"There is always free cheese in a mouse trap."
- George Burns
10
It will really hurt retirees whose taxable income from using deductions put them just at or under the 25% taxable category under the old rules. Retirees on fixed incomes now are likely to have a mortgage and real estate taxes but they are lower relative to younger people, and while our tax preparation will be easier using the standard deduction sans exemptions, it will cost us more.
I ran the Senate plan numbers for my husband and I and we would pay slightly more taxes in 2017 than 2016 even though we will earn about $5,000/year less. The House tax plan would yield us a $1,000 savings by using the new "standard deduction" for married couples in the first year. And to hear that our taxes will continue to rise for 10 years while on a fixed income makes me want to cry! (You know the Republicans are aiming to "fix" social security with no COLAs in these years, too).
Cutting taxes on the lower and middle classes will yield much higher consumer spending than on the fewer millionaires that already have everything they need. That would be a greater boost to the economy.
It makes no fiscal sense. My two cents.
7
One final overarching thought: we are a consumer-driven society. Demand-side. If the middle class on down see their discretionary funds chopped and diced due to myriad losses in long counted-on deductions, then where will the resulting purchasing downturn in goods and services be balanced out?
Supply-siders, makers, executive/ investor class can say otherwise, but the economy is bound to sag with reduced purchasing power for the middle class. And there's no way, corporations across the board raise wages. That's the myopic, short-term self interest in overdrive.
7
Can we just give everything we have and own to the rich and then be done with them all?
6
The Trump family stands to gain $4 billion from repeal of the estate tax. The one Trump tax return that did surface indicates that Trump has more than 500 Limited Liability Corporations. This means that Trump benefits significantly from allowing pass-through entities to be taxed at a lower rate than personal rates. From the 2005 year Trump Tax return it can be determined that allowing pass-through entities to be taxed at a lower rate than personal rates would have drastically reduced Trump's tax bill. That return also indicated Trump would have gained significantly from repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax.
The elimination of the estate tax which only impacts those with estates above $5.49 million for individuals and $10.98 million for couples, would be a transfer of many billions to the wealthiest 0.2%. Again, one way or another that would have to be made up by the 99.8%. Shifting the tax burden from the rich to the middle class tends to reduce economic activity. Reducing taxes on corporations would not increase economic activity since a profit maximizing corporation will make decisions that relating to the level of production, wages and prices that maximize after-tax profit. Since corporate income taxes are a percent of pre-tax profits, the level of output, wages and prices that maximize pre-tax profits are also the same levels that maximize after-tax profits. Thus, the incidence of corporate taxes falls entirely on the owners..."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4113472
5
What a spineless group of useless people in the GOP, they simply do not care at all. They just want a win and to be reelected, to maintain the donors happy, otherwise they will receive no more money. Totally shameless scam. Vote them all out in 2018!
4
The Republican Tax Cut Bill has one purpose only: to deliberately bankrupt the United States, so that the top 1% and corporations can transfer wage earner taxpayer assets to themselves. When the bills come due and can’t be paid, because of the documented and clearly substantiated failure of the trickle-down scam, they will go after their real target: social security (paid for by wage earner taxes), health care, medicare, medicaid, public education, privatization of public infrastructure, internet access, and wage earner pension funds or savings of every kind.
Goodbye America!
10
re: dismayed, I am dismayed.
Every day, I am dismayed.
Its as if Trump (who, IMO, isn't smart enough to be doing this all by himself) has put together what is essentially an occupation government (that's right America! We're all under the control of occupation forces - you know, like the Russians in Eastern Europe during the Cold War? Or the Nazis in France and elsewhere during WWII?) that is dedicated to putting every right wing thug and thoughtless buffoon (Rick Perry is a good example) into the reins of power with the sole purpose of thwarting every bit of egalitarian and just government that has existed in this country since the New Deal (which most certainly, the Right despises, and has never ever given up its determination to destroy).
And don't think that Social Security is safe either.
Wake up, Americans!
