly inspiring leader who unites all of america
1
so now democrats care about the deficit/debt?
A climate change catastrophe lies ahead- a snow job that blankets the country for many years to come and no money for salt and ploughs to bail us out. As people are dying in Puerto Rica because they aren't white or rich enough for the Trumps and Kushner's , they are planning on the biggest heist that will solidify control of our resources. We need to show the world how democracy works and make our founding father's proud.
When it comes to Corporation Tax, all Corporations should have to, by law, distribute 10% of their book value to the share holders every year. And corporations would not have to pay any income tax. With this as a law no corporations would last forever, and all their profits would be taxed when distributed to the Share Holders. Hows that for thinking outside the BOX
Deficits? Nah, that's fake news. Real deficits occur only in Democratic administrations.
The headline should use the $2.4 trillion dollar figure, it is the credible one. The $1.5 trillion figure provided by the administration is not supported by evidence.
2
If the budget is not close to being balaced when the economy is booming, what do you think will happen in the next recession? This is why tax cuts is ridiculous. It eventually leads to bankruptcy of this country. Ask the Gernans about hyperinfrlation. They went through it and wil cut off their right arm before running a deficit. That is why they were so hard on Greece. Once again Republicans are leading us on the path of ruin.
4
I suppose if Trump happened to have cancer and as president pledged to find a cure for it we'd call him selfish too. For all we JFK really had his eye on the moon solely as another family getaway compound. Death and taxes, such a fitting comparison. Actually puts one in a much more positive light.
The kleptocracy will be legal and enabled. Witness Price, President Trump(Washington Hotel IRS taxes etc, Mnuchin Treasury, The Secretary of the Interior); they will take as much as they can for as long as they can. Worst case scenario they resign and keep everything they stole , embezzled or pedaled and await a Presidential pardon, that Trump will give himself.
3
Another gift for the children and grandchildren. They are so lucky to have us looking out for their future...
2
“Tax collections would shift dramatically from businesses to individuals,” said Eric Toder, co-director of the Tax Policy Center.
How could anyone be so ignorant?
ALL taxes are paid by individuals. The business's owners, customers, employees, vendors ALL get less money when the business has less money. It ain't rocket surgery for crying out loud!
Trump’s economic plan to cut taxes and government regulations sounds a lot like G W Bush’s economic plan to cut taxes and government regulations. It’s the same old song and dance. Take from the needy and give to the greedy. My guess is the Republicans in congress won’t pass anything because they will be too busy sucking up to different lobbyists and arguing over who gets the biggest cuts.
3
Once again the republicans will increase the debt, and the Dems will have to clean-up the economy when they are elected. The reps will then call them tax and spend Dems because they again try to help mid and low socio-economic citizens. Once the greedy GOP collect on trumps cuts, will those who supported trump wake-up and smell the coffee... doubtful.
2
I have a better plan for taxes, assuming we're going to add 1.5 trillion to the national debt. Instead of writing checks to the rich and waiting for it to trickle down to the masses for this "middle-class miracle", take the 1.5 trillion and parse it out to all the people who make $50,000 a year or less. You can be sure that, fairly immediately, every penny of that would be spent by the receivers and pumped back into the economy. It would help the poor, it would kick-start the economy and it would be hard to argue that more growth wouldn't occur than if the oligarchs were allowed to just store more money in their mattresses.
2
Tax breaks for the obscenely wealth right after adding the equivalent of three Nasa budgets to military is bold leadership. A huge middle finger to working people.
1
Did anyone else feel that they were just beginning to get a ahead? Just a little? That your paltry raises have just given you an eek over the line of just enough?
That should have been a sign. I've seen it before. "They" are coming to take it away from you. If you have an extra nickle they can smell it, or that bit of hope, they can feel it. As soon as the glimmer shows in your eye - SLAM! They come to shut the door in your face lest you get any uppity ideas about your place. Whether it's higher taxes, fees, or prices, it always seems to be the something that will put you back where you were. You will not get ahead. That's not for you. That's for them.
3
It seems that it's possibly time to do more than "vote them out".
When a corrupt government is looting the country, it's time to investigate and prosecute.
More tax cuts for the rich threaten the country.
With a weakened country, these greedy, self serving people will have even more power to do pillage at will.
They are depending on uninformed and uninvolved enablers for their success.
Unfortunately, it has been a very successful plan since the days of Ronald Reagan.
1
Under this tax plan, corporations, businesses and wealthy individuals, and the rest of the country would get tax breaks on the backs of seven states, almost all blue other than pennsylvania. These states are already getting a low return for the federal taxes they pay. The elimination of the state snd local tax dediction is unacceptable to these states. There is no logical sense in a california taxpayer making 200,000 paying higher taxes to give corporations a tax break, or even a 660 dollar tax break to everybody else. Federal tax money is being wasted on defense while cutting social programs. why should high income psyers not pay more taxes ? Because buying a home is already out of reach. Private tuition costs over ten thousand a year. Private college 54000 a year. Buying a home is already out of reach for our kids. If our taxes are raised it should be to every individuals benefit, providing universal health care and education, spending on infrastructure, and combating climate change,
2
Yet again, those of us with just enough money to maybe put a kid or two through college, will bare the brunt of the tax load for thus country. I'm already killing myself to keep my companies profit margins high, I now get to pay their tax bill for them. I did get a COL raise for the first time in 5 years, I guess they need to get it back somehow. Don't want me to get too full of myslef ya know. I have no problem paying a fair share of my taxes. It is my duty as a citzen. I guess the folks who are lobbying for this, haven't found that as theirs as well. Besides, when they can lobby their way to make someone else responsible for their civic duty, why would they?
3
Apparently, anarchy is a good thing if Republicans are anarchists or "Libertarians" as they call themselves. The law might call them "mobsters", but they bought off too many lawyers and legislators for that. But while y'all are celebrating your "lower" taxes (temporary), your kids will be indoctrinated, not educated; made debt slaves to pay for it, and kept in wage slavery for the rich, by cops, who will be allowed to kill us at will, since you can expect a lot more crime and war under budgets that benefit the wealthy and not much else. Sacrifice to the Golden Calf! All hail greed and golf! (at private clubs of course). Just remember to stand for the national anthem to maintain the illusion for the cameras - or else! They get "free" speech, we don't. You have to pay for it. Poor Diogenes. Out of luck here.
3
Here we go. The Kansafication of America. Enjoy this brief moment of prosperity. Get ready for the next big downturn. It is gonna be a doozy.
3
This analysis is based on guesswork and biased assumptions designed to promote the authors’ point of view....
Numbers, like science, llike facts are not a point of view! Ignoring them is.
Under the Republicans' control of all branches of the federal government, the looting continues.
2
The Republicans have razed their standards to a new low.
3
How about we make it $1.4 Trillion and bloody to something for our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico.
This is legalized theft from the lower and middle classes. Shame on the Republican Senators and shame on any one of their proposed victims who were foolish enough to vote for them.
2
Hi Tom,
I believe the amount you ow us, the American taxpayer, is about $400,000, not 51 thousand plus. Kindly make your check payable to the US Treasury and mail it in ASAP.
Sincerely,
The American Tax Payer
2
The Republicans in Congress just don't get it, do they? They continue to demonstrate over and over that they are the party of the super-wealthy political donor class. After decades of dig-whistling racism and braying about family values while doing NOTHING to improve the lives of the people who actually vote for them, it's no wonder they have a populist revolt on their hands.
2
Government is a matter of choices. In the last election, people voted for tax cuts for themselves. It is that simple.
They didn't care about health care, or schools, or infrastructure. or how much debt they would be passing on to their children and grandchildren and so on.
Selfish.
1
You can spend all the time you want wringing your hands about how the benefit is skewed toward the rich, but you might as well be picking dandelions. You need to consider it from the perspective of the people who elected Trump, and will again if you insist on continuing to pick dandelions.
$660 is how many six-packs? How many doses of oxy? A new pair of alligator boots! A trip to Atlantic City! This sounds like a proposal that Trump's base is going to love. Why should I care if Trump's taxes go down by $50 million? Why should I care if the deficit triples (what is the deficit anyway--nah, never mind)? I'm going to get $660. Yee Hah!
Until the dems read and understand the preceding paragraph, they have no hope. It doesn't seem likely. Nixon beat them, Reagan beat them, Bush beat them, Bush beat them, Trump beat them. All for the same reason. And they still haven't figured it out.
1
Everyone needs to do some research and figure out how exactly taxation works in this country. Global corporate mass media won't do it for you, although the charts the NY Times put out is s start.
The tax cutters use very selective statistics to say things that are extremely misleading.
For example, "47% of the people don't pay taxes," refers to the Federal income tax only. It includes many that receive the earned income tax credit (aRepublican program invented by Milton Friedman to replace welfare), retirees, the disabled, military families, people in prison, stay at home mothers, etc.
It leaves out payroll taxes (FICA) which most workers that pay no Federal Income tax do pay, because it is regressive, applying only to the first $127,000 of income. For most low income workers it is the biggest tax bill they face and it funds Social Security and Medicare. Employers match this, but if you are self employed you have to pay both halves yourself.
There are many former kinds of taxes and loopholes, so they can confuse you and cherry pick their arguments. You have to figure it out so they don't scam you.
Most small businesses will do worse under Trump's plan. Figure out why!
What is needed are baselines for the various income percentages and how any new tax proposals affect them. Perhaps the NYT could educate or keep us ignorant. Although admittedly many prefer the latter.
Currently the top;
1 percent pay 39 percent
5 percent pay 60 percent
25 percent pay 87 percent
50 percent pay 97.25
Currently the bottom 50 percent pays 2.75 percent.
What happens to these percentages under the various proposed tax revisions?
Those who benefit most from the system should pay the most to preserve that system. It's only fair.
Most striking is the fact that a few thousand people own fully half of everything in the United States. The nation needs a wealth tax even more than it needs a progressive income tax.
Here comes - The Tricklers -
GOP Voodoo...
I'm wealthy and YOU can be as well...Poof...Just remember to give ME more money. OK?
We need to eat the rich. That is the only way to get their special interest money out of DC. Let their heads roll!
4
The Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price racked up $400,000 in private expenses paid for by the government. At what I pay currently each month for my health insurance premium that amount of money would cover me (not including deductibles) for 45 years, or 542 health insurance premiums. This budget will do nothing for me.
Trumps tax plan would face less challenges in the House. Democrats, under the corrupt leaders like Chuck Schumer, represent corporations that happen to be a bit different from those represented by Republicans.
When do we find out about the $1.5 trillion in budget offsets?
I would suggest making all of the billionaires to be only millionaires.
Put that in legislative language!
1
Standard Deduction doubles, but most families clearly worse off
The administration has not been transparent. When it points out that the “standard deduction will double”, it doesn’t add “but the deductions are eliminated”.
Now, thanks to this chart, we have clarity on the numbers. With these simultaneous changes, taxes will actually double, from 800 billion to 1.6 trillion
Destroying a national wildlife refuge and emptying out the treasury for the benefit of a few elite individuals with billions of dollars to their name, does not sound like a great plan for the working class American.
While the U.S. government doesn’t have enough money to fund schools or health care or even the money to build roads or libraries, they are able to make massive tax cuts for the very wealthy. This plan will also eliminate the jobs of many hard working Americans and allow the corporations they work for to flourish in this Republican-dominated United States we live in today.
It will also very likely completely decimate a beautiful wildlife refuge home to thousands of Alaskan animal species to drill for oil. Who will this benefit? You guessed it! The very wealthy.
So not only will this proposed plan cost our government Trillions of dollars, it will also cut the taxes of the very wealthy by massive amounts, along with taking away the home of thousands of native species in Alaska. The working-class and environmentally minded Americans are going to love this!
2
It's not hard to imagine this country if the GOP accomplishes its dream plan which is to capture enough governor's and state legislature seats to call a Constitutional Convention, which they are not far away from calling for even today. We all know what a few constitutional amendments would be capable of doing: a return for women to the kind of chattel slavery before getting the vote, a return to Jim Crow for all black people, no more reproductive rights, no more black vote, no more environmental protection, no more attempts to mitigate climate change, no more respect from the rest of the world. The new parlor game will be trying to make an apt comparison of where this country stands: is it more like 1955, or 1915, or 1855, or something else?
1
Lower taxes ? Hurrah, with the government out of the way, maybe I too can be lifted into the millionaires club. It could happen. I mean why not me too ? We can all get rich together. I see it now, it's beautiful; the top tenth of a percent earners in the USA helping lift me to their well funded plantations. This huge tax plan is like the lottery, now I have a chance too.
Can we hope that cooler, more reasonable heads will prevail in this morass of greed and lack of concern for the middle class? Doubtful that any one Republican will stand up to the Donald
Pols have a habit of ending their speeches by asking God to bless America. God has proven for the last nine months that he does indeed have a sense of humor. The asked for blessings continue to be a curse against this great country that will only be reversed when Trump, his family, and the gutless Congress will all be removed.
2
This is what happens when a country funnels money into the military and tax cuts for billionaires and corporations -- at the expense of education. People living in ignorance, ruled by religious nonsense create the troubled society we see today in America. Ignorance is no longer bliss, its chaos.
4
I hope that Lisa Murkowski wakes up and realizes that as soon as she votes to destroy the pristine Arctic Wildlife sites with big oil access, that she's also going to be seen as the destroyer of one of our nation's most beloved areas. She will go down in history as a destroyer, not a job maker. The Smoke and Mirrors Jobs ideas are always just a dried up moldy Carrot that has already died from the disease of lies from the Republicans. They truly believe they can FOOL ALL of their followers with that story. Jobs will only be diminished by these tax cuts for the Bankers, the Big Oil and Pharma industries. The CEO's are already rolling in it. If they wanted to create more jobs, those jobs would already be created. There is nothing stopping big business from Re-investing in the USA, but its own greed, and an I can't be bothered attitude. Stop destroying the future of this nation with more lies from the GOP. BLOCK this BILL!
6
Seems to me that there should be a prohibition on self-dealing by Congress, which is an obvious conflict of interest. All members of Congress and all members of the Executive branch, including the President, should have their rates frozen at current levels. Let them vote on this proposal simply on its merits for the American people. Not on how much it will line their pockets.
Another idea would be to lower the top bracket, but impose a separate infrastructure tax on the wealthiest to pay for our crumbling roads, bridges & airports. Give those in the top bracket a 1% cut (max) with the combined new income tax rate & the infrastructure tax. That should shut down any whining by the wealthy.
3
This is what happens when the people trust those that they elected to do what is right - they get robbed.
We now have the wealthiest administration in history, and their only goal is to get richer.
We officially have government of, by, and for the 1%.
Ronald Reagan's dream has been realized.
6
Let me get this straight. The same Republicans who are trumpeting this tax code as the best bill since the Ten Commandments are saying that we don't have enough information to assess it? Really?!?
I suspect that the result will be worse than predicted at this point, particularly for singles who on property. Property tax+State income/sales tax+mortgage interest deduction will in most cases exceed the doubled personal exemption.
The bill can keep mortgage deductions and charitable deductions, but in the absence of the other deductions, only the wealthy will take advantage of it.
The American people cannot afford a $1.56 trillion windfall for the rich. If Trump would like to get this passed, it had better be transformed into a tax cut aimed squarely at the middle class -- and not one penny for the billionaire class. Doing away with the estate tax should be completely off the table because of the Trump family's huge conflict of interest in getting that passed. Here's hoping this monstrosity goes the way of Trumpcare.
4
"pay for their tax plan".
Lets use words that most accurately reflect the meaning.
Google gives the first verb definition of pay as:
"give (someone) money that is due for work done, goods received, or a debt incurred."
GIVING and NOT TAKING are different things and the most direct language should be used if bias is to be removed from writing in my opinion.
A tax reduction means TAKING LESS of a person or organizations earnings.
I understand what is meant, but in the interest of eliminating bias, I would suggest using a word that best reflects the concept. We should not confuse that use of pay with things like "how are you going to pay for that house".
John
John
Republicans are always using small business as a reason for tax cuts. I own a small business that depends on Europe for 37% of our sales. Tax cuts don't help my small business. What helps my business is a healthy economy and stable trade agreements. Cutting taxes is going to hurt our economy and impact everyone from middle America down in a bad way on so many levels. Our infrastructure, education, parks and recreation to name just a few. Government jobs and offices across the board will have to shut down offices and let people go. when the government slows down, everything slows down. I don't like to pay taxes any more than anyone else, but having a healthy tax structure is the difference between us and a third world country. What good is a little more money in my pocket for the short term if it will inevitably mean I have to lay people off and make less money? That is what is going to happen long term.
6
So, the Republican Congress is going to 1) increase defense spending by $80B, 2) provide rebuilding funds to Houston, Florida & Puerto Rico (maybe) and 3) pay for this by cutting taxes by $150B/year.
Item 1 isn't needed, but would provide yet more military-type jobs for Americans, so, eh, okay. Item 2 is really needed (probably $300B needed) and would really goose the economy in those areas. Item 3 has absolutely no direction whatsoever - anybody see lower corporate rates for companies that employ Americans? Any tax breaks for companies that put the extra cash into retirement plans? Does the plan turn the "death tax" into an income tax instead? Nope - but the tax "increases" from items 1 and 2 will mask the big decrease from item 3, so Republicans can declare victory. Amen.
PS - bring back the draft
3
The Trump tax plan has no surprises. It is a huge money grab by trump and the other billionaired in his cabinet, wealthy gop comgressmen(mitch mcconnell and darell issa are multimillionaires) and gop donors. trump is trying to extract revenge on the upper middle class- mostly in blue states by targeting state and local income tax deductions and raising their taxes. 45 percent of americans pay taxes anf neither does trump. The beneficiaries are wealthy individuals and corporations already soaked in wealth with no place to invest. The deficit is about to explode snd a recession is around the corner. Reagan and two bushes produced recessions and trump's will be the biggest yet
1
Economists tell us that this trickle down economics is directly responsible for the vast economic disparity we have today. The GOP has some nerve proposing more of the same and lying about the expected outcome. Call your representatives NOW. This is truly scary.
4
I love it, especially the common sense part about the wildlife refuge. Keep doing the people's work Mr. Trump!
No one should be surprised by this effort to reward the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. What is surprising--lucky for us--is how transparent the effort is. Just like the effort to kill the ACA, Republicans in Congress seem happy to demonstrate their absolute indifference to the public good. Guess they figure, if we were stupid enough to elect 45, we'll fall for anything.
2
Remember that these are the same Republicans who back in 2010 refused to extend the tax cuts for families having a kid in college and for small businesses that were included in the Stimulus (which itself consisted for 50% of tax cuts) and were about to expire ... .
For years now, Republicans - as a majority in this country knows - are abusing the power of their offices in DC (and elsewhere) in order to increase income inequality and make the wealthiest even wealthier all while making the other 99% poorer and less healthy.
At the same time creating a shift from corporate to individual taxes, when the population is aging and the only way to make sure that by 2037 Social Security doesn't start adding to the deficit is to do the EXACT opposite, isn't merely signing into law the Robin Hood principle in reverse, it's actively creating the groundwork for destroying Social Security altogether.
And then there are the Medicaid cuts that would decimate Medicate and that Trump absolutely wants to sign into law (he's even prepared to fire his own Secretary when he doesn't succeed in destroying the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans in less than a year).
Instead of being the Grand Old Party, guaranteeing stability and at least maintaining America's current "greatness", the GOP has become the party that is trying to bring back 19th century "wild capitalism".
We URGENTLY need a REAL conservative party again!
1
Thank you Mr . Trump and Republicans because as an independent contractor from NJ who has to buy her own health insurance and relies on deductions to offset costs I have to spend in order to work at all , this struggling single mother with one son is college WILL get her taxes raised .
I hope there are enough Republican Senators and Congressmen from states with high state taxes like NJ and NY that will be against this plan as it hurts every day Americans in our states by eliminating the state tax deduction .
They don't really want tax reform. They just want to muddle the numbers enough to give themselves , the richest people a tax break and everyone else a little little bit of a break and some will pay more . Not the rich people , only the middle or lower will pay more . That's going to be the reality of this ridiculousness.
2
At a time when we should be thinking about tax increases to pay for the destruction in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, the GOP is talking tax cuts? We also need money to develop a plan to address future storms that will be stronger with more rain because of climate change.
The Trump administration clearly does not look at these disasters as something the federal government should be concerned about. I think its time to be seriously concerned about the administration.
2
It is like Trick or Treating for the wealthy, they get the Treat and the Middle Class people get the trick.
What kind of irresponsible Admiration that has a huge deficit, still in the middle of a 15 year war that has been paid for by cutting taxes to the wealthy and taxing the middle class and poor, as well as the government credit card, thinks it's good idea to cut taxes for the wealthiest even more?
I don't remember ever cutting taxes during previous wars, but then again, because we didn't and asked all people to pay their fair share, we never had these kind of deficits.
It is tax fairness that needs to brought to the code, not more cuts for the wealthiest of our society.
We've seen this show before multiple times. A republican president cuts taxes for the rich, the deficit balloons and then a democrat is elected and painfully fixes the mess. Rinse and repeat.
There has been for decades a section of the Republican Party that wants the government to go bankrupt so it can't do anything useful for the American people. This plan should be right up their alley.
1
The " $ 1.5 trillion" in the Republican Party Senate White House Trump tax "cut" scheme does not matter to deficits and debts. Because Republican Party Saint Ronnie Reagan prophesized that neither matter in an exceptional America designed by destiny for the profitable benefit of millionaires and billionaires.
Draining the swamp is a misguided metaphor for reforming government and politics and taxes. A swamp is a diverse ecological positively balanced environment nearly on par with a tropical rain forest and coral reef. Draining a swamp is very bad. A properly functioning swamp has natural checks and balances akin to our divided limited power republic.
3
The federal government is about to be gutted. Prepare to learn why the federal government is (was) important and necessary. They're not just a bunch of lazy bureaucrats. The cuts will be monstrous.
2
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish….”
Congress is clearly beset by the virile tyranny of the majority political party.
The branch of our federal government most crucial to the maintenance and preservation of democratic process and principles has become a partisan sham to the point of loosing any semblance of the fundamental founding intentions of honorable and civil consultation and rational compromise.
The so called leadership of both houses is myopically intent on gaming by every means possible the nation’s vital legislative process for the sake of unilaterally dictating utterly partisan outcomes without any recourse to collaboration across the now vast and obdurate partisan divide.
Grievously dysfunctional politics guarantee a grievously dysfunctional nation.
The common wisdom that you should not worry about the news because, by its very nature, it's only the exceptional events that get reported. Dog bites man - not. Man bites dog - yes.
What happens when the exceptional becomes the ordinary? What happens when the "men of substance and integrity" become marauding bandits using "tax reform" as a vehicle to jeopardize the safety of present and future generations?
Take a look a Puerto Rico. How can this be regarded as anything other than an alarming humanitarian crisis taking place, not in the center of Africa or India, but to millions of American citizens? Yet Trump retires to the golf links and claims that everything is going really well. The mayor of San Juan responsibly cries out for help and is slammed as a naysayer.
At this point I would have a hard time saying that the onset of the zombie apocalypse could possibly be any worse. But wait, there remains the very real prospect of a nuclear exchange with North Korea by early next year. I can only conclude that the sale of guns, bottled water, and freeze-dried food must be going right through the roof.
These guys (in Washington) are stark raving mad. This is no more democracy than Idi Amin was democracy.
2
Do Trump supporters think that this is made up: "an independent analysis concluded that the plan as offered would far exceed that price tag and overwhelmingly benefit corporations and the rich." Do they believe what Trump spins more than what the facts indicate? Politicians (including Trump) spin things which is their political job, but only multiple independent analyses of the facts can get to the truth of the effect of any government policy. All of us, rich or poor, dem or repub, lib or conservative, should always look at what the facts say!
Peeved about the GOP logic (for the last 40 years)?
1. Rich people pay most of the taxes in the US. The tax burden falls on the job creators.
2. This new tax proposal, one that is full of tax cuts, will overwhelmingly help the middle class and working Americans.
3. Wait! This $1.5T tax relief will mostly go to the working Americans who already don't pay much in taxes. Purely magical.
Huh? How can that be? These GOP arguments make little sense!!! OK, if 90% tax rates were the norm, this would make sense.
As for paying taxes or employees, rich people don't want to part with their money. And, the tax savings do NOT trickle down. If anything money flow seems to trickle up to the successful businesses. More money in the hands of consumers means more money spent.
To be fair, most people don't want to pay taxes. That's understandable.
So, sorry GOP, we have a country, society, nation, and people to take care of. It appears foolish to remove all of the perceived financial tax pain for the 1 percenters.
America was great when the income tax rate was much higher than it is today and the National Debt was nearly non-existent. So, let's raise the income tax rate on the wealthy, close the loopholes, pay off the National Debt, and make America Great again!
1
RE: the average tax bill for all income groups would decline by nearly $1,600 in 2018, Those with incomes between about $49,000 and $86,000 would see an average tax cut of $660,
That will be the Republican story - Tax Cuts All 'Round!!! It will be the basis of support. But it isn't the whole truth.
The real truth is "The loss of deductions would hit the upper middle class the most, and more than a third of the taxpayers who earn $150,000 to $300,000 would see their taxes go up next year, the report found. They would be hit particularly hard by the repeal of the state and local tax deduction."
Nor is it limited to that income group. The median income in Mass is $67,846. With home ownership of 60% it is obvious that the loss of these deductions will hit a lot more than those making $150K or more. I don't make anywhere near that, but between mortgage interest, income tax, and property taxes my deductions were $19K, add the personal exemption of $4K for a total income adjustment of $23K in comparison to the $12K standard deduction (I would take since the mortgage interest is less than $12K) I will be taxed on a additional $11K of income which at the proposed rates would be more $2,000 extra.
The revised plan will hit single people harder in income tax and high property tax states who can only claim the standard deduction and hit will hit larger families who can't claim the personal exemptions for themselves and their dependents.
1
corporations would pay less tax while state and income tax will become non deductible for individuals, under the trump tax plan. Corporations and wealthy individuals would pay 9 percent less while individuals earning over 150,000 will pay 3 percent more. A home in california can cost 1 million and college tuition is an added cost, Rent for s single bedroom apartment is 2500 a month. Medical costs are very high. A 150000 salary is a middle class earning in these circumstances. Blue states like california will have to counter trump and a gop that threatens blue states by raising taxes proportionately on corporations and individuals who will win-in particular red state corporations snd oil companies, and lowering them on those loosing the state snd local tax deduction. Taxes on private planes and yachts and multimilion dollar properties, snd certain sales snd services, should be hiked to recover any lost tax revenue
The fact is, your tax money does a lot more to boost the economy when the federal government spend some it than when it sits in trust funds of the 1%. Tax dollars don't just vanish into the air. The government employs a lot of people and buys a whole lot of stuff! You won't like the economic effect when the public sector is gutted.
1
This is another example of GOP abuse of the system. Reconciliation was never intended to enable major legislation and is a poor tool for the job.
McConnell has been leading the charge to violate the spirit of the law in order to gain pure naked power with no regard for the consequences. McCain took a stand for process and civility, this is another step back into the gutter.
Ronald Reagan unveiled his brand new, never seen before economic theory he called "Supply Side". It consisted of massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Reagan promised balanced budgets as the wealthy would be incentivized to work harder such that the revenue lost to tax cuts would be made up with economic growth. It did not work. Eight budget deficits in eight years increased the Gross Federal Debt from 31.7% of Gross Domestic Product to 51.5%. Four more years of deficits under Bush I increased it to 64.0%.
Clinton and the Democrats raised taxes which paved the way to lower interest rates, 4% unemployment without inflation, balanced budgets and reduced the Gross Federal Debt from 64.0% to 56.4%.
The Bush II-Cheney administration implemented "supply side" tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001 and 2003. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neil opposed the 2003 tax cut as the 2001 cut had already turned the Clinton surplus to a deficit to deficits. Cheney told him: "You know Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter". When O'Neil continued to object Cheney fired him whereupon he drove to his home in Pittsburgh with his integrity in tact. Eight more deficits in eight years increased the Gross Federal Debt from 56.4% of GDP to 82.1%.
Any guesses as to how our fourth "supply side" tax cut for the wealthy will turn out?
5
The bottom line with this "tax reform" is to create a class of super wealthy who NEVER have to pay income taxes.
How so?
Well, at the moment the estate tax does not impact any inheritance below $5 million. If a person could live on $5 million dollars their entire lives, they would essentially never pay income taxes.
With the drive now to end ALL estate taxation, the super wealthy will NEVER pay income taxes again.
Trump and his family are laughing all the way to bank.
3
The proposed tax cuts that cut billions from the treasury are so that the Republicans can totally gut all necessary programs and agencies that benefit the majority of people in this country. The promised "middle class miracle" only means that if the middle class survives this is will be a miracle. Their plan doesn't sound anything like 'tax reform'. Just the same old tired lie. The Robber Oligarchs are in charge and one has to wonder if the Trump voters are pleased with that. The rest of us are horrified.
What we need is for the rich to pay their fair share. This country doesn't need more cuts. We need to pay for what we need. Roads, infrastructure, clean water, clean air, living wages for all, continued social security, continued medicare coverage . . . none of this will happen with cuts. EVERYONE pay their fair and affordable share. The 99% of us seem to be forever expected to pay the share of the wealthiest of this country.
Why do the Republicans think it's such a great idea to give tax breaks to rich people who have more money than they can spend and may or may not spend those extra dollars instead of to the lower and middle class where will most likely spend every dollar they get? Aren't we a consumer-driven economy? If we want to give the economy a shot in the arm, that would make the most sense. Instead, it seems we will go further into debt and further kick the can down the road into making critical investments in our infrastructure.
We should be giving people universal health care that will immediately stick tons more money into everyone's pocket which people will spend, increase worker mobility, and lessen the stress of worrying how to pay for what people have called a second mortgage of health care costs with increasing payments that have no end in sight. THAT is what we should be borrowing to do and it probably would permanently give our country the boost we desperately need. Why can't we give it a try?
Neither the top 1% nor corporations need a tax cut. Tax cuts would be much more likely to grow the economy if given to working class families that would spend the money on consumer goods in the economy. The top 1% will save most of it. And, corporations have been spending 91% of their "investments" on acquisitions and shareholder rewards.
Americans like to see for themselves. Their seeing-is-believing attitude saved the ACA from GOP repeal. Now, a single, simple progressive tax cut can thwart the GOP’s regressive tax cut bundle.
An emphatically progressive tax plan is now a real possibility. The GOP 10-year, 1.5 (some say 2.2) trillion dollar deficit plan puts in play nearly $10,000 per every tax filer -- at least $8,000 when joint returns are counted as two filers,
Here's one top candidate for the emphatically progressive tax cut - a reduction in the rate in the lowest tax bracket - with adjustments for incomes below the bracket’s threshold.
More taxpayers will see more savings than across-the-board cuts, flat taxes, and increases in personal exemptions and standard deductions, all which scatter the tax cut, dilute its effect, and disproportionately benefit those with the highest incomes.
The tax savings gap between this plan and other proposals is big. It leaves plenty of room to give comfort to both deficit hawks and supporters of the nation's growth. Even allowing modifications needed for growth in defense, infrastructure, education, and other social and community investment, it can still generate far larger tax savings than every other plan.
It's also more likely than other plans to pay for itself through generating increased economic growth.
5
That's a switch.
The 1% didn't get their way.
Let's hope this starts a trend.
what's your address on K St.?
This scam is designed to cut Trump's taxes and those of the wealthy who finance Republicans' election campaigns. No reputable economist believes that this tax cut will pay for itself by resulting in a 3% or 4% annual growth of our economy. This is a deliberate Congressional Republican lie. In fact, it is likely to destroy our economy.
If we want to fix our infrastructure, mitigate the catastrophic impacts of global warming, combat disease, improve education, and, produce more jobs and the people who can do them, we must increase taxes not reduce them.
39
Republicans are just trying to do to this country what Trump tried to do to all those women.
26
I heard be allegedly did this to girls too not just women. Three are no boundaries to what they feel they can plunder and call their own.
What a mess the GOP and Trump are doing.....cutting the estate tax so framers won't be bother by it....he, there ohs a 5 millions $ exemption!!
4
More republican castles-in-the-sky! When will the American public wake up to this destructive trickle down myth the greedy repulsicans espouse ? Does any body remember George Bush's " it's good to run a deficit or the Iraq war will pay for itself ? What happened in 2008? How many people lost their jobs ? The rape of the country continues . You bet history repeats itself , but this time it'll be worse for the working American.
20
From the fleecing of America, to now the bankrupting of US, by none other than the bankrupter-in-cheif.
24
Not happening....just sayin'....
4
If you want to create a good narrative that everyone will enjoy create a highly visible storyline with the simple calculation that this tax cut is designed so trump himself will benefit by 2 billion given that his net worth is assumed at 4 billion. Everyone will enjoy when he sets the record straight just in case we are off on either figure.
2
Where is the money for natural disasters going to come from?
18
The same place all money comes from: congressional appropriation.
Increased appropriation will be balanced by judicious taxes, to stabilize the money supply. (Did I miss something?)
who needs natural disasters when McConnell & Co. are on the job, creating disasters and chaos out of thin air?
this is not a real problem, this is something the GOP is foisting upon us all, for their own selfish benefit.
could it be there is anyone in America who still believes that malarkey that cutting taxes on the uber rich will stimulate the economy? when, exactly, did that ever actually happen?
Hey Trump voters! Get ready to be robbed again. This bill might give you a teensy dribble in savings, but the .01% will get 100s of thousands, if not millions. And this is not "free money." Every penny paid to the oligarchs comes out of YOUR pocket in denied benefits and services.
Whenever Grover Norquist is happy, you should be afraid, very afraid.
32
How's that man-of-the-people populism working out for you now, Trump voters?
20
It’s great we’re in West Virginia and we sure voted for trump and have already 10.000 cash from new jobs and health care we all have caue he reopened lots of the closed mines over here. Then other friends in our Trump party (go Rico and Maria!) on Porto Rico told us the everything is great he’s bringing back jobs to America also Porto Rico is benefiting from the all the great work and goods they’re getting from mister Trump at this time of need. It’s just great. Not super easy but great
1
Reality Check mean while jobs continue to be exported from usa that pay living wage soon all middle cleass will be dependant on government for assitance. Question is what is government doing to to reinforce companys to out source by buying imports record amount for government use like computors made by apple in comunist china. We are own worse enemys made in usa is now become stripping national forest for wood for china.
3
If you look at the graphics of this article, the green shades tell it all. It's Donald's snake oil at work. No brainer.
9
GOP , the traditional party that historically keeps the US deficit on a vertical trajectory !!!
11
Excellent! A key point. Progressive, like you, can win this tax fight! Americans like to see for themselves. Their seeing-is-believing attitude saved the ACA from GOP repeal. Now, a single, simple progressive tax cut can thwart the GOP’s regressive tax cut bundle.
Progressives don't have one... yet.
Now an emphatically progressive tax plan is a real possibility. The GOP 10-year, 1.5 (some say 2.2) trillion dollar deficit plan puts in play nearly $10,000 per every tax filer -- at least $8,000 when joint returns are counted as two filers,
What would an emphatically progressive tax cut look like? Here's one: a reduction in the rate in the lowest tax bracket - with adjustments for incomes below the bracket’s threshold.
The revenue loss difference between this plan and other proposals is big. It leaves plenty of room to give comfort to both deficit hawks and supporters of the nation's growth.
More taxpayers will see more savings than across-the-board cuts, flat taxes, and increases in personal exemptions and standard deductions, all which scatter the tax cut, dilute its effect, and disproportionately benefit those with the highest incomes.
It's also more likely than other plans to pay for itself through generating increased economic growth.
It's the first and best choice of nearly every taxpayer. It's a tax cut for “getting ahead” – a cut, concentrated on the first taxable dollars of everyone, not the next million of a few.
Trump's in the mon-ey, Trump's in the mon-ey... C'mon, citizens, We the People have a new country now! And at least we stand for something worth cheering about: "This President," he's above the Law ("sort of...") and we can all rest easy, knowing the planet is safe (Shhh! Don't tell anyone!).
3
What do you give a man who has everything? A Republican White House and Congress.
16
you are sly, but I know you are referring to President Trump.
well, he does not have everything. for example, he does not have a 400 foot yacht any more, because his lenders forced him to sell it during one of his bankruptcy periods.
perhaps this will all work out ok: when the Republicans are finished wrecking the economy, our creditors, largely hoders of treasuries and the Chinese, will force us to sell off some of our rosiest states.
and then we'd all be better off.
Well, they will finally destroy Obamacare, Medicare, Social Security. housing subsidies, SNAP, and any other safety net program I may have forgotten at this moment, when I am blinded, as I usually am, by rage every morning when I read the NYT or the Washington Post. For near Nirvana-calm I read the Grand Forks Herald, which has absolutely no news except for hockey happenings maybe a robbery or two, and the opening of another chain restaurant. I would guess most of their readers belong to Trump's base. And, if you read nothing but the Herald, which is probably the case, you have absolutely no idea of the damage their businessman hero is doing to them. No idea whatever.
23
Borrow 1.5 trillion from the Chinese to award the 1%. Why not borrow the money for...education, infrastructure, environmental preservation? Why not spend 1.5 trillion and go to Mars and build a golf course there? Shoot me.
12
Trickle Down Economics used to be known as the horse and sparrow theory - if you gave the horse more oats than it needed, it would pass some of them through undigested where the sparrows could then feed on it.
The conservative framework means serving the average person manure while expecting them to thank their corporate masters for the nutritious bounty. Trump's base will go the extra mile and exclaim how delicious it is.
19
I think I'm starting to understand what is motivating the Republicans. There is an undercurrent in their ranks that thinks we are all doomed. This faction is comprised of fatalists who have given up on America. Their motivation is to grab what they can for themselves before the bottom falls out.
Remember Trump's "carnage" speech during the inauguration. And think about Steve Bannon, a perennial adolescent throwing molotov cocktails at the establishment in the name of "deconstruction of the administrative state." Or perhaps his real goal is to bring about WWIII, which he sees as inevitable as part of a "clash of civilizations."
Here is a serious comment I read about the tax cuts on another site:
"You may want to get yours before it gets redistributed."
Get the maximum tax cut. Take all the money. Deficits be damned. There's no future.
It is like a doomsday cult. "The end is nigh." Complete fatalism and defeatism. The evangelical right probably sees the floods from the recent hurricanes as a sign. The bunker mentality - ammo, gold, and canned goods. Perhaps that is what "America First" is code for.
Think I'm wrong? Think I am exaggerating?