11
Where was the editorial board hand wringing when the ACA was being rammed through?
I feel that this tax bill disaster deserves the status in the future
of a "Never Forget" tragedy . There will be a museum built
with the pitiful artifacts left by struggling and starving and
dying United States Citizens. There must be engraved plaques
that tell the story of the traitors of America who caused
such suffering and misery and destruction of their own
people. And as we watch the minorities go to concentration
camps which the rest of us will soon go to die in as well,
let us leave secret signs and hidden records of what,
for a very short time was not Camelot, but a beautiful
and brave idea, and maybe later generations can learn
and never forget how we were destroyed and try again
to have a nation of free men and women and never
again let money corrupt politics and never, ever let
any descendants of the wealthy elite who ruined this
country buy up a government again. Thank you and
do not go gently into the good night.
4
I have some very good friends, whom I respect, who are just keeping their heads down- paying attention to their own lives- What they do not seem to realize is that all of lives are going to change for the worst very soon- when this bill goes through. Lift up your heads and scream impeachment- even if the Dems cannot yet do it- Scream, scream scream! or do not complain later. It is the citizens who are allowing a fascist takeover-
8
Why aren't we organizing a crusade to voice our outrage? Where are the liberal protest rallies and poetry slams? Where is the free Jay Zee concert? Will somebody do something! Oh- I forgot.. We're saving our energy for DACA and better movie roles for transgender actors. See you all at the unity rallies! #Resist
2
Off-topic, but I have to say that the photograph accompanying this editorial is priceless, especially when it's rotated 180 degrees: a melting Capitol Dome! It could easily be mistaken for a the top of a Philip Johnson skyscraper.
2
If anybody is wondering why everything is made in China, its because they are not taxed as heavily as developed countries like the United States. This is not some mind-boggling plan to destroy the middle-class, it just needs some tweaks to make sure it does what its supposed to do. The Republicans have been trying to do this for years, not solely because Trump took office.
The economic gap between the haves and have nots is the greatest threat to our democracy and this tax proposal will exacerbate the problem and hasten the end of democracy as we loved it.
6
There's tons of writing about the specifics of this tax bill. A few things stand out in the big picture: It's perhaps the worst or one of the worst laws in U.S. history. The Senate and House abandoned all sense of responsibility, governance and decency in ramming it through without a fair hearing. Lots of Congress people shouting about fairness to the middle class, deficits and many other issue are caving in, towing the party line, and proving themselves either cowards or fools. Over the next ten years and beyond, it will do untold damage to the American economy. It will hurt so many people that it could be a catalyst for the end of our democracy, which is already in tatters from #45 and the current GOP incarnation. This is a helluva slippery slope the GOP is putting us on, and they appear not to care, as long as they please rich donors. Long live Citizens United!
6
This tax “reform” bill will end up being my financial ruin...someone whose pnly debt is my mortgage. The mortgage on a house I will be unable to sell because there will no longer be any incentive to own property, and double taxation without the deduction for SALT.
Thanks Republicans for destroying my future.
3
I should be ecstatic. My 401K is growing by leaps and bounds. However, I am so depressed and angry. I have contacted my congressman repeatedly to voice my displeasure, but naturally it is a waste of time. One of the pillars of my congressman's run for election was that he supported a balanced budget amendment to the constitutions (which is actually also a bad idea, but I digress). Now, his web-site is nearly hysterical over the wonderful benefits that we will reap when the GOP tax plan is passed. I have bluntly called him a hypocrite and a liar in both writing and by phone - of course the only one hearing this is the rather mournful 20 something aide who answers the phone or reads the emails. These criminals will be coming back to the average person, including my elderly mother, in short order and soberly saying you must take a reduction in your Medicare and Social Security benefits because, gee, we have this deficit, and we HAVE to reduce it...of course that responsibility is yours, not the wealthy class because, you know, they contribute to society and you don't. That is the philosophy of the GOP in a nutshell - the Leona Helmsley credo played out in real life" taxes are for the little people.
15
A total betrayal of the American people.
13
We the citizens continue to allow the betrayal by not holding these career politicians accountable in our continuous practice of re-electing those politicians.
4
This is the classic "slow boiling of the frog" analogy. By the time Trump voters realize what has happened, we will all be toast.
11
Fleeced, deceived, denied, and dis-whatevered. The honest and level headed we hoped for have now all caved in to Trump's hooligans. Resist? With what? Our only hope is now the ballot box in 2018 and again in 2020. Impeachment is just a pipe dream. Unfortunately by then the damage will have been done. I am ashamed of our country and all its leaders.
13
So why weren’t you concerned about rushing through the complex Affordable Care Act Plan? It too had major flaws? How many Republican votes did it receive? Don’t be such an obvious hypocrite. This tax plan is not about Donald Trump. I don’t know one Republican that I know that likes or respects the President. But this bill isn’t about Donald Trump. It’s about a philosophy of how to generate growth and opportunity. You may disagree with the approach, and that’s fair, but don’t be a hypocrite. I’m tired of both parties calling out the other party for exactly the same thing they would do in these polarized times. And by the way, for every expert you tap to trash the tax plan, there’s an expert that endorses it, but you would never know from reading the Times. Remember the “expert” prognostications about the ACA? How many of those were accurate? Oh, and didn’t then speaker Pelosi say, “you have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it”?
2
The references you made concerning the ACA are worth discussing. However, the fault lies with us. We have the government we ask for at the ballot box.
Perfectly stated.
2
The ACA took eight months to pass. Enough bs about rushing the ACA in comparison to this tax "reform i.e. tax cuts for the wealthy being pushed through in a week. Republicans are just desperate to get a win for their donors. And Trump because their numbers are lower than even his-- how can that be possible? Unfortunately they don't care about their constituents. We will see if their constituents care about them come election time.
6
This is what you see when a person like Trump with subclinical psychosis and early stages of dementia is elected to lead the country. He can lie with his mouth wide open and 38% percent still believe him. Very little hope for America unless we get rid of him. It also proves that politics is a very lucrative business without any moral bounds.
9
Perhaps 38% of America doesn't care that Russia helped him get elected because nothing will change and are moving on to bigger issues! Not much hope for America when people forget that the President doesn't really have that much legislative power and it is Congress that they should be focused on which each and every person can help control!
2
Trump supporters have appreciated his blunt talk.
I appreciate the blunt language in the NYT headline stating that his signature tax plan stinks. It truly does!
9
Many of us realize that all politicians are con artists with the “president” as the chief con artist and those who support the chief con artist, Trump, and the groveling GOP legislators in our Congress, have been played yet will never admit to being conned while believing this toxic and stinky tax bill will greatly benefit them.
All I can say is, tired of all of this winning yet?
3
And Republicans accuse Democrats of engaging in class warfare!
4
Yeah, sorta reminds me of how the Obama Administration rammed through his "legacy" Iran deal: claim it's not a treaty, then instead of the 2/3s of the Senate required to pass it, make it an international diplomatic agreement that requires 2/3 of the Senate to override him. Also because it stinks.
If the bill does get passed, the big losers will be "Bob Corker, Susan Collins and Ron Johnson".
When the consequences come out, these three will be remembered in history as the "traitors". They betrayed the only hope that people have in Republican Party.
3
I am 82 years old and have never in my life been so ashamed of the members of our Congress. The Democrats hae lost their gumption and fight for the middle class and the Republicans have followed their president to achieve this tax cut, and in doing so, have lost their souls. I am disgusted!!
14
The Republicans in Congress have learned much from Trump and their failure to repeal the ACA. And they are swiftly applying what they learned to pass this unpopular tax bill.
What they learned was to stay unified and tell more and bigger lies, double down and repeat those lies even after they are debunked, and claim that the news media is "fake news" and biased against them.
3
It's not too late to stop this madness.