Look at Peter Thiel (Silicon Valley billionaire venture capitalist and Trump supporter). He bought a bunch of remote land in New Zealand and swore allegiance to the Queen (possibly renouncing US citizenship) to become a citizen there.
---
Meanwhile, I remain a long-term optimist.
What is wrong with half the people in our country?
14
they are packing now, ready for the Rapture.
and Moore shall lead the way, followed by Pence.
Somehow the Trump horror show must be defeated.
7
Come on, man!
1
Republicans in Congress get ever closer to their Howard Jarvis dream of drowning the baby [the government] in the bathtub. They are the ones who each deserve that fate.
6
and you know what happened to Jarvis; if you believe in the old time religion, it was divine retribution..
So I guess deficit spending is just fine when it is the pubs doing it and only bad when the Dems.
9
The Trump Administration is made up of the same people who continually say that supporters of Bernie Sanders want "Free Stuff." NO, America. Wake up. The elite and corporate America want FREE STUFF. The difference is, they get it. whether the Democrats, Republicans of the "MAGA" folks are in charge "Free stuff for the rich" is the mandate. As a supporter of Bernie Sanders, I just want ( like many Trump supporters) my fair share.
10
The Economist notes that the elimination of the $4000 personal exemption would offset the increased standard deduction so that there would be a net gain of only $2000. The bottom tax rate would increase from 10% to 12%! The poor would be paying for the rich! Now this is a true Republican plan - robbing the poor to pad the pockets of the rich so they can have gold toilets like Trump. Republicans are indeed making America grate (not a spelling error). I will keep on deducting and retain my CPA.
8
If you have children you lose $4,000 per child, so it's actually a tax increase for lower middle-class families.
Trump has made a big deal of wanting to spend a lot of money on infrastructure and boost military spending. So now we throw on large tax cuts on top of all that.
And, of course, there are a couple of hurricanes that have caused extensive damage that will be sucking up money too. And maybe a foreign invasion or two (Venezuela?).
Where's the money coming from for all this?
One would think if the Republican Party was being at all honest, it would admit that all this stuff is going to get paid with borrowed money.
9
Trumps infrastructure plan is to have the government pay for improvements, and private corporations to collect the tolls.
1
This tax cut will only increase income inequality further. It will not provide jobs, increase retirement security, expand healthcare and lower costs, provide much needed infrastructure improvements, or improve educational opportunities. In the main, it only further enriches people and corporations that are already wealthy and makes our long term fiscal situation worse. This is absolutely terrible stewardship of our country.
I wonder if the average Republican voter will EVER catch on to how they are being manipulated by the party and Trump? They say "government" is the problem but then systematically use government to undo consumer protections and social programs that help ordinary citizens, offer fiscal plans that benefit the rich, legislation that favors corporate mergers (which increases costs for goods and services), and do almost nothing to improve the economic situation for 90% of the country.
We are the richest country on earth and yet are not providing basic health, education and social services that would improve the lives for all of us. This is just maddening because we could do so much better.
One root of the problem is how much influence the rich have over the political process. Of course, they are going to look after themselves and shaft everybody else. And the Republican spin doctors and media make vulnerable people believe this is a good thing. I would be angry too but that anger has been brilliantly deflected from the actual people who are causing the harm.
16
We need a constitutional amendment:
Corporations are Not People and Money is Not Speech.
1
Our children will be able to tell their children that they witnessed the sun set on the greatest democratic experiment in the history of the world. Destroyed by shortsighted greed.
7
A tax plan based around infrastructure repair and updating the energy grid, a federal plan for healthcare that fulfills Trumps promise on a better less expensive plan for all would start the economy on a path that would help more than just the wealthy.
There is enough evidence to show this is another theft from working Americans with the same outcome as before, weakening our nation at the same time further weakening the foundation of our county.
Don't be fooled again.
8
So if I make $150-$300k my taxes go up to pay for trump and his buddies? Really? I already pay way more then my share living in DC. I work in the national security interest and make less then I could in NYC or in big five and now this? So much for Trump “suffering”. How stupid are we people?
9
Jct,
To answer your last question I can only ask another few. Are we to feel sorry for you that you are making 150-300k? Are we to feel sorry that you chose to work in DC rather than "NYC or in the big 5"? Now I'll ask you one more - How stupid are people?
What happens to the people at the bottom tier of earners? Not only in terms of safety net funds, but actually in terms of taxes??
5
The GOP "healthcare" plans were tax cuts in drag. If you think of "repeal and replace" this way, it is easy to understand why the Republicans have not come up with anything that actually insures more people for less money than Obamacare. In the last the seven years, the GOP gained the House, Senate, Presidency and SCOTUS, yet they still got nothing.
Trump's government is a hostile takeover of our government by the extremely wealthy. They are there to take the money and run. Many Congress people don't care if they are re-elected in 2018. Their job is to crack open the national treasury to the same people who brought the economy down in 2008. Mnuchin, the "foreclosure king," is our Treasury Secretary for a reason.
One of the things that scares me most about the Republican Party is that it is popular among law enforcement and the military. As the extreme rich try to distract us with racist propaganda and the inevitable backlash, will the police and military choose the side of the wealthy? History tells me the majority of law enforcement will because they need the protection of the powerful and wealthy as more people protest. Meanwhile, the military is being dispatched to Afghanistan, again.
I don't like what we're becoming. These Republicans are robbers and thieves. Will the conservative movement unleash the dogs of war when the public decides they have had enough?
10
The problem with the reasoning behind these massive tax cuts for the rich is that closing the loop holes will partially make up for the deficit laden cuts . The lobbyist are circling the Capitol like vultures. They will ensure that no loopholes are closed and so we will end up with the same type of cuts as Georgia Ws. It's just a redistribution upward the same old song.
6
Even if they cut the loopholes, taxes will stay lower, but in a couple of years the loopholes will be back.
The only way to stop that from happening would be a constitutional amendment that forbids special tax treatment for anyone.
1
The GOP now can act on their highest priority: cutting taxes for the ultra rich, including Trump, and raising taxes for most Americans and using the resulting explosion of the deficit to take away Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
This is what happens, folks, when Democrats don’t vote.
12
Exactly exactly exactly.
That's why I tell people every chance I get: vote for socialized medicine. A congress that enacts Medicare for All will also do reasonable things for education, the environment, and maybe even taxes.
This tax cut promises to return $1.5 trillion in 10 years to the taxpayers, 50% of it to the top 1%, those earning over $750,000 a year.
Medicare for All would save $1 trillion every year, the benefit distributed evenly across the board. That money would be paid entirely by the wealthy: stockholders in insurance companies, medical device manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, and some highly paid doctors.
No better illustration exists for why Republicans prefer their tax plan to universal healthcare. Democrats need to embrace Medicare for All not only as a moral issue, but as a pocketbook issue, too.
This is what happens when the Democratic Party runs a tool of the rich, who takes advice from Henry Kissinger, who took $20,000,000 in speaking fees from global finance and told them in a secret meeting don't worry, "I have public policies and private policies," who talks about poverty, but used the Haitian Earthquake to enrich friends and relatives (ask a Haitian about the Clintons), who said universal healthcare "could never ever happen," who said the TPP "should be the gold standard for trade deals," who went to the Hamptons to collect money from the rich ingress of going to the rust belt to promise then jobs, who ran a negative campaign against Trump instead of promising to help the people, who's plan to fix the economy was too have drinks writhe republicans so she could find common ground with the greater evil.
If the lesser evil find common ground with the greater evil, what do you expect to get out of that.
The problem is not that Democrats don't vote. More Democrats voted for Trump than all third parties combined. The problem is that Republicans represent the rich, the Democrats mostly try to stay out of their way, and so the working class and poor have no one to vote for, especially when you keep telling them voting for a third party is a waste of their vote.
Instead of wasting their vote on a third party, they voted for Trump.
I'd suggest to the folks that voted for this man that this man has with this budget revealed without a doubt his lack of concern for you, but I know you're unlikely to read this comment.
To those of you who might be a moderate Republican - it's time you considered the irreversible damage this budget and this President may bring to all of us - and stop cowering - and do the good work of getting rid of him.
9
Reagan's and GWB's administrations, after passing huge tax cuts, led to recessions.
Clinton's and Obama's administrations, after tax raises, led to booming economies.
9
Don't forget Bush One's tax increase, which also helped the economy, but lost him the election against Clinton.
"Cry, Trojans,cry! Lend me 10,000 eyes,
And I will fill them with prophetic tears."
This is Casandra in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. I felt she was talking to us after the election of Donald Trump.
3
So did I miss the whole commentary and debate that eliminated debt as the United States's single largest security risk?
2
The usual GOP reverse Robin Hood tax cuts !
6
Three major storms doing untold damage and a complete rebuild of Puerto Rico looming, the GOP looks around and decided that the rich need a tax break. The mind-numbing lack of anything like an original thought is stunning.
Yet, who can be surprised by this? This is what these sheep were sent to D.C. to do by Koch, etc. They simply cannot help themselves.
7
This Tax plan is "mean" to quote the President's comments on the failed ACA repeal (one of the three). Democrats need a simple message to help torpedo this giant theft of the peoples money. A march on the capital?
3
Everyone needs to call it Welfare for the Wealthy, and it might shame some congresspeople who understand optics into no votes.
1
For the nth time.. time to demand that the luxury tax be put back..LUXURY TAX-- yes Virginia, it is a real tax of 10% on all kinds of stutt no one needs.. and could be applied to stuff like soda and bottled water as well as costume jewelry and the 170 million dollar Picasso which it is possible to buy and NOT pay 1 penny in tax on thanks to an NYs law prvileging the rich and "helping" the auction house.
The tact that people have preferentially forgotten this tax-- including WJClinton who got rid of GWH Bush's re-establishment of it.. does not meant that it does not exist -- and it is a very fair tax on nothing needed. Sort of like the idea that one does not pay tax on clothing items costing less than 100 $.
MAKE AMERICA SANE AGAIN... and let one of the genius economists who works at the university that exploits adjunct faculty and grad student assistants... and has tiered salaries instead of equal pay for equal work... -- TIME for major rethinking of lots of things.
Enough people wanted disruption and transparency that we got that.. even if we have an absurd political system where in fact one's vote does NOT count.
Can we just tell the WHOLE
4
. left out Truth... but in fact, I have NOT been able to find out when the luxury tax which I remember paying as a child in about 1955 -- 10 cents on the dollar pin for Mom..went away.
Just think about 10% luxury tax- 17 million in rvenue on that Picasso someone bought at auction.. (and if someone isn't able to take a charitable donation when he donates it for 200 million (inflation or something) -- even more positive revenue in the economy.
Tell us the truth Paul, Joseph, Ben, etc. At least correctly describe, without justifying,what happens .. and where it happens and whom it effects and how -- when??
I read this article yesterday and felt ill, but held vainly and vaguely to the hope that the sentences below contained an error. Alas, there was no correction this morning that removed a zero from the $129,000. If the GOP is successful in pushing this through, we will be playing out the failed Kansas experiment on a national scale.
"Those in the top 1 percent — with incomes above about $730,000 — would receive about half the total tax benefit. They would see an average tax cut of $129,000, increasing after-tax incomes by 8.5 percent. Those with incomes between about $49,000 and $86,000 would see an average tax cut of $660, raising their after-tax income by 1.2 percent."
6
What do you expect from a fake president? A fake budget.
False claims that it's not a tax cut for the rich and huge corporations.
8
3 Individual income tax bracket has not been announced yet. If they want to sell this plan as trule middle class tax cut, they need to keep minimum rate to 10%, and keep 25 % rate above 300 K. Also, propose dividend income and any capital gain income taxed as ordinary income. Warren Buffet rightfully complains that his tax rate is higher than his secretary's. How come no one is touching this subject ? Then, we have some wiggle room to lower corporate tax rates without adding to massive deficit.
3
Those rates are too low. Since Eisenhower the federal government has spent roughly 20% of GDP. Taxing most Americans at 10% won't raise enough revenue, no matter what the top rate is.
To balance the budget -- which we should when the economy is functioning at capacity, as it is now -- we need to raise taxes by 3 percentage points, because revenues are only 17% of GDP (and have been ever since Bush).
Because we know that the benefits to globalization and automation since 1979 have gone entirely to the top 20% (mostly to the top 1%) new tax s should be imposed on them. ALL new revenue should come from incomes over $250,000/yr until income inequality is moderated.
Email your Congress people and object. This is no plan: it's a robbery.
7
Where are the GOP's deficit hawks??? Deficits apparently only matter if a Democrat is in the White House.
3
The deficit hawks have lost their beaks.
Where are my blood pressure pills?
4
One minor disaster and out of reach.
Increase our debt by trillions of dollars to pay for tax cuts to the very wealthiest Americans - Republicans are so fiscally responsible :/
14
This from the democrats who, in 8 years took the national debt from 10 trillion (accumulated over 225 years) to 20 trillion.
You don't like the debt? Then raise taxes!
Clinton left the budget in surplus, remember? Bush promised to return PART OF that surplus to "the people" because "it's your money". When the budget went negative again, were the tax cuts repealed? Of course not.
Obama raised taxes by letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire. Spending did rise under Obama, not because any program became more generous -- remember, no legislation was passed to give, say, food stamps to more people -- but because more people qualified for aid. They qualified largely because they were unemployed, because of the recession brought on by lackadaisical financial regulation under Bush. It's called countercyclical spending; its textbook economics. And it led to the longest postwar expansion on record, which we continue to enjoy presently. You're welcome.
That's the last 16 years in a nutshell. Now is today. The budget is in deficit. How are tax cuts the remedy? It's ok to add to the debt and forego needed investment just because Obama allegedly overspent? How does that make the least bit of sense?
1
Obama cut the yearly deficit in half from 2009 and 2017.
The debt was created by the Bush Tax Cuts which did not pay for themselves, a War in Iraq, based on lies, and the Great Recession with the actual downturn in the GPD (and the resulting downturn in tax receipts) beginning in 2007 and ending in 2008, a year before Obama became president. Do you remember the headlines every day during the last year of the Bush presidency announcing hundreds of thousands of layoffs and the near collapse of global banks, with the Bush treasury department bailing them out?
This all took place with the Republicans having nearly total control of the House, Senate and White House for eight years. Democrats took control of the Senate in 2007, and tried to pass legislation to head off the disaster, but Republicans blocked it.
Republicans claim to be all about personal but really just blame everyone else for the disasters they create.
You created most of the $20 trillion in debt and now you want to add on another $1.5 trillion to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
2
President Trump is a man of his word. He never said the the new tax plan would be fairer - he just said, that it would be "simpler".
And what could be simpler, than a Demented King, and a small pack of Slobbering Lords, taking advantage of everyone else?
I can only assume, that deep down inside, we are still a Bunch of Serfs - otherwise, this "plan" would have triggered rioting in the streets.
22
Yes, they want you to believe that getting rid of tax brackets is "simplifying" the tax codes.
The other ten thousand pages will stay though.
1
"plan as offered would far exceed that price tag and overwhelmingly benefit corporations and the rich"?
Shameful and disgusting. But it it really any surprise from the mendacious Trump and right-wing Koch-sponsored legions?
6
Thankfully they don't have the competence to make this happen.
5
Don't hold your breath for this to NOT happen...
They don't need competence, just 51 Senate votes.
Don't count on it. And don't be deposited if Democrats vote for it.
I am entering my 70's and I feel very sorry for the young people who will have to shoulder the debt that these Republicans are putting upon them out of greed to live wealthy and high on the hog in the here and now. Trump is scamming the youth of today in burdening them and burying them with a debt they will not be able to climb out of tomorrow.
9
I guess you were also irate about the $10 trillion Obama added to the debt in just 8 years? Doubling a debt that took 225years to accumulate
Dave,
Obama's debt is just a preview of the mess the next Democratic president will have to clean up. Obama's debt was a result of W's tax cut-budget mess that put millions of people out of work.
6
It was Republican policy that created that debt, and you are trying to add another $1.5 trillion now to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
Most Republican politicians subscribe to antisocial self-dealing (narcissism on steroids.) We are now living in a failed democracy solidified by Republican gerrymandering and unfettered lobbying and campaign contributions by those really calling the shots. There is little light at the end of the tunnel.
8
SEVENTY percent of income taxes are paid by the top ten percent of earners. They are the employers in small businesses that find places most new hires.
''Hate-the-rich'' has been the only response the Dems have had to economic growth ideas since World War Two (when their worldview took such a beating.)
2
Individuals in the one percent do not pay high taxes.
Lumping them together as a percentage of total taxes paid is disingenuous. Of course those who have more pay more. That's simple arithmetic.
Lowering taxes does not result in higher wages or more hiring. Only increased consumer demand does that.
There's more than adequate proof in the disastrous tax "relief" of the G. W. Bush administration, which turned a a surplus into a huge deficit and helped to trigger the 2008 financial crisis.
Some people say that Republicans have learned nothing from that experience. Actually, what they learned is that they can fleece the average American taxpayer and make a windfall for their rich backers, and then blame the Democrats for the obscene deficit.
4
People who have the money pay the taxes. They benefited disproportionately during the years after the Great Recession. Now let them help the rest of America.
2
The rich have very much to pay for. We are all paying for protection: military, police, fire, health. Someone making $2,000/day or more should pay proportionately more for the protection of those increased assets than someone who makes $200 (which is more than the average person working in the fields listed above hauls down) for the same 24-hour period. The same applies for the rest of the services taxes are needed to cover, from infrastructure to national parks maintenance, whether you visit them or not.
Millions of Americans have already donate, as a portion of their income or wealth, proportionately more than Donald Trump toward the recovery from the recent storms in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands. Trump and few of his billionaire buddies could cover the cost of rebuilding and still have more money than they could possibly spend on life's daily needs, even taking their "elevated" tastes into consideration.
Republicans are the ones whining. L'O, yourself very much included.
3
“This budget would green-light a tax scheme that could very well put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block.”
This has been the goal of the GOP since the inception of these programs. But selling these tax breaks as economic stimuli is icing on the cake.
6
It's such a blessing to know that these republicans will shoulder 99.99% of the blame for tanking our economy. The funny part about trickle-down is that it never works and republicans never notice. The fantasy they live in makes them more equal and never to blame, even when they don't involve anyone else in these decisions. It's been nice for them so far, but you have to wonder what it will be like for them WHEN THEY CRASH OUR ECONOMY!!!
3
How are we supposed to pay for all the fancy flights of the Trump administration if we cut taxes? Oh, right, let the little people pay a little more.
4
When will Americans ever learn from the lessons of history? Never. They keep electing the same GOP folks who only have one thing in mind...how to enrich themselves and their friends at the expense of the American worker and middle class. Folks, you've seen this show too many times not to have gotten a clue by now. These folks are playing the American worker and middle class for fools by throwing them a few crumbs while feasting on prime cuts of the very best you can have. The only ones that will really benefit from these tax cuts are folks like Trump, his rich friends, and mega corporations. They see the US Treasury and Taxpayers as personal slush funds for their opulent way through life. Jobs are NOT coming back because they didn't leave because of taxes, they left for the dirt cheap labor abroad, just like Trump has his line of clothing made abroad. Stop being played for fools by the GOP. This tax cut bill is NOT for the middle class or the real American worker, it is for guys that already have billions and millions. YOU are just a pawn and tool to them. Vote them all out of office in the elections to come. Don't believe in this nonsense that this will create jobs, it won't.
13
Yes and they hold the profits they make from overseas labor out of the country, demanding a tax holiday so they can bring it back tax free. They expect to be rewarded for sending your job to China.