3
It is worse than 'stinks', that is being kind. It is malevolent . It's model is the Gorbachev/Yeltsin i/Putin transition in the 1980 through 2000. Simple : it is to drive down the price of public assets, bringing water systems, transpiration systems , bridges, tunnels and hospital systems b ecause of lack of funding in the public markets by taking away or reducing tax free status and replacing them with private partnerships as these assets head for near collapse. THAT IS HOW OLIGARCHS BECAME OLIGARCHS. The republican party want control of the water you drink the air your breathe, and the way you are allowed to move through the world. starve public assets and make them cheap enough to privatize, later make the citizenry pay up the kazoo. It is been done and you know where.
10
Why is anyone confused? The Republicans are working for their super-wealthy contributors and for no one else, the outrage of Orin Hatch not withstanding.
7
The outrage that Hatch was designed to pander to his supporters.
The Joint Committee on Taxation now predicts that even with the optimistic GOP growth estimates that the tax cut will add $1 trillion to the national debt. The GOP say the JCT is misguided.
I have a proposal for the GOP senators. If you believe, truly believe your numbers, then offer -- no commit -- you and your families to make up any difference between your estimate and the JCT estimate. It's, after all, only about $20 million per senator and family. It's a small gamble for them for the huge gamble for the country.
In short, put your money, and not your donors', where your mouth and beliefs are.
4
Rushing a big piece of legislation on a purely partisan basis. Wonder where the Republicans got that idea from?
Putin.
6
The stock market is soaring today because the 1% think their windfall tax cut is a done deal.
They are ready for us to borrow $2 Trillion and hand it over to them.
What these people need is prison time.
16
I just heard Senator Grassley interviewed on All Things Considered about the tax bill. When asked about why we should give estate tax breaks to the few families with estates over $11 million, he replied that we shouldn't reward couples who make $100K per year for "living high on the hog" and not investing their money like the millionaires. What gall and contempt.
12
Well crafted lamentations are a delight to read but will not do anything to resolve the Trump/GOP destruction of our democracy.
We all must vote and assist, monetarily or with our feet, in registering new voters.
Democracy works when we make it work.
9
In the long run, Trump will be a only a little blip on our countries history. What does your comment have to do with understanding the tax cuts.
As a widow with a ( now grown) child, I'm concerned to see the Head of Household category disappear.
Every widow and widower in the country with dependent children, and every person raising children will be affected by this cut. I know there is an increase in the child tax credit, but that is supposed to be making up for the loss of itemized deductions. How thin do we have to stretch the pitiful 'gives' to cover the horrendous losses for the working class?
6
VM thank you for writing. Widows with or without children often bear the same expenses regardless of marital status and are rarely addressed. Those on Social Security are also greatly affected by these proposals.
1
Have you checked your last tax form to see how much of an itemized deduction you got? You will get a greater child tax credit and double the standard deduction. Last year my standard deduction was $13,500 and my itemized deductions were less than that so my tax accountant took the standard which was more. So next year our standard deduction will be $24,000 right off the top of our income which will be much greater than we could deduct.
You must be married, filing jointly to get the 24,000 deduction. I was addressing the plight of widowed or single people who will now see their standard deduction drop from about $16,000 ( HoH 9,500 +4050 personal+ 4050 per child) down to a flat 12,000. I'm glad you will benefit, I just wish more people could.
Seems like the plan is to create crazy distractions - gaslighting us all - while bullying through a slash and burn destruction of all givernment infrastructure not dedicated to the welfare of the corporate class.
8
It is sad the Americans in red states will not read this opinion and reject most information published in the NY Times. I feel that the Republicans are taking advantage of me. It is time for the Northeast states to form some interstate agencies to provide the services we need such as health care, education, transportation, etc...
17
I am not a republican but I wonder how you are being taken advantage of. I only ask to try to further my understanding of what effect the tax reduction will have on your situation. How will it change what you get or do? I am trying to understand the bill because I am a small business with an S corp but last year the standardized deduction was greater than my itemized deduction and if congress doubles it then I will have a greater tax deduction and less taxes to pay.
2017 is the last year I can deduct my youngest college age son so I will no longer get the child deduction, but with a doubled standard deduction my taxes will be lower.
One horrible provision not mentioned was the tax on tuition scholarships for working graduate students. This will make graduate study unavailable to all but the wealthiest students. This will destroy graduate education in America. Our country will no longer be a world leader in research.
This seems like political spite, since educated people voted against Trump in large numbers, and are less likely to support Republicans in general.
19
No, the plan is to make you take out student loans to pay the taxes, so your debt bondage is assured !
5
Tell me how that works.
As you point out in your article, "The Senate bill contains a special tax cut for makers of beer, wine and spirits, for no particular reason." Trump owns wineries so that's reason enough.
12
On the other hand, this bill is the first time anyone is going to tighten the carried credit loophole that helps hedge funds avoid taxes on their billions in profits by claiming even short-term trades are long-term subject to long-term capital gains only. It will force all hedge fund trades cashed for profit that were held less than three years as short-term gains and thus regular income.
The Democrats never closed the loophole -- even when they were majority in Congress. All those donations from Goldman Sachs couldn't have had anything to do with it, I'm sure.
3
This tax bill does everything it possibly can to crush "The American Dream". My heart breaks for our younger generations.
14
Actually, as a small business owner in CA where my "dream" has been crushed time and time again by the CA state legislature, I can't imagine how anything can get worse. They have raised taxes so much in the state that we have seen an exodus like has never been seen before, and it is not over. 580,000 middle class tax paying residents left in 2015. There was also a net loss of businesses and that hasn't stopped. Tesla is now moving to Nevada as are so many other businesses. Or Arizona and Texas. I have so many friends that are retiring and leaving because of high taxes.
We are @14% of the population of the country with 32% of welfare recipients of the nation, hence we have the highest poverty in the nation. Gov Brown and Kevin de Leon are ruining the state. It is sad because they had so much potential.
if the House version prevails with no medical deductions then seniors and their families will be slaughtered. The only way most families can tolerate the cost of nursing homes (called assisted living today) is because some of the costs for nursing care is deductible which helps to off-set the taxes levied on liquidating retirement monies. When this gets eliminated it will cost families tens of thousands of dollars they simply do not have. Cruel.
18
(to Bill in DC) Thank you, you made a good point that had not crossed my mind. the liquidation of retirement assets to pay the costs of senior care. Some of this money will be coming out of IRAs which were built up with the assumption that the taxes upon withdrawal would be lower than the taxes that the senior would have had to pay on the earnings earlier if not placed in an IRA. If one never needs a nursing home and can use the money for leisure activities, that's still the case. But if you need that money desperately for the kinds of costs that would have brought a deductible, the value of having an IRA has dropped a notch. By the way, there is a difference between nursing homes, which provide skilled nursing, and assisted living centers, which don't. Also, if you need but can't afford a real nursing home, Medicaid (for the moment) kicks in, but for assisted living, it doesn't.
1
Thanks for the comment Bill! Yes, this is surely one of the cruelest parts of this insane bill to "help the middle class"- those few crumbs to the masses who can't add may sound like a windfall UNTIL they or a family member is saddled with out of control medical expenses (also thanks to the dysfunctional Republicans' hatred of Obamacare). Will your average Republican congressman or senator give a hoot about the suffering of their constituents who are desparately trying to not go bankrupt from medical costs? Will they give a hoot about helping the middle class elders living in facilities, who now spend EVERY dime they make on health care? No way- they'll be too busy taking care of their donors in the new gilded age. I am so disgusted!
Some months ago, Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare failed, because the voters yelled loudly enough to turn just enough Republican politicians. We need to do that again.
11
It's amazing to read the overwhelming number of comments made in the New York Times, like those here here and those following other stories, bitterly castigating Trump and his Republican gang, all the while watching the latter blithely going on about their destructive business, unimpeded and unaffected by the opposition voiced throughout America.