When was the last time workers got a tax holiday?
I was a life long democrat. Now I support Trump. There are many reasons to not support Trump but there are many reasons to support him. American jobs and manufacturing are actually making a comeback. From jobs, tax cuts, illegal aliens, cutting freebies, university admissions and making American exclusive and exceptional again, he has my vote. These take precedence over LGBT rights, climate change, appeasing foreign governments and adhering to the Washington etiquette. It is what it is.
2
Economic trends, including in manufacturing, haven't changed since Trump's election, largely because he hasn't done anything. He is making things worse, especially at the EPA, but those effects will take time to manifest.
"Freebies" is telling. Why shouldn't healthcare and college education be government services, just like highways and fire departments? Or do you object to ensuring people have enough to eat, or access to a doctor?
We've had universal public education in this country for 100 years. We invented it! It created the most highly educated populace in the world, bar none, our politicians notwithstanding. Today, more and more jobs require higher skills than a high school education provides. Many public policy questions require higher order thinking, too, to understand the problems and solutions. Isn't it obvious, then, that college should be available to all who accept the challenge, regardless of income?
1
Eight years without Republicans destroying the economy is why jobs are coming back. Now you want a repeat of the Bush Administration which caused the Great Recession.
Illegal aliens come here because CEOs give them jobs at less then they paid you, so they can .
threaten other citizens with getting replaced by people with no rights. Get illegal immigrants the same employee protections as citizens and the incentive week be gone. A wall won't stop them. They will come through the gates in the back of tricks, like always.
Once upon a time college was affordable. Now graduates can't afford to buy homes because they are deep in debt.
Even if you don't believe climate change, renewable energy, once installed is nearly free. While the rest of the world switches over, we are subsidizing 19th century technology to keep oil corporations in control of our energy. Wouldn't you rather have energy coming from your own roof?
The great American senators, Warren Rudman and Paul Tsongas who co created the Concord Coaltion to reign in run away deficit spending and the burgeoning national debt must be turning over in their graves. I know that former senator Alan SImpson is just as nauseous as I am. What happened to the fiscally responsible GOP of the past?
4
How can anybody calculate when brackets have not been set and the law has not yet been written. Independent usually means liberal in this world. To those who do not believe money coming back home is good. Even if they buy back stocks that money is still within our borders. Trickle down economics is better than tax and spend.
1
If independent is liberal, it's because reality has a liberal bias.
It actually doesn't matter where the brackets fall. Reducing the top rate will be a giant windfall for the rich. If the cost is $150 billion/year, and you reduce the top rate, there's not much left to allocate to everyone else.
"Tax and spend" is a Reagan-era formulation. What does it tell you? Nothing!
Giving money to rich people, under Reagan and Bush, led to recessions. Taxing them, under Clinton and Obama, led to recovery and economic expansion. Label it what you will, 35 years of actual history tell a clear story.
Stock bybacks only benefit executives and stockholders. Money sitting in a US bank is no more beneficial than money in a bank in Cyprus. Sit and gain interest is the only thing it will do . None of that benefits workers or the middle class (the executives of these companies are not middle class, they are upper class). They will not increase investments to increase jobs, they will not increase worker pay. And those are the things that will jumpstart the economy, since if you spend 95%-100% of your income and your income increases, you spend more and create demand. That increase in demand is the only thing that motivates investment.
Does anyone believe that these guys are common criminals?
Will someone please arrest these thieves.
They are blatantly trying to take as much from the country as they can to enrich themselves and their friends.
Can we have some investigation and/or oversight?
What a mess.
6
Executive bonuses will no doubt go up because of the improvement in their companies' bottom lines. "Trickle down" doesn't trickle down very far.
5
Tax cuts favoring the wealthy after Tom Price resigned due to wasting $400,000 in tax dollars on private jet travel would be extremely bad optics.
Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress must demand Trump disclose his tax returns, as well as those of his cabinet and west wing advisors, so Americans can judge if they personally benefit from any tax plan proposed.
4
They don't care about optics.
Republicans are trying to buy votes with a cash giveaway at the expense of the deficit and the next generation. This is not good for the future.
3
The main criteria I have for a good tax plan is does it lower inequality?
This one clearly fails on that point.
If anything, I'd like to see the estate tax take effect at a lower level ($1million? Seems more reasonable than $5.5million) and us to increase taxes on those with incomes about $250K. And this "self-employement" pass through loophole sounds like a disaster (coming from someone who is mostly self-employed)
Raising the standard deduction seems like a genuinely good step for poor and working class. The rest is garbage.
3
With a tax break for only one person at the bottom of the top 1% income range netting more than the entire income that would qualify four people as middle class, this tax plan is a practical joke on America. But there is nothing funny about it, unless you make $2,000/day. or more. Then, it's hilarious.
3
Tax cuts for the 1% that are greater than the pre-tax income of 70% of US families? If the Democrats cannot run and win on the back of this, they should pack it in and surrender the country to the oligarchs.
4
The opening tax proposal simply will not get to first base, as the elimination of both the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax are each non-starters.
While the 1 percenters have become accustomed to have Mr. Trump and the rest of the GOP incumbents say "How high?" when they say "Jump", we are seeing a rapid attrition of GOP office holders in both chambers of Congress.
The midterm elections are showing every indication of being a slaughter house for incumbents who failed to properly inform their constituents via town hall meetings and other means.
Many of those unceremoniously dumped into the streets will have to console themselves with the very highly compensated, but scorned field of lobbying their former peers in Congress.
1
I'm a supporter of the president and I will say what will doom this proposal is not the estate tax or the AMT. it will be the elimination of the state and local tax deductions. Tax payers in NY, California, Mass, Illinois, Virginia, NJ and the remainder of the "blue" states will have GOP reps from their states voting no. On average 70% of voters in those states use this deduction and will be harmed with the change.
1
They'll pull the plug on local tax deductions. They always need one to give away; usually it's the mortgage-interest deduction.
Every single aspect of this bill should doom it in the eyes of 99% of Trump supporters. Especially the AMT and estate tax repeal, which are only giveaways to the wealthy. (How do bigger inheritances fuel the economy?)
Responsible stewardship would be a tax increase, entirely on the wealthy, to close the deficit during full (or almost full) employment. Enlightened policy would eliminate public college tuition. (I favor free college education in exchange for higher lifetime taxes paid by the beneficiaries.) enlightened policy would create high speed passenger rail service from Maine to Florida, beginning with New York to Boston, now that air travel has become so inconvenient and expensive.
But no, we have to talk about tax cuts, and fantasies about economic growth paying for them, how everyone benefits even though only the wealthy see the money directly. Every day another dreary headline.
Dave, you're responding to a bunch of hypocrites who want everyone else's taxes to go up as long as their taxes remain the same or are lowered. A bunch of hypocrites who want everyone else's deductions to be abolished as long as their own deductions remain. These posters don't respond to logic or fairness. Just "stick it to the 1%ers", "stick it to the GOP", "stick it to the red States". A bunch of intellectually dishonest/lazy posters.
Tax cut is a gamble. On one hand deficit will increase and people will get a sense of fake prosperity at this expense.On the other hand if economy does improve as the proposers claim it will be a win win situation. Discovery of new technologies and selling our products to the world is only the real way to cut taxes. Tax reform is certainly needed needed but not at the expense of adding deficit to the countries burden of debt. The needs of the bottom of the society must be taken careof.
Tax cuts, particularly when tax rates are so low and when the economy is booming, never leads to an improving economy.
4
Surely the legislation will be written so that the elimination of the estate tax will not apply to any member of Congress nor to the President, right? That way there would be no self-dealing. How could they disagree?
2
All you need to know is someone making $730,000 gets a $62,000 per year or $5200 a week tax cut. Certainly not chump change, but certainly not needed to help make a big difference in their life. Someone making $49,000 , on the other hand, gets $588 per year or $11.00 a week. Now that will make a huge difference for them . Perhaps a third of a tank of gas every week. That ought to make the hurting people in middle America feel better. Republicans ARE listening. To the wealthy. Spare me the rest of the details. I have all I need to know to understand what they are planning to do.
6
That $600 could easily get eaten up in other losses. Like, say, next year's health insurance premium hike, or higher gasoline prices.
If you want to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, vote for socialized medicine. Medicare for All would save the country $1 trillion annually (not $1.5 over 10 years) and the savings would accrue quite evenly to everyone. Of course, money not spent is income not received, and those giving up that income are all wealthy: insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, device manufacturers, and some doctors.
Medicare for All is a far, far better way to help Americans. And it would save lives. It would be very inconvenient to Republican chicanery if more voters knew.
I guess you failed math (a product of our progressive education system)? $62,000 per year equals $1,192 per week, NOT $5,200 per week. That being said where are you deriving a $62,000 per year save? I live in a high local tax state and pay high property taxes. My annual gross income is about $575K. This proposal in no way cuts my taxes, in fact it will most likely increase them to the tune of about $10K per year.
Just wait - once this give-away to the rich is enacted and blows another big whole in the budget, the Republicans will be taking their knives out to cut what is left of the safety net. It serves Grover Norquist's long term goal of strangling of what is left of the federal government in the bathtub.
3
A trillion odd in savings to pay for the tax cut for the wealthiest. Hmm, save a few billion by taking away healthcare; a few billion more from public education; another few billion from social security; billions from Medicare; trim social security; reduce FEMA funding and make Mexico pay for the wall. That should do it.
3
How to save $1 Billion dollars from the Deficit or earn $1 Billion dollars in revenue over the next 10 years?
It doesn't sound like much money at all and equivalent to only $100 Million a year for 10 years, surely the Government can earn/save that amount easily especially as so many people in the U.S earn MORE than 100 million every year...each.
Tom Rutledge, CEO of Charter Communications earned a Salary of $100 Million in 2016.
In terms of CEO Packages (salary, pension, bonus,share options etc)
Marc Lore, CEO of Walmart U.S. E-commerce made $236 Million in 2016 and Tim Cook CEO of Apple took in $150 Million in 2016 also.
But Hedge Fund Managers earn much more than that every year like Ken Griffen who earned $1.7 Billion, James Simons $1.65 Billion and Steve Cohen who earned $1.55 Billion in 2015 and doubtless they all earned even more last year.
In fact these proposed tax cuts alone will provide over $1 Billion in extra savings/income alone to just the 10 top earning Hedge Fund Managers every year.
But I guess these people really need the extra money the tax cuts will provide these needy/greedy Americans.
3
That $1 billion a year is just a smokescreen. It would come from taxes on new drilling in Alaska. That's why they picked that number and directed the energy committees to look into it.
And why are they doing it? This is really the last thing we need now. We should be repairing our nation's infrastructure and making improvements. That requires a plan of fiscal responsibility, not recklessness, like the Republican "budget" and"tax cut" plan offer. We need to be raising taxes on higher incomes, not lowering them. They are doing this "to" America, not "for" it.
3
I suspect that the White House and most of the Republicans on the Hill know that the tax proposal will disproportionately benefit the wealthy with only minor or illusory benefits to the middle class, and probably won't stimulate significant growth in the economy. But the cuts, along with the 25% pass through entity cap (which creates a huge loophole for bankers, hedge fund and private equity partners, big law partners, and business owners); and elimination of the estate tax, benefit large donors and structurally force the federal government to shrink. From the point of view of many Republican elected officials, this kind of "tax reform" thus makes perfect sense. It satisfies both wealthy donors (who dislike paying taxes) and the part of the base that is ideologically anti-government ("starve the beast").
3
A huge gamble and a lot of 'what ifs'. Republicans must have cottoned on by now, that it's not the 'trickle' down of prosperity that is called for to address inequalities, it is the ' open the flood gates time'. Whilst these proposals do open the flood gates, the distribution is headed to the well watered rather than to the dust bowl.
A give away of this magnitude with few obligations on the wealthy spells RISK. The government would be better served investing the trillions itself on targeted programmes stimulating growth rather than the wing and a prayer strategy of this offering.
Taxes are good. Until they are framed as crucial to a functioning and benign society, the politics of self interest will continue leeching national resources.
2
It's time to abolish as many loopholes and deductions as possible. Let's start with abolishing the "carried interest" loophole - this loophole is unfair and makes no sense whatsoever. I'm also for abolishing every deduction with the exception of charitable deductions. Mortgage interest deductions could be phased out over time. We should also abolish the State and local tax deductions from Federal income tax. Why should a person living in Illinois, Colorado, or Michigan, making a million dollars a year pay a higher Federal tax rate than a person making the exact same amount of money who lives on Wall Street or in Ca? Is this fair?
Your proposals would hardly scratch the pocket money of the rich, while wreaking financial hardship on the working class.
2
Really? How so? How many of the working class use the "carried interest" loophole. I can live with the mortgage interest deduction. How is it fair to allow someone making the same amount of income to pay at a different Federal Income Tax rate by allowing for deductions of STate and local taxes?
This is a tax plan written by and for "the elites." The sooner we help the 37% affix the proper label to this problem, the sooner it becomes a political problem, instead of a political weapon, for the Trump swamp monsters.
2
Well as long as all the bills are paid, the debts settled, the infrastructure is up to scratch and Puerto Rico is rebuilt, what harm could it do?
So the Republicans argue that a budget analysis needs a more detailed framework before the bill's costs are correctly estimated, but they're fine with passing a budget resolution without knowing all the details. OK...got it.
The GOP's shameless justifications and false claims in support of this tax cut are astounding even for them.
2
The worst thing about the GOP proposals has nothing to do with income taxes,
either individual or corporate.
The worst thing about the GOP proposals is repeal of estate (and gift) taxes.
Estate (and gift) taxes often escape public attention because most people do not pay them.
But for anyone at all serious about social fairness,
estate and gift taxes must be preserved.
The GOP under GWB also tried to repeal estate and gift taxes.
Even though the Dems' position in Congress was stronger then than now,
the Dems partially caved in to the GOP proposals then,
with the result that the estate and gift taxes survived,
but only in a much weaker version of their former robust selves.
The Dems must resist all GOP efforts now to completely repeal them.
Inherited, entrenched wealth generation after generation,
and disparities in wealth distribution,
are far worse social diseases than disparities in income distribution.
The beneficiaries of donated and inherited wealth have done absolutely nothing to "earn" their wealth, and getting it tax-free does very little to promote the economy or jobs.
4
Another point I don't hear being brought up is how businesses have extorted local tax breaks with the threat of leaving, pitting one community against another in a Dutch Auction scheme. Amazon just got a 15 year tax deferment out of Ohio in the cities its building warehouses as if they weren't going to hire anyone otherwise. 15 years of tax breaks to one of the richest individuals in the world. Where ever Amazon decided its facilities would come to rest there would have been the same need to hire. Now its depriving that community of the public services to schools, police and fire. All that is beside its business model as simply a transfer of that market sideways from brick and mortar. They're paying themselves first at the top so as to look to be struggling. And the brackets?? My 15% will inflate to 25% -- smoke and mirror Piracy. Why do republicans hate us?
3
I remember well the grand promises of Reagan and G.W. Bush that we, the unwashed masses would gain considerably due to their tax cuts. Well, I am still waiting for the considerable gains as I will concerning the latest, greatest and most beautiful tax cut con that the grifter and Congress will promise us.
Sadly, many will cheer not knowing they have succumbed to the con, again.
3
I hate to sound picky but doesn't opening the Arctic for oil exploration only add more fossil fuel to burn and CO2 to be released? Considering what the future then will look like may as well cut everything because nothing left could care less.
4
Cutting taxes is not the path to a healthy economy. But moving 125M Americans who sit on the economic sidelines, into the economy, is the way.
1
Every Major action or law that Republicans try to pass make use of special laws or provisions that avoid the need of any opposition party involvement or contribution in the vote/decision that impacts and concerns the wellbeing of EVERY U.S Citizen.
It is a real concern that employing such dubious and Democratically questionable means to pass laws and legislation affecting so many people (all of them) as well as also attempting to pass them without providing sufficient time for concerned parties to review or have input only increases worry.
It even becomes more frightening when actual experts and specifically involved organisations argue the reasons when proposed major legislation is wrong, potentially damaging or based on unproven or untrue assumptions etc are disregarded and or avoided by those seeking to pass these major initiatives.
This is the way Republicans are showing how they Lead and Govern and apart from the very real dangers such behaviour risks, does not befit the Country that purports to be the Leader of the Free World and the leading bastion of Democracy and Freedom today.
Republican intents and execution of their major legislative actions and the complete and utter Failure to get them passed despite their greatest efforts to ensure that they are passed...only tells us that Republicans are as bad as producing ideas as they are of catering to the majority of Americans best interests and wellbeing.
How they try to pass laws and the laws themselves are Toxic.
1
So professionals making between $150k and $300k will pay more so corporations and the very rich can pay less?
Why am I not surprised?
2
So a tax cut for billionaires and a tax raise for poor people and those making 150k to 300k--essentially the upper middle class of ny? And increase the deficit and debt?
Violent crime is what this is.
3
CBO reported that the top 1% get $250B per year in tax breaks. The next 19% get another $500B. Why don't we eliminate those first, to roughly balance the budget? Then we can discuss higher rates for the rich and removing the cap on social security, to secure that program.
2
Well America, the republican circus has finally arrived. The very reason for republicans to exist is embodied in tax cuts. Tax cuts for the wealthy are the republican’s reason for being. There is nothing in America more important to them then making the wealthy wealthier. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are all designed to do one thing; get tax cuts to the already super wealthy and make those politicians who help them get those tax cuts, become merely wealthy.
Republican speak is a code and here is translation for a few phrases.
Tax reform= tax cuts for the wealthy
Healthcare reform= tax cuts for the wealthy
Privatization= tax cuts for the wealthy and selling of public assets to the wealthy
Getting rid of the death tax= tax cuts for the wealthy
Helping the middle class = tax cuts for the wealthy
I invite others to add their own phrases
8
What the Senate Republicans are offering by way of the tax reforming budget resolution is nothing but a legislative cover to divert common taxpayer's money to fill the coffers of rich and greedy already sitting on the piles of unaccounted cash. Is the $20 trillion debt burden is not enough for the world's most indebted country to further push it to further indebtedness by adding another $1.5-2.5 trillion to its debt and deficit burden? Can't Republicans look beyond the corporate plunder and fossil fuel lobby to the common public interest or about further developing the country's dwindling social and physical infrastructure?
7
The price tag for a piece of legislation the country simply does not need and can't afford seems to grow higher by the day.
I was listening to presidential historian John Meecham who remarked that in this era, when Trump has been able to get a sizable percentage of the country to buy his "post-truth" world, that it will take more than facts to get people up in arms over this.
The result will be another "here we go again moment" (how ironic such a phrase was said by the Republican president who started the whole lie of trickle down economics) as the promised roaring of the economy fails to materialize, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and as usual, the country hurtles towards bankruptcy.
And the way things are headed there will little chance democrats can regain power (thanks to gerrymandering) to shoulder the Herculean task of fixing the incredible mess the GOP is hellbent on creating.
At that point, what's next? State seizure of all property (to get the country out of hock) followed by forced servitude of the masses?
10
Republicans are really really good at getting the country into big big trouble, leaving the mess for Democrats, and then blaming the victims.
Democrats are all too good at accepting the blame and fighting with each other.
This is monstrous. We've just had a range of billion dollar disasters and millions are at risk of disease and starvation, as well as without homes, and tax cuts for the rich and a bigger debt, supported by dishonest accounting, are mainlining the country.