Trump and his mob have revealed the hollowness of America's cherished myth that its much-vaunted division of powers within the government and the freedom of the press and of the people to express criticism of that government will preserve the republic.
We outside America are watching the world's once preeminent democracy rapidly devolving into a banana republic, a banana republic armed with nuclear weapons.
As if North Korea wasn't enough to worry about.
16
We have division of powers - but it's not instantaneous. Claiming we are already gone only adds to the cynicism that causes people to stop voting and participating - and that is EXACTLY how these people get and retain power.
Give me a break. You are protected by our nuclear missiles and have been allowed to have more social democracy benefits because the people of the US have your back.
I don't like Trump and didn't vote for him but you don't see a lot of leaders complaining because many of their countries are heavily invested in our stock market and it is soaring - people are making money. On the one hand it's nice to see my stocks go up rather than fallow for so many years, but on the other it scares me because it might leave Trump at the helm.
Didn't the first American Revolution start over taxes? ...
10
The automatic cuts to Medicare of 25 Billion a year will cut chemotherapy for cancer patients since it isn't protected from the cuts. Cancer centers will turn away seniors. Making America Great Again.
11
Senators Flake and McCain, make your fellow Arizonans proud, vote against this ugly bill. Hold Congress accountable, force hearings and compromises, work through committees, listen to economists. You know you should. You have the power. You have nothing to lose but your self-respect, and the respect of your constituents.
16
Between tax heist, collusion, destruction of Medicare, Social Security and the economy, the GOP will be distancing themselves from what they got Trump to do for the next 30 years. They’ll be back in 5-8 years asking for bank bailouts.
10
I don't know how it affects medicare, but I thought Soc Security was not being touched.
Hmmm, NYT where were you when the ACHA was being debated? I see similarities....many pages (ACHA 2300, Tax bill 500), party in power wants to ram the bill through without in depth consideration, deep partisan divide. I am not saying that the tax bill doesn't have it issues but come on guys, you can't have it both ways.
The ACHA legislation was in writing for a year. The left bent over backwards to accommodate the right in taking amendments and modifications. The gall of the right in equating the two is disingenuous and infuriating.
14
Agreed @sarahferguson. I am not disagreeing with this editorial at all. In fact, it hits the nail right on the head. It would have been nice however, to read something similar in the months leading up to a landmark law that will forever change the American society.
From Fortune magazine:
"The ACA made it out of committee in the House of Representatives in July 2009, after a month-long markup and 160 Republican amendments. The House didn’t vote on it until November 7th.
In 2010, the Senate health committee spent nearly 60 hours over the course of 13 days marking up the legislation that would become the ACA.
The Senate Finance Committee held 53 meetings about the ACA and an eight-day markup of the bill, which was the longest markup for the committee in over 20 years. The committee considered 130 amendments and held 79 roll-call votes.
There were 44 hearings and public events about the plan in the Senate alone.
The bill was signed into law in March 2010, 8 MONTHS after it emerged from committee in the House."
So, no not having both ways. The Republicans are rushing, gleefully hurtling to vote on a disastrous tax "reform" that really is only tax cuts for the rich and their donors. They better hope they have more donors than constituents come election day.
8
The Democrats lost the election. The Republicans won. Put up better candidates next time.
4
So that means corruption is OK? Blowing up the deficit to give tax breaks to the wealthy is OK? Running our government into the ground by incompetence is OK? Is this what you voted for?
My side may have lost but we will still hold those who won accountable.
12
Presidents are supposed to represent all the people not just the voters who favored them. And, in Trump's case he look lost the popular vote by the biggest margin ever.
2
Traveling Prof, you are wrong. The Democrats won the election. It is the Electoral College that handed the office to Trump. The type of man the EC was hoping to prevent. So much for the "wisdom" of the FF's.
2
It was a key campaign plank.
It has to get done.
It has to get done NOW, before we lose control of the Senate and it's lost for a long time.
It's complex and we will find out what's in it after we pass it.