36
Funny how this is more important to them than infrastructure improvements, including the stupid wall, which would benefit all, individuals and business alike, and create a ton of jobs for sure.
Hey all you Trump voters, are you sick of winning yet?
15
As a blue stater after thirty years of picking up red staters by their bootstraps maybe its time they sink or swim!
I'm tired and old!
18
If you want to talk about subsidy and fairness then you would agree that abolishing the deduction of State and local taxes from the Federal Income tax would be a good start. Why should a 1%er from Colorado, Illinois, or Michigan pay a higher Federal Income tax rate than a person making the exact same income from NY or California? That doesn't sound fair to me.
The elimination of the state and local tax deductions hardly affects the people in the low tax red states, who depend on federal money paid by others to maintain their infrastructure. However, the elimination of that deduction will result in large tax increases for people in the high tax blue states -- the same donor states that pay the bills for the red states. So no, you won't get off the hook of paying the 'wingnut welfare' to the red states. Sorry. And I'm old and tired too!
4
What I wonders why you're so concerned about fairness only for the one percenters?
Abolishing certain deductions will make no discernable difference to the one percent, but will gravely affect the working class.
2
The rich need all the help they can get. It's only right that the rest of us sacrifice so they can live the life they deserve.
18
The Republicans have cemented themselves as the party of No and know nothing. They don't believe in evolution. They don't believe in climate change. They don't believe in science. Now they're showing they don't believe in math.
30
The Decline and Fall of The American Empire.
12
We have the right to rise up against Tyranny. This is a class war. The American spirit is alive and well and built on the strength of immigrants looking for a better life. We are fighters. My mother made the journey across the water from Ireland to live here. I am not a sheep and neither are my forefathers.
“the first important step in providing Congress with the tools it needs to enact tax reform that will grow America’s economy and strengthen hardworking families and small businesses.”
That’s trickle-down, right? Plow more money into the pockets of the wealthy and they will create jobs. But they haven’t, they won’t. It takes demand from the trickled on to generate growth and we tricklees never get trickled on, so we don’t create much demand. You know the tide that lifts all boats? The only boats out there are yachts
11
Americans do realize that 1.5 trillon is more than providing healthcare to 30 million Americans and their fellow citizens.
Thought not.
16
Deja vu all over again. Wasn't Trump going to drain the swamp? Didn't the GOP promise to help make America great again? Didn't lots of people who won't benefit one cent from this monstrosity place all their hopes and trust into the Republican Party?
When will this nation and its voters ever realize that the Republican Party is not their friend? Nor does it have their interest at heart, unless, of course, you are super wealthy and exceedingly greedy.
7
Whats the government giving a trillion here, a trillion there to rich people, just in a repubicans days work.
4
Irresponsible.
Why?
Democrats, once they gain 50 seats, House, and Presidency, can and will just turn this right back around.
Republicans, not the smartest.
2
Lol, Bernie Sanders, champion of Lockheed's budget-busting F-35 fighter jet and basing it in Vermont to destroy health and home values of working poor and immigrant refugees, pretending to be outraged about the budget.
2
The Arctic National Refuge reserves are all natural gas. There is no gas pipeline and the price of natural gas is in the toilet. Oil companies would be stupid to waste money dumping money into that money pit.
2
GOP - the party of Stupid and Mean! What a ridiculous Tax Cut proposal. Once again developed behind closed doors, benefits the wealthy, and scheduled to be passed by the end of the year. And they want to explode the debt and even added a provision to not require a CBO score. They deserve no more success than they had with healthcare. What part of Democracy or Public Service do they support? They have made the issues for 2018 so simple. #Resist
9
To me the most depressing aspect of this charade, which seems to apply to everything this administration tries to get away with, is how blatantly they insult the intelligence of the American people. There is no information in any of their pronouncements, only a couple of innocuous and meaningless nouns preceded by the tried and true buzzwords that put them into power and which they clearly expect will be blindly accepted, sheep-like, by their adoring Base herd. America First this, sovereign that, the greatest whatever, there seems to be no end. When will people wake up?
5
I’m the guy who is outnumbered 500 to 1 on these pages. The Liberals, Progressives, Democrats and Antifa crowd (yes I lump them together) always forget that BO had the reins of power for almost ten years. I’ve never read of so much groaning and sky is falling mentality. Trump will succeed in spite of you 499 disbelievers. Enjoy the view-and the ride.
2
Evidence is on their side not yours. It's ironic that the Clinton years were far more successful with higher taxes and the Reagan and Bush years didn't convince economists that tax cuts actually create jobs or grow the economy to the percentage points that the Republican OBM predicts. We have already tried this multiple times.......and you're still wondering why American needs to be made "Great Again"? Pretty strange don't you think? It's also strange to think about how the Obama administration (with the help of banks and Wall Street) helped stabilize the economy after 2008 and the economy and the stock market have been climbing ever since. If this passes be prepared to expect over valued stock prices and an eventual overheated market especially if they decide to deregulate. Fortunately the current Fed chairmen has a bit more sense.
1
Might I suggest reading actual facts, thinking about the policies of your party, and how these policies are designed to benefit the 0.1% and not you and the vast majority of Americans.
Maybe you’ll spend less time deriving perverse pleasure from the appropriate degree of outrage.
2
You seem not to recall that President Obama was faced with a house and senate that adamantly refused to pass legislation and a senate majority leader who did everything possibly to obstruct progress. That, and your myopic conflating of groups that share only a passingly similarity is probably why you're outnumbered 500 to 1.
2
Reckless and irresponsible. Why must this country be torn down by ignorance, entitlement and greed?
5
Trickle down economics.
Don't eat the yellow snow.
9
Trumpand GOP leaders are giving every indication that they will repeat the errors they made when trying to repeal Obamacare. They and their surrogates are telling one lie after another to sell their plan, they reject any bi-partisan approach and they are planning to ram it through Congress as quickly as they can under Budget Reconciliation.
That didn't work for them in trying to repeal Obamacare. And, their lies are easily disproven about taxes mostly helping the middle class, not giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy, it won't be good for Trump and it will grow the economy by 3% or more.
2
What is with Republicans and tax cuts??? For years and years, it's treated like a magic cure. And for years and years, it has never ever worked - the best evidence being the giant chasm between rich and poor. No matter what is going on, no matter who or what is in desperate need - tax cuts will fix it. Another gigantic lie. We need political courage to deal with our growing fiscal challenges, and considering the devastation these storms have created - which will only get far worse with climate change - we sure do not need to be cutting taxes and budgets.
7
Don Trump is a gambler. Gamblers are impulsive and lack intelligence, analytical skills and a sense of reality, instead relying on "Luck" which does not exist. Just like the odds for becoming President attracted him and his sense of self worth, he now makes another 50/50 gamble with his budget and tax cuts. The economy will either grow, or languish. Any rational person who is practical knows this budget, proposed tax cuts, and massive deregulation will result in a nation that suffers a long term depression. The same sort of "irrational exuberance" has existed several times before just prior to recessions and the depression. Trump is gambling. You know the old story; "The House Always Wins", meaning the casinos. Trump's Casino failed.
2
The Republic "Greedy Old Party" has abandoned all pretense of representing America. They are totally about the rich and corporate interest. Create jobs - I don't think so! Improve infrastructure - nah it's too costly unless we can give it to private industry who will them ensure that cost to everyday Americans takes too much a bite out of their pockets! Improve healthcare - no it's so much more fun to cause early deaths in millions of Americans or leave them in dire bankruptcy.
Corporations will use it to buy more stock and improve automation to ensure that there are no jobs. Millionaires and trickle down - the faucet turned off a long time ago and it doesn't trickle down.
When will the average Republican realize that they've been duped! Drain the swamp - heck no - we're quadrupling the size of it instead.
2
Always money for war and tax cuts for the wealthy. It's so obvious wealthy US citizens don't need a tax cut, they already have so much discretionary money to spend it's obscene compared to regular working people. We recently had a client who couldn't remember their address because they have 4 houses. Yeah, must be so tough, but you need a tax cut? One day soon, the rest of us will have nothing left to eat but the rich. (yes, that's sarcasm)
4
It would be unhealthy to eat that much fat.
President Reagan did tax cuts and doubled the National Debt.
Pres. Bush jr. did tax cuts and doubled the National Debt.
Now Pres. Trump will do tax cuts, and this money will also go on the National Debt,also, and possibly double the National Debt,from 30 Trillion to 40 Trillion dollars..
5
Whenever Republicans talk about doing something for the middle class you know what they are really talking about doing is taking away from the middle class and giving to the rich and super rich. For Donald Trump it also means giving himself a billion dollar tax cut.
Those middle class working stiffs who keep voting Republican are about to get stiffed again.
6
So a another stab at trickle down economics.
Don't want to clean up the mess from Puerto Rico to Detroits 'lead in the water' issues.
Just move on. Never happened?
3
In the book, the "People's History of the United States," the author's message is that over the 230 year history of this country, the top 1% has always controlled the bottom 99% until the bottom 99% get so desperate they rebel. The people under 30 in this country are in desperate shape and they are the largest group since the baby boomers. They face ridiculous college loan amounts, few job prospects with low wages and now will pay more, in taxes. They absolutely will cause a revolution and alot of older people will join them in particular the baby boomers who did quite a fine job of that in the '60's. The mentality of stealing from the poor to give to the rich is unsustainable and insane.
And the Republicans' justification that a CEO deserves wages 300% above the average worker b/c he is just that much smarter is also insane and untrue. No CEO is that much brighter- the rules are just rigged in his favor what with low rate on capital gains, an ever higher income and less taxes.
7
It's one of our nation's most pressing needs....gigantic tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthy. At a time of unbelievable income inequality and poverty, massive destruction from climate change fueled cat 5 hurricanes, infrastructure rotted to the core and compared to third world countries, and most importantly, the self destructive path to oblivion by continuing fossil fuel extraction by the petrol billionaires who have what appears to be a permanent "owner's box" in the Senate gallery. The United States is completely broken from money and corruption and is on its way down and out.
3
And how do you pay for $1,500,000,000,000 in tax cuts for the wealthy? It's simple. Tax increases and benefit cuts for the poor. It's only fair.
5
If you want to help the middle class, give the middle class the big tax cut. That would give the middle class more money to spend, and corporations would benefit by having more people with money to buy their products. The economy would grow, but rooted in the increase in demand and purchasing power of the middle class.
And if anyone thinks that the answer to helping the economy is making sure that Ivanka doesn't have to pay taxes on that part of her inheritance that is over 5 million dollars, well, they are either fools or her gardeners.
3
Small business people, the Republicans are lying to you. According to Fortune magazine, 86% of pass through small businesses are paying 25% or less. The change in the top rate for pass throughs is for billionaire partnerships and law firms.
If most pass through businesses are paying 25% or less, they are not paying the Alternative Minimum Tax. That tax cut is for those that make at least $200,000 in profit.
Tax cuts for the rich do not boost the economy. If there is no demand for a product before the tax cut, there will be no demand after the tax cut. There is no reason to invest in capital if you are already meeting demand.
Demand is created by increasing the desire and ABILITY to buy products. The rich already have the ability to buy what they want.
But the working class has had its ability to buy what it wants seriously degraded over the last three decades. Pay has been stagnant four decades. Government services have been slashed. Student debt is now so huge, most graduates can't even think about buying a house these days. They are stretched thin.
Workers are the consumers.
Stop supporting global corporations at the expense of your customers.
6
What is paramount is the fact that Trump's "base" will swallow this nonsense as making America great and will believe the trickle down effect despite its history of complete failure.
With the current risk of deflation and a 20 trillion dollar debt, the planet is in trouble.
1
The Republican Party has become utterly and completely irresponsible. It is hard to overstate how radical the party has become over the past 35+ years. The former party of sensible businessmen has become the party of dogma driven, irrational lemmings who see everyone opposed to them as "enemies of the state". It has been truly frightening to watch a formerly rational and extremely important institution evolve into the disaster that it has become. I fear for our future.
1
How ironic it is that all these decades, Republicans and their gun culture have been justifying gun possession as a necessary defense against an overreaching and dominating government? Now look who runs the Government.
ACA repeal attempts, Tea Party infiltration, military pandering, relaxed gun laws.
It's mission creep as the Republicans destroy the nation to open the door to military rule.
This budget step leading to tax cuts is just another step in their plan to destroy the government. They are still fighting the Uncivil War, because they are dangerous and always in need of conflict to satisfy their sadism. And you, dear Democrats, are masochists still pleading for "Bipartisanship" and losing election after election throughout the nation.
Maybe we need new strategy.
1
Okay, all decent Americans. If you think the healthcare charade was a pox on the American people, look at how the Republicans want to do you in financially. If they can't deny you healthcare through the front door, they will do it through the back door by strangling access to healthcare via budgetary cuts.
2
Putting more money in the pockets of the rich never has, never will create more jobs. Jobs come when there's a demand for product/service. As long as wealth is concentrated in a small pool, the greater population is strangled for discretionary cash. No cash, no purchases. Simple. It's called trickle up
2
It is astonishing that the GOP "trickle down" narrative linking tax cuts to economic growth, proven wrong in practice over and over again, gets trotted out ad nauseam. More astonishing still is that the American voting public continues to buy this tripe. Maybe the Republican hate machine is so persuasive that voters remain blind to the reality of their own lives.
2
Why should Democrats go along with this? Since 60 votes are required to pass a budget, Democrats should stop this in its tracks if the CBO forecasts any deficit increase.
8
Why not eliminate loopholes but leave taxes the same? We still need to repair and upgrade our infrastructure. Our public spaces need work. We want to be able to get some of the best minds in the world to work here on basic research or keep our own best people here. We're letting our politicians destroy America because we think that the rich deserve every penny they earned or because we think that we may get rich some day?
The only rich people who have earned every penny are those who started companies and managed them well. Yet even they appreciate the fact that the public contributed to their success while others, like the Koch Brothers care nothing for the public welfare. We were more prosperous when the rich paid more in taxes than they do now. Why are we moving in a direction that we know isn't going to produce anything decent for most of us?
13
The Republicans claim that their tax cuts will result in growth. They are correct. This plan will result in:
- Growth in the net worth of Americans in the top 20%
- Further growth in income and wealth inequality
- Growth in the national debt
Meanwhile, I'll be sure to buy a $1000 new car from Gary Cohn.
12
We need a savings account for climate change, not a $1.5 trillion reduction in revenues.
We've seen the early warning signs already -- Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Irma; record drought, record floods, record wildfires, record temperatures. Each year, it gets worse, more extreme, more damage done. The trend is pretty clear.
We will need lots and lots of extra money when what we're still calling the "extreme" increasingly becomes the norm. If we start planning and saving now...but no.
Instead, we're going to decrease revenues. We're going to go deeper into debt. We're going to bring ourselves to the edge of financial collapse as a first world nation, and then somehow figure out how to deal with the devastation of climate change from there?
I am not optimistic.
8
If the GOP truly wanted to grow the US economy, any and all tax cuts should go the individual taxpayers who earn up to 200% of the median US income. These folks would SPEND the money, increasing demand for goods and services, resulting in millions of new jobs and increasing wages across the board. Giving tax cuts to Millionaires / Billionaires who do not need it, much less spend it. does not benefit the US economy.
7
Why do the middle class and poor have to subsidize billionaires, and with no return on that investment, to boot?
Anyone?
23
Well, they don't but they do need to vote. Their rational self interest. Hmmmm...
Tim - Colorado (NY Picks)
Thank you for your comment. You are spot on the mark. That is exactly what companies will do with a windfall of cash. The large multinationals are already swimming in cash and domestic corporations' profits are at an all time high.
8
This tax plan which will do away with the pesky estate tax will allow the billionaire Koch Brothers, David and Charles, and the billionaire Pete Thiel to accumulate more money than the U.S.Treasury. And, of course, as a result,the benefits will trickle down to their serfs as they unleash their economic prosperity. Free health care, jobs that pay a minimum of $ 25.00 an hour, new cars that Gary Cohn said will cost a dollar will be in all of our driveways, and ,last but not least, the end of poverty and economic misery.
4
Small-minded, not-compassionate Republicans, a clearly heartless budget...and so the payoff to Putin from Trump is complete, the country will be in ruins; Dangerous social divisions are widening without leadership examples toward reaching compromise and negotiations, just anger, vindictiveness, division, hopelessness, apathy.
Welcome to Trump's world, the 1percent people with money are like sheep however being led to slaughter. Leadership like this in America, will leave a world in violent revolution and non-functioning economy. Just a few gold-soaked individuals left, and the people they need to manipulate and suppress everyone else.
The budget article should spell-out one thing clearly for the soulless, greedy Rebublican leadership - don't back the desperate masses into a corner of hopelessness..., or these poor and destitute will unite and take the leadership down - without asking permission.
9
soooEEEE
it's feedin' time at Old DONALD's pig farm
isn't this the sort of activity that brought on the French Revolution? and the Russian Revolution?
8
Are there still people out there who don't realize all these foxes and wolves in in pur government's henhouse are really just a bunch of decaying, ever-more corrupt, contantly lying and dissembling, fraudulent bunch of predators that this administration engendered...like a virus ridden petri dish. In the World War II era, there was a word for so called leaders like this. Collaborators. SAD.
6
We are doomed. Impeach now.
7
That $1.5 Trillion tax cut is just about what it would take to make Puerto Rico whole again.......how about it, America?????
123
Trump asked how can we fund all that Puerto Rico needs.
Raise taxes, never build a wall, lower amount for military
weapons.
The typical cost of clearing Hep C virus patient with today's newest cures runs about $80.000.00,it is estimated that 20 million Americans are infected, The math makes that roughly $1.9,000,000,000.00. I think price tags deserve a second look, including yours.
1
This act borders on treason.
17
The Congressional Budget Office must examine and cast their opinion on the viability of the plan by President Trump and Republicans to overhaul the tax code which would allow for tax cuts that cost as much as $1.5 trillion over the next decade.
Increasing taxes on the poor and middle class while reducing taxes on the wealthy will not result in greater economic growth. It is a fact that tax cuts to the wealthy does not result in greater employment. The wealthy pocket the tax savings which they in turn invest in capital markets for their own benefit and profit.
This Republican shell-and-pea charade will only work by financing growing deficits by borrowing more in commercial markets. This will result in increasing debt to finance growing fiscal expenditures while tax revenues shrink over the next decade.
The Republican plan is a strategy to fiscal irresponsibility and malfeasance which is an insult to the poor and the middle class. The wealthy will be laughing all the way to the bank while the poor and the middle class will be left paying the fiscal bills through increased interest payments on mounting fiscal debt !!!
9
Where, oh where, did the deficit hawks go...
Oh where, oh where can they be?
11
They will be back after the 2018 elections turn the whole Congress back to the Democrats. The Republicans are only fiscally responsible when they are in the minority and they need talking points.
12
Only when there is a Democrat in the White House.
The GOP is truly despicable and will lead to another meltdown ( as usual ).
1
Exactly
Yet another GOP plan to enrich the already wealthy that’ll blowup the budget deficit. If passed, the next step the Trump GOP will odder is stripping the poor and lower middle classes of health care to pay for tax cuts for the rich because of the deficit.
This plan to cut taxes for the rich was crafted in secret and refuses any non Republican input, and doesn’t even pretend to offer anything for most Americans. It’s all part of a decades long scam perpetuated by the Republicans to only look out for the rich.
6
Let me get this straight, the Republicans cannot get their act together to pass health care reform for the American people they represent, but in no time at all they can seem to agree on tax cuts for the wealthy. So who exactly do they represent?
24
Not that I understand all the nuance of congressional protocol, but it looks as though the GOP plans to ram through any significant legislation through means that don't require votes from the Democratic party. While this is so very clever of them, I'm pretty sure that's not how Congress was intended to function.
9
I want to see an independent system where I can enter my taxes and then move sliders to say where my money gets spent.
I don't mind paying taxes but I want to see that my money is much better used. I have a gut feeling that around 30% of what I contribute gets wasted. Most people would probably go for a 30% tax reduction but I would rather see 30% more “good stuff" get done.
There are specific things that are really important to me (education, health care, science research,..) and there are others where I would assign zero of my dollars (degrading the environment) Let somebody else pay for that.
Actually paying lots of taxes would be a positive power for influencing what projects get done! I bet we would have some corporations and wealthy individuals lobbying for higher brackets!
Steve Ballmer put together a nice front end (usafacts.org) for a system that could be expanded to let people vote their taxes. In this age of information all that the Washington establishment gives us, and the press echoes, is snippets devoid of how they fit into the big picture and what trade-offs will be required.
7
"I want to see an independent system where I can enter my taxes and then move sliders to say where my money gets spent."
Here's a start. Half of your federal income tax check goes to defense.
Mick Mulvaney (White House Budget Director and form US rep from SC and Freedom Caucus member) proposed a budget with draconian spending cuts earlier this year. The best he could do is cut $60 billion from the non-defense discretionary budget. That is 10% of the non-defense discretionary spending, or 5% of the total discretionary budget.
Apparently there isn't very much fat to cut.
So why are we looking at tax cuts?
4
@Tony
La Jolla, CA
The Federal budget is around $4 trillion so you're saying about 1.2 trillion is wasted (according to your gut).
1
MidtownATL
Atlanta
"Here's a start. Half of your federal income tax check goes to defense."
No it doesn't. The federal budget is around $4 trillion. The Defense portion is about 625 billion. About 70% of it goes to SS, Medicare, Medicaid and various social programs.
Rosa,
I'm in the 10% bracket. Most in this bracket will wind up paying no taxes because the standard deduction doubles, both for single and married taxpayers.
However many of the upper middle class and higher may also pay less. So, my politics is pocketbook, my class will benefit, and I'm for it!
1
John, your tax bracket would increase from 10 to 12%. And they are removing the personal exemption while doubling the standard, meaning that you will end up paying more.
3
Yup, for a couple, deductions 1200 up, 8000 down. Then 12 % instead of 10%. You'll be lucky not to see a TAX increase.
2
The only fair tax plan is one that taxes both income and wealth. Trump, Warren Buffett, and other billionaires pay less than 0.1% of their wealth in taxes each year.
Compared to the bottom 90%, who pay up to 35%.
It is time for a change or revolution.
15
Support Our Troops. Instead of another tax cut how about a war tax. 5% additional income tax on everyone whenever we have troops deployed in combat. Immediate family members of troops, service members, and vets would be exempt. The vast majority of Americans are unaffected by war. and pay no price If you support our deployed troops then 5% is a small price to pay. If you don't support sending troops abroad then that 5% might spur some action to end deployments.
All funds would go to pay down debt. We have already spent billions on war which has expanded our debt, it is about time most of us paid the price.
118
5% added income tax? Let's make it a gas tax instead.
But the funds would never be used to pay down the debt. Congress and Munchkin would just spend it to pay for their private flights.
2
Bring back the draft and national service. We all need to participate.
How about a National Disaster Tax.
TX, FL, PR, Virgin Islands plus the wars that need to be paid for.
The GOP is delusional and NEVER wants to pay for anything except deluding the American People.
Where have all the Republican Deficit-Hawks gone?
When President Obama inherited George W. Bush's Financial Abyss, and right before the Unemployment Rate hit 10%, Obama proposed legislation to stimulate the economy through Fiscal Stimulus. Paul Ryan led the GOP attack, suggesting that it would sink our economy, rates would spike, our T-bonds would be downgraded, and no one would want to buy our bonds.
And, let's not forget that the Bush Tax Cuts, which the GOP is trying to bring back, are a prime reason for that Abyss--The Banking Crisis of 4Q07-1Q09!
The GOP finally passed the legislation; but, only after slashing it by 30%. Economists mostly agree that the full package would have done more; but, the economy did begin a sustained recovery, which has lasted through the present, with an Unemployment Rate of 4.3%.
The current trump Tax Plan, 50% of the benefits will go to the top one percent of income-earners, and 30% to the top 0.10%, with Unemployment below what the standard Fed five percent, why do we need to cut rates for the uber-wealthy, and add $2.4 Trillion to the National Debt. But, as usual, we don't know where the other "bodies" are buried.
Lastly, how can this be Tax Reform, when it is being drawn-up by a small group of partisan politicians in secret, rather than by a bipartisan group of tax and financial experts--over a longer term. Isn't the way the GOP is now going about it, what led to the 17,000 page tax code?
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
7
2018 could be a good year for democrats. I don't see how they can EVER balance their budget without cutting SSA, Medicare and Medicaid. Thus throwing under the bus the boomers who worked hard for this country. Money for the rich is all this is.
10
"It would ease the pressure on lawmakers to close loopholes and enact other changes to make up for the revenue lost by slashing taxes."
One change would be to exit Afghanistan and close some of our 800 bases around the world.
4
There is no way I want Trump near any budget or tax cuts, this guys has already 4 bankruptcies to his credit, I don't want to add the country too.
23
As a self-employed person who makes just over 7 figures (most of which is regular income), I sometimes feel like all the taxation burden is on me. Between Federal and State taxes, I pay 37% of my income every year in income taxes.
THAT SAID...this tax cut is completely ridiculous. If they actually wanted to benefit people, they'd leave the corporate rates and the top individual rates alone and give a massive break to everyone below the 90th percentile in income. They're the ones who are going to spend the money and stimulate the economy (not that our economy actually needs stimulating right now, but that's a different discussion). They're also the ones who actually need the break.
249
Thanks for being a bit honest. One thing I at least admire about educated business managers from states like New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc or people caught between the middle class and the 1% is that they at least have a willingness to understand the concepts behind the benefits and roles of tax policies and can at least grasp the concept of how the economy functions for those in income brackets below them and often vote accordingly despite the affects it might have on their own personal income or well being.
Frankly,might be better tostop buying junk at Walmart and on amazon.. Most of us have way too much junk and too much to eat.. Make America lean again??
Are your accountants doing something wrong? You should be paying less in taxes with all that income.
In February 2016, I listened to one of Trump's stump speeches from start to finish. It was the first time I'd listened to more than a video clip. It was breathtaking to see the difference between listening to his words versus reading media reports. Trump said "I'm greedy. I'm going to grab, grab, grab..." I wrote about it and contrasted the approaches of the other two main contenders back then. The media should have made much more of the kleptocratic tendencies Trump put on display. His opponents too.
http://www.rimaregas.com/2016/02/finding-sobriety-in-2016-sanders-clinto...
The budget isn't the only source of kleptocratic behavior. Behind the scenes, away from the disinfecting effect of sunshine, the departments have been furiously at work dismantling not only Obama-era regulations, but a whole lot more. All of this should be our laser focus. All of this should be what our non-existent resistance is fighting. Where is it?
https://www.rimaregas.com/2017/07/29/thanks-politico-for-keeping-a-runni...
It is inconceivable that Democrats will choose to meet Republicans half-way on this disaster of a tax bill. Compromises should be made with partners in good faith. The GOP isn't doing anything in good faith, and everything for the oligarchy.
14
To even think of tax cuts during a national emergency is an obscenity. They will deplete treasury's income, and provide trump with the excuse he wants to look at the costs of PR's recovery - which, apparently, is not an issue for Texas and Florida
10
Did you expect anything else from the kleptocracy that vast swaths of American suckers voted in?
I want a divorce. A divorce from those who support Trump and everything the GOP stands for. Please, by all means, let's go our separate ways once and for all. This experiment has failed. Let's work out a division of territory and get it on with it.
I don't want to share a culture and society with conservatives anymore. And you know what? I wouldn't miss them one. single. bit.
76
Medicare and Social Security cuts are coming-- no matter what the R's tell us. Oh, deficits don't matter to the R's anymore. Go figure.
16
it appears the president's sole purpose in getting elected was to get a 1billion dollar tax break.
38
Exactly. Who do you think got him where he is today? No accident or voting that's for sure.
2
Republican lies must be exposed. Their projections are outrageous. They merely want to cut taxes for the rich while reducing programs which help regular citizens. They want a crippled government because its cheaper. We have seen this movie before. Lets not do it again .
11
The hypocrisy is relentless, and even now, still breath-taking.
For Mitch McConnell to accuse the Dems of "play[ing] partisan politics and obstruct[ing] our efforts to get our economy flourishing and growing at its full potential" is insulting to the nth degree. How does this man look himself in the mirror every day? He was on record as of *day one* of President Obama's first administration that the Repubs' goal was to obstruct every single thing that the president wanted to accomplish.
But then, McConnell, like Trump, reveals his own character by accusing others of what he himself is guilty of. It's called "projecting." It's also called lying. Obstructionism. Partisan politics. Hypocrisy.
Our Fearless Leader would get a billion-dollar tax break with this "tax reform" plan. And that's what it's all about. The Grifter in Chief needs his money. Fie on the rest of us.
39
Agreed! Further to your point on hypocrisy: adding to federal deficit is bad when Democrats want to provide safety nets for everyone, but it's good when the Republicans want to give money to the rich. Even more hypocrisy: trickle-down economics is a lie, and it never worked.
1
If this passes next year the GOP will be talking about the deficit and the need for Medicaid and other social programs to be cut back.
This is insane and will only increase income inequality. The result will be even more hatred of Congress and possibly a backlash against Trumps failed promises and the egregious use of government perks by his cabinet billionaires.
No doubt Trump will continue to tweet and rattle the nuclear sabres, or go to war with one of his chosen enemies.
109
I get a strange feeling that this is a step 2 part of their plan. Sort of like making budget cuts to government programs, making it harder for them to function, and then using it as evidence to suggest that privatization would be a much better remedy or using it as an example to try to convince the masses how ineffective government programs are.
Since the Republicans were unable to cut millions of Americans off health care to pay for their tax gifts for the ultra-rich and corporations, they must find a way to repay the trillions they are borrowing to pay off the wealthy (and themselves). So, when the numbers go bad, as they did in Kansas and in the whole country from Bush's tax cuts, they will tell us they need to cut the budget to save dollars. They will then cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. I suggest this has been their plan all along.
1
$1.5 trillion in tax cuts will increase the federal debt by $1.5 trillion. It will be the biggest federal debt ever. Period.
6
The report says $2.5 trillion in the first decade
2
When Bernie talked about free college tuition, everyone on both sides of the aisle screamed that it could not be financed. But congress has no problem with a tax cut to their donors by adding debt. So, if the rich can get money from the government simply by adding debt than the rest of us should get free college and free healthcare...just add more debt. Problem solved.
29
Okay, $1.5T in tax cuts. Now, the Devil is in the Details. Whose oxen are going to be gored? Who will lose their cherished deduction? And above all, is this another 1% scam imposed upon the Middle Class and Poor to transfer wealth from socio-economic classes to a group of people who have long-since abused the entire tax code for decades? (Including Donald trump and all of the favorable stuff he creatively writes off from real estate holdings.)
The argument comes simply down to this:
* What kind of nation does the United states wish to be?
* $1.5T in tax cuts, will "deficit hawks" demand government shrink by $1.5T?
* Will infrastructure, education, health care, justice system receive cuts?
* Exactly who benefits from these new tax changes?
* Income security erosion visited upon middle class and poor for past30 years (no real job creation there, folks). is this "tax reform" or "wealth transfer"?
* Show me the details..... and stop the grandiose hand waiving and false promises, Republicans.
Lastly, for all the hue and cry about how high American taxes are, just exactly where are these 1%'ers going to invest their money and still draw full legal protection from our capitalistic system? I'm not buying any of this one iota.
12
The Dems should call for the Republicans to guarantee their projections. They could simply have two triggers for retroactively undoing the tax relief to the top 10%, from whom this is all coming. One trigger would be that the deficit increases in any year by more than, say, 100B. The other would be if the economy fails to hit that "magic" 3% increase rate. If either happens in a given year, the 35% top rate reverts retroactively to 39.5% for that year. Or make each of those measures worth 2.25%. If Trump can carry forward a 50M annual tax credit for 18 years, surely the top earners can pay it back if their trickle-down theory again fails to prove out. How could they explain to their middle-class friends, for whom they are so concerned, why they would refuse to do so?
11
Perhaps we should close the "loopholes" first then, after generating $1.5 trillion, offer a tax cut.
19
Gawd! Billionaires want to further pad their own nests. Who'da thunk it? Just about anyone with half a brain who'd paid a semblance of interest in what's been going on in this country for the past 40 years. I mean, though, poor Trump and Kushner have bigger bills to pay, they need a break, the poor dears.
7
Don't blink as the G.iant O.il P.irates pass legislation so no one can see it, think about it, or analyze the damage it will do. They are criminals with criminal minds, paid off by the wealthy, Wall Street, and the money hording Corporations. It's a recipe for failure and I view the Republicans preparing for war to kill Democrats. I think the ACA repeal insanity was ample proof.
Remember the Republicans caused the next Depression.
They are trying to drown the Government in a bathtub, and citizens as well. You will regret your attempts at disarming the nation and will be defenseless in the future.
7
How about forgiving the $1.1 trillion in student loan debt to boost the economy?Oh wait... the Senate works for Wall St. not Main St. so I guess that's a nonstarter.
8
While regressives would previously deride wealth redistribution (that issue was actually about wealth DISPARITY) that is all this proposed budget is. The problem is, the wealth is being redistributed upward and every regressive republican is just fine with that.
Soon after passing this they will be faced with the resultsa of the law of unintended consequences, when they find out direct from the working class in their states / districts that they are getting poorer.
How will they spin things then?
4
We are experiencing the greatest disparity between the rich and the poor in the history of this country and all economists, including conservative economists, warn this is not healthy for many reasons. Even so, Republicans continue to push this agenda.
154
I am still trying too figure out Trump's "middle class miracle", he calls his plan a 'historic tax relief" for the middle class. how is it possible after eliminating personal exemptions, deductions for state income tax and property tax? His standard deduction of $24,000 (for a couple) is a pea nut .
Consider, for example, a family of four earning $50,000. Under current law, the family’s taxable income is, at most, $21,100.That’s because the family can subtract both a couple’s standard deduction of $12,700 and personal exemptions of $4,050 for each family member—totaling $16,200—from its income. The family would pay 10 percent on its first $18,650 of income and 15 percent on the remaining $2,350 of its income, for a total tax liability of $2,233 before credits. The Trump proposal increases the couple’s standard deduction to $24,000, but at the same time, it eliminates personal exemptions. As a result, the family only deducts $24,000 from its total income of $50,000 to arrive at $26,000 in taxable income. Under the Trump plan, the family would pay a 10 percent rate on all $26,000 for a total tax liability before credits of $2,600—an increase of $368. This is a 'middle class" miracle?. His economic advisor Gary Cohn insists the plan is "purely aimed at middle-class families."
By lowering the top personal tax rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent and by elimination of both the estate tax and the “alternative minimum tax, the miracle goes to the wealthy.
16
Trump's "gilded class miracle" and "historic billionaire tax relief" is happening.
"Some more caviar and champagne with your tax break, sir ?"
Grand Old Pillage-and-Plunder- 2017
Nice GOPeople.
19
LOL you think Trump ever knows what he says?
4
I'm not sure if you got other numbers incorrect but the proposed tax plan would raise the lowest bracket from 10% to 12%.
1
Lost in the arguments is, why do we even have taxes?
Oh, I forgot--to pay for our country. Without taxes, we would be a lawless land, without national defense, civilian services, health care, education, and scientific progress. If you think that voluntary donations would instead pay for these, you would be wrong. And federal employees do not work pro bono.
Why are taxes portrayed these years as a scourge of our society? Why not consider such payments instead as investment in our country?
Instead, the populace is preached to that taxes are stealing "their money."
Why must politicians put it that selfish way?
55
Don't forget infrastructure spending which trump has claimed he will ask for. I say rather than giving away $1.5 trillion over 10 years in tax cuts why not buy something like new bridges, water systems, upgrade air traffic control systems, and not least education and that will stimulate the economy for sure.
4
My brain is stillborn when it comes to original thoughts not already expressed by those more than disappointed with the Republican Party and trump. The anger resulting from the ignorance, the greed and selfishness, not to mention the insulting flam that comes out of their mouths leaves me feeling helpless that I alone have little, if any, power to resist. Am I wrong to say I now get an incling of what it feels like when someone has been violated.....? My anger will linger, trusting that with an opportunity in the future, enough people vote to change the republican paradigm, forever. Otherwise, those reading these pages have seen the best of days for this country.
14
By eliminating the century-old itemized deduction for state and local taxes, including property taxes, this tax "reform" is going to kill the middle class, especially homeowners, who will see their taxes go up by thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a year. And people with lower income are going to get killed with a bump-up in their marginal tax rate and a slash in government services. All so that Donald Trump can save $1 billion himself.
This is government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich, at its best.
25
@Matthew M,
You fail to mention that the reforms include doubling the standard deduction, so should absorb the deduction of state and local taxes for most tax payers. Besides, I don't pay state and local income taxes here in the Volunteer state, so it doesn't bother me. But it may probably sock it to you north east liberals who relish high taxes. Thank you.
1
My friend, we in the "rich" states hand over welfare to southern boys on a daily basis. Enjoying my money?
7
SB: Ah, now I get it. the lack of state and local revenues in TN must mean schools and colleges don't have enough funding, which explains the unthinking citizens there.
at this point, I can't even pretend I care about the poor, rural white trumpster.
2
What a disaster for almost all americans. (I notice that fox news is avoiding this topic altogether. what a surprise!)
6
In other words this budget foresees a balanced budget within 10 years by fiat. Magic everywhere.
10
Many voters believe God created the world 6,000 years ago. Many believe trickle-down will lift their boats, if the job-creators can get just a little more money. I believe focusing on facts and using reason are the best ways toward goals shared by most of us.
12
This is the first thing that Trump has proposed that I am for. As one of the 1%, I am very happy to pay less in taxes. For anyone that's not part of the 1%, next time, don't vote for Trump. What did you expect?
7
Well, this 1% believes this plan will soon go into the ash heap of political posturing.
Assuming you are for real, then please Mr. 1%: tell us what you plan to do with your tax windfall. Will you "buy more stuff" so that it lines the pockets of the foreign-based manufacturing economy, would you invest that money into the market so that you could grow even more wealth, or would you sit on it so that you could then transfer it to your heirs tax free when you die?
Unless you plan to start a company and hire American workers, please tell us how your wealth will "trickle down" to us 99%. It won't. Estimates are that this tax plan is an enormous gift to the 1%. Lucky you.
3
We're all so very happy for you. And by the way, you may recall Trump lost by nearly 3 million votes so it would seem that most of us didn't vote for him, doesn't it?
The rich get richer, the poor are thoroughly dispossessed, and the middle class stares into the abyss
14
And the wealthy will flip the republican zombie voter base a few wooden nickles and they will all rejoice- 'long live Trump, our savior'
5
This is truly terrifying, the Republican ship is a boat with no oars, no rudder, being tossed about on a sea of indifference, inhumanity, arrogance and greed.
13
Now that the Republicans have shown themselves to morally bankrupt, they are going to try to make sure the United States is financially bankrupt.
4
Shielding legislation from filibusters shouldn't be necessary. The Constitution sets a simple majority of votes as the requirement for all legislative measures except constitutional amendments, impeachments, treaty ratifications, and veto overrides. Any tactic—including filibusters—that are designed to set a higher threshold or prevent issues from coming to a vote are unconstitutional.
The Republican Despicable Party brings out its Tax Bill and, Surprise!, it's an unconscionable windfall tax break for the mega wealthy.
The biggest winner here, people just like Trump and his family, despite Trump's numerous lying claims to the contrary.
4
Republicans are willing to give $1.5 trillion in tax relief to the 1%, fresh off their pathetic and desperate attempt to slash healthcare by trillions. And in the wake of Harvey, Irma and Maria, they still won't admit climate change is real or spend a dime mitigating it. The oil they could extract from the Arctic is a drop in the bucket of world production, but drilling there will reek havoc on a pristine wildlife refuge. Their lips are moving, which means they're lying about who benefits from cutting taxes. Of course Trump is a disgrace to the office he holds. But he is not alone in being a disgrace. He's joined by every Republican in Congress who votes for this so-called budget and so-called tax reform.
8
Once these lying, nihilistic fanatics have starved the federal government of revenue and it's drowning in red ink they'll use that as the excuse to demand an end to what little remains of the New Deal and Great Society: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment compensation, and any shred of social welfare. The devolution back to the 19th century will be complete. Meanwhile the biggest socialist redistribution of wealth going, corporate welfare, will remain untouched so American "capitalism" can thrive. A Rotten Deal for 99 percent of America.
8
This is how austerity comes to America. The way marginalized foils have been living for a long-time under white supremacy, may soon become the way of life for what used to be the middle class. It is what the GOP is all about - rich, white, male dominance over all the rest of us.
3
And yet look at the irony in what got Trump elected. The angry middle class fell for him hook, line and sinker. Did they really think he would take care of them once president? How could do large percentage of Americans have fallen for it?
2
Cal me a cynic, but this is another way for republicans to continue the redistribution of wealth to those that need the tax breaks the least.
On the long term, I think Republicans are trying to bankrupt the US government. That way, in a few years when the US credit is worthless and people are screaming about the deficit, Republicans in Congress can slash spending on education, the environment, health care, government oversight, etc. It is a pretty sleazy way to accomplish the end goal.
Kansas reduced its taxes under the pretense of Regan's trickle down economics, and the state's economy tanked. Republican state representatives responsibly voted to increase taxes to balance the budget rather than tow the party lie. (misspelling intentional)
Mitch, Paul and Donald are either deaf and blind, or completely dishonest. I'm certain it is the latter.
7
So first the Supreme Court declares that corporations are people. Now we learn that those "people" are special and will only be paying 25%, not the 35 to 39% that wealthy people pay in taxes. Go figure.
147
When republicans spend decades proving that they're going to cut taxes for the wealthy and then increase spending at their every opportunity I get really really tired of people who think there's something yet to be debated.
They're cutting taxes. Of course they are. They're bloating the debt. Of course they are. Is anyone really surprised?
1
Bumping the standard deduction to $12,000 single/$24,000 for married couples will very much help lower middle class workers who don't make enough to own a home and live in states without high income taxes. When people say they'll "only" save $600 or so a year, that's a lot of money to most of Trump's base and they'll view it as such.
The upper middle class, who bear most of the tax burden, won't get much of anything out of it, though, since we're likely to lose the mortgage interest, property tax, and state tax deductions. My total tax burden was 50% last year and will probably be about the same under the Trump plan.
The wealthy, however, will continue to make out like the robber barons they are.
4
Mitch McConnell stated 8 + years ago that his sole purpose in the Senate for was to obstruct Obama's agenda. Among other things he undercut Obama's established right as President to name a Supreme Court justice. And now the Democrats are obstructing (successfully so far) a health care plan that has helped many and needs continued improvement; and 2) a tax "relief" program that relieves only the very rich, including Trump and presumably McConnell, and/or his "friends." This tax relief give 1.5 billion to people who do not need it; it lies about the "trickle down" effect for the rest of us--more jobs, etc., which has never historically proven true; it pushes the deficit over the top; and it deprives those of us who do not fly to our homes on islands in government planes (or to see the eclipse) of benefits such as affordable health care, preventive health care; positive attempts to slow climate change, protection of National Parks that are open to the public; treatment for drug abusers; etc. Instead we will be presented with more expensive and proven to fail punitive approaches to drug use and treatment; destruction of the Arctic now that it is unfrozen enough and unprotected by the EPA; denial of help to Puerto Ricans, African Americans, women, children, poor people who by claiming that they are somehow undeserving of help ("Puerto Rico has terrible debt"--although some of that debt results from Trump walking away from "his" golf course). Etc. Do billionaires have no decency?
6
I disagree with many of the commenters' gloom and doom prognostications. True, it is possible that the tax cuts will lead to insufficient tax revenue and force the government to take on more debt. The good news is that thanks to the tax cuts wealthy people will have plenty of money to lend to the government, at reasonable rates of course. Well, I'd like to write more but I have a two o'clock tee-time. Let me just say it's a win-win America. Freedom!!!
1
We pay a combined $16,000 a year in state and local taxes (including real estate). We earn about $220,000 a year. That means the loss of these deductions comes off the top, 35% bracket. We pay $5,000 more a year. Increase the standard deduction to $25,000 still leaves us in the hole for $1,000. Eliminate the individual deductions and that increases to to $3,000. There is only one way to define this: We lose.
7
Again and again, they ALWAYS win. Always.
So now we read that the lobbyists are back in full force to protect their special interests. This is not a tax "cut" or a tax "reform". Consider it the first volley of the GOP efforts to raise campaign cash from the vested interests. Wait and see.
1
The Democrats must make clear to working class members of Trump's base how badly they will be hurt in explicit dollar terms by this tax "reform".
If we can get Trump's base to understand then these base members will put pressure on Congress people to vote against this cruel budget.
9
Trump feathers his already well-feathered nest or makes a play to. His obscene self-interest on display, abetted by his fellow selfish Republicans who, like Trump, lack all social and political conscience.
30
Grasping, greedy, selfish liars.
Following hard upon their frustrated desire to pass legislation which they all knew would sentence literally millions of Americans to disease, bankruptcy and death, the Republicans are all a-twinkle at the procedural sleight of hand that will permit them to balloon the deficit, endanger the economy and hand the money to the richie-richest in the eager anticipation of their own private windfalls.
Today's GOP has lost all moorings to the concept of the common good.
306
The Dems may well have enabled this when they got rid of a particular anti-filibuster law for the Senate.
WJClinton did his bit to de-regulate Wall Street and got rid of the LUXURY TAX that hit the rich more directly. Te Dems in NYC helped as well.. There are ways to buy that 170 Million $$ this or that and NOT pay one penny in tax... and can we get rid of this stupid arguement tht says money should only be taxed once...
Be proud to pay your taxes... and make America SANE -- I am going to omit again... not sure that sanity is the purview of human beings in general.
1
Grasping, greedy, selfish liar[s]....pretty much like the so called POTUS "leadership".
At what point do your non-politician Republicans finally wake up and smell the coffee? The last 40 years of huge tax cuts by Republicans, followed by recessions, followed by Democrats regaining power and cleaning up the Republican's mess, isn't evidence enough of what will most assuredly happen if these tax cuts materialize? Why are Republicans always one of two things -- stupid or greedy? This country would be a better place if we could get rid of all Republicans.
282
Oh, Mike!
"Why are Republicans always one of two things -- stupid or greedy?"
I can answer that: That used to be true, but now true Republicans are BOTH stupid and greedy.
1
Republicans are not stupid (I concede they are greedy). Republicans are cunning. They know exactly what they are doing.
1
Stupid "OR" Greedy - Really both as a poisonous stew.
Corporations are not our enemy. The NY Times is a corporation.Many of us have 401k plans which invest in large corporations. So we are the shareholders who benefit from dividends and higher corporate earnings . In addition many pension funds are invested in such stocks. TThe assertion that corporations and their shareholders are some privileged class is a big lie. The middle class, through their retirement and other plans represent a substantial portion of shareholders in large corporations. We depend upon their success for our financial security. Those who try to incite resentment against corporations are misleading the middle class to our detriment . They care more about scoring political points than our welfare.
3
Remember your post when the spiraling, out-of-control deficit, which will grow to $30 trillion within a decade, brings on a 50- or 60- or 70-percent percent stock market collapse.
2
I agree in principal with your post, however, I can't help but wonder how much of the tax savings will flow to the shareholders and what percentage will go to the Corporate managers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Hopefully you'll keep an eye on this and check back in and let us know.
1
How are corporate tax cuts helping the people who really need it? The people who are working two jobs just to survive? A large majority of Republicans in government have absolutely no empathy. They cannot imagine being poor and struggling. All they care about is themselves. They're all about greed and cruelty.
2
At the end of 2016 when Trump took office, the US national debt was approximately $19.3 trillion. At the end of 2017, his first year in office, it is projected to be $20.4 trillion. Without including the projected $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, the 2018 debt is projected to be $20.8 trillion, meaning that if this tax cut for corporations and the wealthy passes and becomes law before the end of this year, the debt will be $22.3 trillion. In other words, in Trump's first two years in office, the GOP Congress and Trump White House will have increased the debt by 16 percent. If that pace continues, by the end of Trump's first term of office, the debt will be at least $26 trillion, for a total increase of 37 percent. In other words, the debt will have grown by well over 1/3 of what it was when he took office, which is almost identical to the debt growth while Obama was office. Go figure.
6
Deduct from Obama's column at least one big ticket item that Bush didn't pay for/actively hid: the Iraq war...and then there was the whole worldwide Great Republican policies Recession.
Your analysis is flawed.
6
I suppose that the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party aka the Trumpeters are in favor of giving massive tax breaks to the very wealthy and the big corporations that controls their lives.
Why don't we ask the working class people in Ruby Red states whether the millionaires need more money? And the middle class less money?
Democrats can focus on two simple messages in 2018: Trump is a weak and racist President, and the GOP's only real interest is engorging the coffers (coffins?) of the already wealthy.
23
What the Democrats need to do is come up with a decent candidate for one. Not one who is under FBI investigation would be a good start.
Then, they actually need to come up with a decent plan. Calling Trump a racist got him elected. Our country is quite racist which is why Nazis march down the streets of quaint American cities. Instead of calling the other party deplorables or calling Bernie supporters losers that just need to get over it does not win one elections.
Typical republican nonsense, cut taxes then spend like crazy. Hopefully this will go the same was as repeal and replace.
7
The fix is in, tax breaks only for the rich and trump could gain maybe almost a billion off it when it passes. I don't read anything about that "carried Interest" loophole that the hedge fund managers love so much being eliminated. What I do see is elimination of the real estate taxes that those in High value states need right down to the middle class level. There have to be better people in congress who should know that if you can't fund a health care system then you can't give tax breaks to the Rich and Wall Street
12
We face huge rebuilding costs due to natural disaster (and may face many more in the years to come); a record number of people are now on Medicare and Social Security; our infrastructure needs rebuilding--why are we cutting taxes?
30
because we can kick the can down the road and cry about the national debt when the Democrats are back in power
5
In the two hour Academy award winning movie version titled 'Trump goes to Washington' - set for release in 2024 (the promoter decided that the nation was too traumatized to be willing pay for an earlier theatrical release)- we learn right from the opening credits that SPECTRE had orchestrated a takeover of the Republican party, big oil, and most major US hedge funds, who then conspired to take over the world.
The scheme unravels as a feisty protagonist shoots (in self defense) an evil but very sexy senate majority leader, only after she reveals how close they are to totally subjugating the entire US economy and enslaving its people.
Since the theatrical release is 7 years from now, we can't be sure what SPECTRE's motives were. But aside from a revealing monologue midway through, which surely must include a bit of hand wringing over the destruction of all of the things that made us American, we are left not fully understanding the motivations of a party that so consistently chose to be on the wrong side of history.
Sign me up for the sequel.
1
Republican destruction everywhere: our planet, Arctic Wildlife Refuge and national parks, our treasury, our purses, our economy, our tax dollars, our healthcare, our infrastructure.
The smug wealthy, though...propped up, plumped up with more gargantuan wealth, fattened up with tax breaks.
It seems we must face the fact that protest at town halls and in the streets, social media engagement and constant calls to representatives is the new normal.
14
What a clever idea. Exploit the environmentally vulnerable Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in order to generate the revenues to offset a $1.5 trillion tax break for the very rich and thereby allow its passage by a simple majority in the Senate – Reconciliation. The Trump family pockets several billion petroleum-derived dollars without having to deal with the messy issues of land or oil sales. This makes the Teapot Dome scandal look like amateur hour.
12
I am sick of hearing comments regarding the incompetencies of government, the claim that big business does things better. Even if this were true, as most of us who have dealt with the airlines, insurance companies, credit agencies , big box stores, and the like, know is patently false, the reason for government failure is directly traceable to inadequate funding. Now, the wacky White House, and its irresponsible lackeys, are ready to entrench this starvation of any agency devoted to the public good. And for what? So the wealthy can get another tax cut while the rest of us watch as protections erode for health, safety, and any other rational duty of government.
53
Can someone clarify this paragraph in the report for me? Is Sen Corker for or against these tax cuts that will cost $1.5T?
"The senators, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, agreed on allowing tax cuts that would cost as much as $1.5 trillion over a decade. But Mr. Corker, an outspoken deficit hawk, said he would not vote for a final tax plan if it would add to the deficit, based on what he has described as “valid models” that take into account economic growth."
5
This tax cut for the rich dressed up as reform has been waiting to take center stage all year. Based entirely on lies from the party of Lairs it benefits about 450 extremely (as in rolling in it) family's and not much else.
Behind the initial statements of lies you can hear the refrain: Snake Oil for Sale. Appetizing Snake Oil for Sale. All new bottles. All new labels. But the same old Snake Oil for Sale.
11
Any measure passed with the intentional purpose of bypassing senate filibuster is a non-starter for me. Eight years of Obamacare nonsense and now Republicans want to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit. The number is actually much higher as the growth numbers are unrealistic. I'm not buying it. Pay for the middle east fiasco, the bank bail out, and new infrastructure. When you're done, we can talk about a tax cut. Otherwise, the only direction I want to see taxes move is up.
12
Andy - You have your finger on the pulse of the nation. France that is, not the US.
1
CK - If I could, I would.
No surprise, continuation of the Republican Reaganomics myth of voodoo economics of tax cuts for the corporations and 1% in support of the government of, by, and for the 1%! Astonishingly, the MAGA Republican base will applaud this obscene tax policy, although, Trump is about to learn that tax policy is just, if not more, complex than healthcare!
10
Remember the good old days--long, long, long, long, long ago in 2016--when Republicans were concerned about the debt? Neither do they...
67
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” - Frank Zappa
For many years we've been an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy. If this passes, the masquerade will be over.
29
Murkowski will support the decimation of the North Slope to win election in her state. Alaskans get a kick back on oil revenue. If the rest of the country has to pay for bad environmental policy then so be it.
10
After eight years of solid Senate opposition to former President Obama, who succeeded nonetheless in restoring the nation's economic health after the The Great Recession of 2008 caused by the Bush tax cuts, here the Republicans go again. The vampire Trump tax cuts that will mainly benefit the wealthy will once again push us to the brink of, and probably over into, The Great Recession II. After withdrawing from the Paris global climate accord, engaging in an ongoing game of "nuclear chicken" with North Korea, President Trump now seems also intent on blowing up the economy. So, if we first don't choke to death in polluted air or end up as radioactive ash, we'll face the prospect of an economic catastrophe that will leave all of us, except Trump and his fellow oligarchs, impoverished.
18
So much for Sen. Murkowski for doing the right thing on the GOP health Care Bill. Now she wants to pollute the Arctic refuge by opening it to drilling for oil. There will never be a fair income tax overhaul from this GOP cabal. I guess the deficit problem was fake news. My hope quotient is fading fast.
8
Let's be very practical about this... Does anyone believe for a born again second the GOP is going to enact reforms that will adversely affect their wealthy donors and constituents? In other words- Will the wealthy pay more? Answer: NO! The middle class will again pick up the tab and Social Security and Medicare will be stripped clean.
What can the Democrats do to combat this? And I'm not talking about protests, sit-ins, drum circles and poetry slams- We've done enough of those! The DNC needs to take a long look at Roy Moore and begin to realize that he is the first of many neo-nationalists who will be entering the political fray. It will start in the south, work its way up the heartland- and in 2020 we will have a Roy Moore 2.0 in California and New York.
Liberalism is failing! There are too many Americans who feel left out. There are too many Americans who've played by the rules only to see illegal immigrants get free stuff. There are too many Americans who are being deemed a racist for having pride in their own flag. This sentiment cuts into BOTH parties. The DNC and our Democrat career politicians aren't doing a thing. The reality is- many of the +30 year House and Senate members are ready to retire anyway- they simply don't care about the fate of our nation. They just care about themselves- they are no better than their Republican cohorts.
5
Standby for a massive deficit funded tax cut for the wealthy that will disproportionately benefit Trump and the members of his cabinet while saddling our kids and grand kids with the cost for no good reason.
35
That's Republican Tax Policy 101.
Massive cuts for the extremely wealthy, massive deficits for the nation.
Same old voodoo malarkey...
2
So, the GOP will try to pass the gift the wealthy, by a simple majority vote. If there is a tie, Peence will decide on further destroying the middle and lower class wage earners. meanwhile, he, almost everyone in Congress and the wealthy class will get major tax cuts. And to top it all off, do it with a $1.5 trillion deficit. An d to fix that, major cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Veterans, and pretty much every department in the federal government; except the Pentagon. And , if Trump gets us into more wars, the domestic cuts will be deeper.
One has to wonder if Senators Collins, McCain, Paul and Murkowski are willing to block these tax cuts as just as damaging to millions of people, as repealing the ACA was. Let's face it, no exemptions and only allowing deductions fro charity or mortgage interest is going to raise taxes on millions of people. This is a giant sham and shell game, Trump, Pence and Congress know it.
23
Every bill offered up by Republicans since they started governing during the Trump years amounts to a tax cut for the wealthy.
What a surprise!
This one they call "tax reform."
The cynicism continues. And their base lets it. Courtesy of Fox News.
85
A "balanced budget in ten years" is foreseen with this grotesque scheme through "unspecified spending cuts." Mostly it appears to be, with what little information is provided in this article, a $1.5 trillion tax gift to the wealthy of our country. You know, those folks that need more money. If this is what will "make America great again," let's reverse course.
13
Unbelievable. This is a war on the upper middle class making 100-200K per year by Republicans, in order to fund tax cuts for the rich - President Trump, Mnuchin, Cohn, and their fellow billionaire and millionaire cronies. Our tax rate will go up, the itemized deductions will be eliminated, and it will do nothing for the economy except add $1.5 trillion to the budget deficit. It means that it will be much more difficult to afford a house when the 1913 deduction for local property taxes are eliminated. Even if no deductions are eliminated, it is effectively a tax hike for the upper middle class because the standard deduction used by lower income taxpayers gets doubled. I predict Trump will lose Pennsylvania and the election in 2020 because of this - a high property tax, high income state.
22
The Republicans want to borrow public money, and give it to the wealthiest Americans in the form of tax cuts.
What ever happened to the "Party of Fiscal Responsibility?" They are happy to blow up the federal deficits.
Privatize the profits.
Socialize the losses.
33
Looks like our friends from the GOP have officially reopened 'Fiscal Fantasy Land'. If the folks in the middle-bottom of the economic distribution don't tangibly benefit (in terms of additional disposable income) who exactly is suppose to purchase the goods & services that will grow the economy and small businesses?
7
It's funny how Republicans don't seem to have any problem using the nation's 'credit card' to make their cash withdrawals, but they never want to use it to pay the nation's debts.
16
Dr. Price is a great example of this mindset.
Anyone still have any lingering doubts about whether GOP officials enter politics and public service only to enrich themselves? Official Thieves.
23
Why do the Republicans hate the American People?
This so-called Tax Reform is nothing but a cheat. The tax refunds the average American will get versus the rising cost of health care is an insult.
I hear the republicans whining about the deficit until they can put money in their pockets and then we can suddenly afford whatever they are trying to shove down our throats.
Stop this bill and get Single Payer going and cut the MIlitary budget to make it happen.
39
Trumpeted Tax Plan (TTP). The math turns out differently depending on who you are and where. Trump loves winners. I wonder about one effect that, (oddly In the x hundreds of thousands this week), hasn't been yet been mentioned. The consequent bigly, yuge, net loss of jobs by the largest Employer we have. Government and government services. Research, education...etc.,etc. Probably a several hundred thousand jobs will quickly be gone.
The services that the government provides (or could), are essential. Tax cuts for the !% fund yachts and resorts. Idle heirs. How many government employees would lose their jobs under the TTP? Who loses those all those services? So to consider:
"With approximately 2.7 million civilian* employees, the U.S. government is the largest employer in the country. For reference, Wal-Mart has 2.2 million employees Worldwide. -May 24, 2016"
"Fire those government workers", Trump says. And of course, give the billionaire Walmart owners more billions. Also, cut the their health and welfare benefits from Walmart employees — the low-wage below poverty workers? And raise their taxes 2% to boot?
*Military non-civilion jobs may increase slightly under the TTP.
7
This story in the NYT says it all about a major rationale for the Trump/GOP tax cut:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/28/us/politics/trump-tax-ben...
The GOP has already thrown in the towel on retaining congress after the 2018 midterm elections thus they are now primarily focused on big tax cuts now for their wealthy donors/supporters knowing full well that tax cuts are hard to reverse. The even more cynical objective of the republicans is to increase the deficit so much that it will threaten the mid and longer term viability of social security and medicare and require painful cuts to those vital programs that the poor and middle class rely on. The Trump tax proposal should be retitled {the Marie Antoinette GOP tax reform initiative}
8
Since the Republicans all sound confident that this tax bill will not add materially to either the annual deficits or the debt, would the Republicans be willing to put language in their tax bill stating that if revenues did not meet the projections, say after the third year, the tax rates would be increased to meet their projections?
8
This new tax proposal is nothing but another round of "trickle down". The only thing Republican "trickle down" economic policies have ever done is drown the middle class and poor. That is most likely the intent.
5
Here we go again. Republicans couldn't pass tax cuts for the rich with health care, now they'll try with the budget. Hopefully with the same result. It will depend again on at least 3 Republican senators having a heart and a conscience.
As am aside, Mitch McConnell is the biggest player of partisan politics in Congress.
9
It is not clear to me why we need a tax reform - sure, there is room for simplification and improvement. The biggest economic challenge is how to create jobs in the rural areas and in the so called "fly-over" parts of the country. Folks there have relatively lower incomes or none at all if they don't have a job. How does tax reform help these people? If I have no job, tax reform is the last thing I would worry about.
1
They are the land of his supporters who, along with us, will pay dearly for that vote.
Raiding the national treasury and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for billionaire profit in one greedy fell swoop - what's not to admire about this billionaire welfare plan ?
Instead of borrowing $1.5 trillion to fund much-needed infrastructure and alternative energy technology development, Republicans are borrowing $1.5 trillion and handing it to over to a handful of millionaires and billionaires.
Senator Bernie Sanders.... denounced the blueprint as “one of the most destructive budgets in modern American history.”
Republicans continue to be the nation's most serious threat to national security, math, common sense, reason and the nation's solvency.
Another Republican act of sedition rears its GOP head.
584
You hit the nail on the head. Furthermore, as a resident of Wyoming I am ashamed that Enzie is my senator. .
6
Socrates, let me pick up your metaphor (the "GOP head") and carry it further: like the mythical Hydra, for every head chopped off the monster regrows a couple of new ones. We chop off the attempt to destroy health care, and what do we get?
As I recall, Heracles, with help from his immortal mother, finally succeeded in destroying the creature by chopping off all of its heads before it could regrow them. What would be the modern-day political analogy?
How much longer can the middle income taxpayers tolerate from a party that treats them like idiots. How come other countries seem to be able to see through the taling points and talk intelligently and adult like, while the masses in the United States are lured by shiny objects. Time to become active. Go!!!
40
They've been doing it since 1980 so don't expect anything to change any time soon.
2
Simply, taxation reduces private sector spending for good and services and money for private investment from savings, and increases government programs as well as decrease deficit spending. Less money in the private sector translates to fewer private sector jobs. What exactly do people want this Congress to do?
Just look at the wasted government expense in travel recently by Trump appointees!
A nice theory, RPM, perhaps when taxation levels are excessive, but they are not excessive, particularly for the rich and for corporations.
Our economic problems stem from a lack of consumer demand that stem from a lack of living wages and a shrinking safety net.
Your simple theory is thoroughly debunked by the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama Presidencies when taxes were raised and the economy expanded.
What did George W. Bush's tax cuts do for the economy besides inflate it into a balloon that popped and crashed ?
97
" What exactly do people want this Congress to do?"
Raise taxes on the top 1 %.
Congress is preparing to write itself a cheque for one and a half trillion dollars using social security and Medicare as collateral. What could go wrong?
37
Any politician - Republican, Democrat, Independent or Libertarian - who votes for this must resign.
This is theft and insulting to our intelligence.
Every person and corporation gets their rates LOWERED except for the MOST POOR, and they get a 20% INCREASE.
That says to me that they were so giddy at the prospect of soaking this country dry, that they simply never even noticed who they were shafting.
This is theft, pure and simple.
Vote against this corruption - or resign and get out of the way.
116
Could you explain how you reached the conclusion that the "most poor" will "get a 20% increase"?
Based on his proposal, the first 12k of income is tax free for individuals, and 24k of income tax free for couples. So there will actually be even MORE people paying 0% tax... If you're referring to the 10%->12% lowest bracket as a "20% increase" that is HIGHLY DECEIVING. Even if there is a 2% increase, that is on whatever remaining income exists between 12k and whatever income level they decide will be required to hit the 25% rate.
So as an example... If you are a couple making $40k a year. Currently, you'd get 12k standard deduction, and be taxed something like 10% on the remaining 28k. So $2,800 in taxes. With the new tax proposal, you would get a 24k standard deduction and be taxed 12% on the remainder which would be $1,920. So your family would save nearly $1,000 on taxes.
We can't move the country forward without honest discourse!
Add a house and three kids in California and how much would they save?
1
Arnold: The "most poor" are the ones between 0 and a little less than $10,000. They will receive an increase from their 10% up to 12%. That is a 20% increase.
That's just a fact.
Mistake One in your thinking: ALL INCOME IS TAXABLE.
Take Social Security. Only if ALL your total income is under approx. $10,000 do you not have to file.
Anything that takes you over a certain amount means you must file. Worse, if you work and earn more, then every $2 you earn reduces your SS by $1. Got that? Then, say, you get laid off and collect unemployment. That's when you learn that ALL unemployment is taxed. Child support? Taxes are paid by the receiver. Alimony: Ditto. Every cent is taxed.
Now, I did note that you switched from those "Tax-free" poor folk to a couple making $40,000. That's not an "honest" discussion.
Worse, I'm dead certain that my off-the-top-of-my-head examples only begin to scratch the surface on how a poor person, a person in the lowest bracket today, can get hammered when the tax comes due. I've gotten hammered several times, the worst was the year they switched unemployment from an exclusion to being fully taxed. I vomited for hours.
$1.5 TRILLION? A tax-cut so darling that all the po'folk will be dancing in the street?
In your dreams, Arnold.
Factoid: In 1913 the standard deduction was $3,000. (Average income: $800. Income taxes were ONLY for the rich.)
Today that same deduction should be $69,000.
$92,000 for a married couple.
Honest discussion over.
2
You better believe Trump is going to be tweeting like crazy over NFL players and what posture they are in while the National Anthem is being played. Meanwhile, back at the castle (oops, I meant The White House), the king and his counting men will be counting their profits from these tax breaks.
13
So, $1.5 trillion in tax cuts: fine
$780 billion for the Pentagon: fine
Universal healthcare (might even save $): no way, would bankrupt the country
140
How nice! My middle class taxes will go up and the uber rich and corporations will get a big break. Prices will not go down. Trickle down is still the same "Reagan yellow."
69
It is unpatriotic to not want to pay more in taxes and using a procedural resolution to further the interests of the wealthy few is simply an act of economic terrorism that harms the innocent who least able to defend themselves against such financial attacks. We should all kneel and pray that this most unAmerican behavior is not turned into law.
10
Here we go again. The GOP screams for tax cuts, the Rich get richer, everyone else suffers, the GOP loses, Bigly, in the next election. The Dems come in and clean up the mess. I've seen THIS reality show TOO many times. Use your brains, folks. They are abusing YOU. Seriously.
72
The problem is that the rich DO get richer, but there's no certainty that Democrats will win in the next election. If the electorate believes the reality show of this White House, Republicans could very well win again. Which will further help erode the savings and futures of the people who buy into these false 'realities'. People need to wake up, and the Democratic party needs to somehow help that awakening without being shrill or simply being anti-Trump.
2
Let's $1.5 trillion spread out over 300 million ... I expect my $5,000 soon. I think that might be less than Reagan-era tax cuts when adjusted for inflation.
I smell revolution if the Republicans try to enact this. Such fools. But then they invited the Dixiecrats in whose only objective was to destroy the United States. Only way out of this mess is for Republican Senators who value the nation above political gain to switch to Independents.
1
I hope that true republicans across the US will get on the horn and stop their senators from this recklessness.
3
true republicans!!!????? Are there any of those left who can say with a straight face that theirs is the party of Lincoln? Those who would say that are delusional.
1
Frankly, how can the American people believe anything Trump says..most know Trump is a pathological liar..who would rather lie when the truth would actually be better.
As for the tax issue..do not believe in alleged tax reductions. What is Cohn say yesterday..a "typical" couple makes $100,000. per year...that family would save $1000. ..enough for a vacation, new kitchen or a new car.
Is Cohn that really disengaged from the average American. How many people who read this piece fall into the typical family earning $100,000 per year?
8
Justified by Paul Ryan's misleading "facts"...watch this video: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/09/18/speaker-r...
2
Outrageous.
I cannot escape the uneasy feeling that another round of this kind of budget chicanery bodes ill for our nation.
After all, is our nation better off now than it was in 1981 when the first round of these wishful-thinking tax cuts were enacted?
Disgraceful.
3
How does increased spending and reduced revenue produce a balanced budget in 10 years?
Tooth Fairy will fill the revenue cavity.
24
Every day Trump remains in power gets worse and worse for the nation and especially anyone that is not in the robber baron class.
The nation would be better off if Trump just dropped a bunch of nukes on all of us....get it over with quick and fast.
4
How will this be paid for?
I am reminded of Woody Allen's "Bananas:"
"Charge it to the Revolution."
1
The rich get richer and the Trump voters don't. Nothing to see here folks, move along now.
5
it must be time to end social security and food stamps, because if you end social security people will get 10% more money on every paycheck and be able to pay for food !
1
senators Collins and Murkowski, (McCain?) Please, please please do the right thing.
5
Cut taxes and balance the budget. Why didn't anyone ever think of that before? The Republicans really astound me sometimes.
3
This is the part of the story where Republicans on Capitol Hill laugh at Mr. Trump's base for being gullible enough last November to make this latest farce possible.
12
All the talk about "simplifying" the tax code is just prattle. Moving rates up or down is not simplifying: it is just handing out tax gifts or taking them away. The tax gifts to the wealthy are unconscionable in any rational society. Cheap-talk Trump may know how to hide his tax return maneuvers from public sight but his ramblings about single-page tax returns are pure nonsense.
3
What I see here is the long-desired Republican plan to explode the federal deficit, masquerading, as they usually do, their fierce desire to dig in their heels on the necks of prostrate poor Americans.
I can't imagine the mind-blowing hypocrisy necessary to trot out this give-away to the rich while keeping a straight face. Robert Corker, described here as a "deficit hawk," has said he will vote against any measure to increase the federal deficit but, in the same breath, indicated thay he's on board with President Trump's proposal.
And who cannot help but raise eyebrows at Mitch McConnell's shot across Democrat bows by praising the virtues of counsel compromise cooperation, declaring that "obstruction" by the other party is now at end because a simple majority will now suffice to bypass threats of a filibuster. Why am I thinking "one-term president" here?
The "pass-throughs" and the elimination of the estate tax, long a GOP fantasy, is now likely to become a one-sided reality, benefiting, among others the Trump family. And this is just accidental? And what "discretionary" spending cuts will be made to which programs when the deficit is exposed by less robust growth that Republicans can only envision now but will poke us in the eye like a sharp stick in a couple of years?
We've been had. Bigly.
9
From Trump on down to McConnell, Ryan, Mulvaney, et al, there is not a whiff of humility or decorum in the incessant and virtually pathological nature of their lies, now addressed to the Budget Resolution and the proposed tax cuts because there is not an iota of "reform" in the proposal. These men have clearly proposed in no uncertain terms a scheme that will greatly enrich Trump, other billionaires, and countless multi-millionaires as the tax burden shifts more and more to the middle class. Trump and his heirs will greatly benefit if the federal estate tax is repealed in its entirety, the Alternative Minimum Tax is repealed, and the business pass through is enacted.
As with the failed attempt to repeal the ACA, Trump's base will be greatly damaged economically by the proposed budget and tax cuts. Yet, they stand with him, most likely because this is the culmination of 35 years of bait and switch by the Republican Party, trumpeting social issues that appeal to them while simultaneously picking their pockets. But this is the ultimate swindle, the endgame, because what is left for Trump and his cohorts to take when this monstrosity of a budget and tax cut passes? Does his base hate immigrants, blacks, Hispanics, the LGBTQ community, Muslims, so much that they will let themselves be picked apart again? Apparently they do.
3
Amazing how republicans are happy to balloon the deficit and approve an unbalanced budget provided it's caused by excessive and unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthiest 2%. And they again promote trickle down economics as a guaranteed source of revenue surplus. History has shown that the rich send their savings to invest overseas to avoid even the now reduced taxes and not investing these monies here at home for infrastructure and job creation. What happened to Donald's promise of trillions for infrastructure?
9
Here they go again. Its not a tax break when the people benefitting most from the windfall don't need the money and the LINE that business needs a shot in the arm and this will give it to it falls apart when you consider their desperation is a result of paying themselves first at the payroll department out of revenues. Makes desperation a little much to believe. You REALLY want to create jobs? Give the tax break to under paid people who need the money and let DEMAND SIDE economics have a turn at the plate, then watch it lubricate the economy. That simply makes more sense because spending is the key and those people spend their paychecks. This GOP ruse has gone on long enough.
9
As with the failure of the ACA repeals, and perhaps now more than ever, we truly need a few conscientious members of Congress to either (1) find a way to alter the WH tax proposal so that it really does benefit the middle class, or (2) vote NO. This proposal in its current form, simply should not prevail - and not just because of the debt, but because it's the human thing to do if we expect the heart and soul of our citizenry to live dignified lives.
64
Trump, Mulvaney, Ryan, Enzi, McConnell all parrot the same GOP lies: "Trickle Down economics helps economy and the middle class." Nope, and that was proved in Kansas.
Giving corporations and billionaires a huge tax cut may likely *cost* American jobs.
The extra cash will go into three things.
1. Stock buybacks to raise the price and the dividend -because management and the CEO typically hold tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of shares and that money goes straight into their pockets.
2. Mergers and acquisitions- the extra money goes to buying out the competition, and then the consolidation of the companies means cutting jobs
3. Reinvestment in the company a.k.a automation - they want to cut the cost of one of their highest costs - employees and they do that with automation and robots.
This tax cut bill will likely hurt the American worker since they get nothing from the tax cuts and they might just lose their job.
459
Dead on, you got it right. If you run a business remember that 80% of your costs wear shoes. Get rid of folks wearing shoes (people) lower your costs and raise your take home. (The "80 percent of your cost wear shoes" is a quote form a manager at John Deere a number of years ago - the number is higher today.)
2
AI and robotics are the way of the future. Agriculture to the first manufacturing took 150 years. The decline of manufacturing due to robotics took only 20 years. People need to look forward because it is going to happen globally with or without the US. Going backwards with the Trump/Bannon formula will only hurt the US economy and relegate the US to the bottom of the heap. Sad.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
$1.5 trillion in tax cuts? Does Congress know about the U.S. Debt? It is $20 trillion and counting. That is over 100% of U.S. GDP. Plus, we have two natural disasters, an ongoing war, and countless domestic issues we need to pay for. Fiscal conservative Republicans? Only when a Democrat is in the White House.
291
Three natural disasters...otherwise agree wholeheartedly
Can't find the money for healthcare. Can't find the money for schools. Can't find the money for infrastructure. But tax cuts for the wealthy? No problem.
Grifters...
594
Grifters is kind.
@ Dan K.
And they say it with straight faces.
Trump's so-called tax "plan" and this budget proposal are nothing more than voodoo economics revisited. The consequences, unfortunately, will be even more harmful to the American people, other than lobbyists and the ultra-wealthy who will benefit greatly. Americans shouldn't fear ISIS as much as Trump who can (and is trying to) do more damage more quickly to the country as a whole.
42
The new voo-doo economics: a budget that "assumes" that a tax bill, available in skeleton form only, will cause economic growth, despite much evidence to the contrary.
The tax bill, in current form, will shift tax burden to working and middle class families...they get a tax rate increase and a phony "doubling" of standard deduction that kills the personal exemptions most families count on. Killing the property tax deduction is a killer for most low income families, including seniors.
We have become a country in which oligarchs rule and the rest of us are expected to pay for services we do not receive. This is not a sustainable situation.
141
Excellent point about seniors. The Fed's holding interest rates artificially low for a decade has also robbed seniors of interest income from safe investments in CDs and savings accounts. Many have been forced into putting their money into equities, where they can ill afford a stock market correction. The near-zero rates have also allowed corporations to borrow at no risk and continue to inflate share prices with stock buybacks. This is going to end ugly.
2
“Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said that without the budget resolution, Democrats would ‘continue to play partisan politics...”
This is exactly what he did during Obama’s entire presidency. Why has bipartisanship become such a taboo?
160
Well so much for trying to lower the deficit that Republicans have been screaming about for 10 years. It seems when they propose something, deficits don't matter.
89
Deficit hawk? Fake bird.
205
Extinct, I'd say. Was it Democrats demanding huge deficits to allow pursuing two wars at once? Or was it Republicans demanding both wars and tax cuts?
For the memory deficient among us, it was the latter.
3
@Peter:
I am a birder. A deficit hawk is a Dodo in disguise.
1