Just like the ACA.
Everyone needs to slow down, compromise and talk it through to a bipartisan solution.
Like that's going to happen in DC.
1
the ACA was debated for a year - features like a government alternative provider were negotiated out. the tax cut was introduced last week.
12
The ACA ruined my business and made my insurance go up $6000 in the first year with greater deductibles, couldn't use my cancer doctors and it was cumbersome, intrusive and stupid. Everyone who was forced on to it knows what a pain it was.
Because many of those who made under $50,000 - and especially those under $20,000 who couldn't afford the ACA and didn't get insurance are the ones that were hit with the tax mandate more than anyone. A total tragedy.
Just like the ACA?
I don't know which phony baloney right wing aggregator you get your information from - but I don't think you can really compare the deliberation and consideration with which the ACA was passed to the ridiculous, helter skelter methods presently being used by the Republican majority in Congress to pass this piece of garbage masquerading as responsible legislation.
2
he way some bills -- for example, on healthcare or taxation -- are proceeding in the House and the Senate is downright undemocratic. With no open debate and no allocation of time to absorb feedback from the public and the media, how can we call the proceedings in the House and the Senate democratic?
The fault lies on a skimpy Constitution, prepared in a hurry, and to accommodate slavery, which is worded in so few words that there are no prescribed rules for when, what, and how the laws are to be passed or executed that it leaves it to the whims of the two Speakers and the President to proceed as they wish.
We need a Constitution with detailed rules of democracy. The ideas which were modern two centuries ago are no longer valid. It is time to call a new Constitutional Assembly to formulate a new Constitution, leaving as little as possible for the intervention of the Supreme Court, lately populated with partisan, not neutral, justices, and for the Speakers to behave as if they were Kings with divine rights to rule and to do as they pleased. It is also time to retire the lopsided system of unequal representation. Two senators each for tiny as well as mammoth states? That is not democratic.
The way some bills -- for example, on healthcare or taxation -- are proceeding in the House and the Senate is downright undemocratic. With no open debate and no allocation of time to absorb feedback from the public and the media, how can we call the proceedings in the House and the Senate democratic?
The fault lies on a skimpy Constitution, prepared in a hurry, and to accommodate slavery, which is worded in so few words that there are no prescribed rules for when, what, and how the laws are to be passed or executed that it leaves it to the whims of the two Speakers and the President to proceed as they wish.
We need a Constitution with detailed rules of democracy. The ideas which were modern two centuries ago are no longer valid. It is time to call a new Constitutional Assembly to formulate a new Constitution, leaving as little as possible for the intervention of the Supreme Court, lately populated with partisan, not neutral, justices, and for the Speakers to behave as if they were Kings with divine rights to rule and to do as they pleased. It is also time to retire the lopsided system of unequal representation. Two senators each for tiny as well as mammoth states? That is not democratic.
7
Perhaps if you took some time to actually learn how our government works you would realize that the whole purpose of how the Senate was set up was indeed to have 2 senators per state unlike the House which is based on population. This was purposely done to compromise between tiny states and mammoth states so that mammoth states don't run over tiny states, but they do still have more importance in the house. On top of that, the constitution clearly outlines the democratic process of the legislative branch, but rather our congressman are failing to follow it. Sorry it does not hold our legislators' hands during the process of making a bill. Lastly, the Constitution has almost no relationship to slavery which was still fully active at the time the Constitution was written, and unfortunately it was not called into question until the mid 1800s. The Constitution was anything but rushed, as we even had another Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, before the Constitution which we decided did not work. Get your facts straight.
The constitution was not rushed at all. Our founders took what many believed was too much time at the Philadelphia convention and even had written another constitution, the Articles of Confederation, which was failing, thus providing a basis of what to include and what not to include. Slavery had nothing to do with a "rushed" constitution, as it was not the most important topic of discussion until about the mid 1800s. The constitution clearly outlines the democratic process that you feel is lacking, but unfortunately our congressman are just too immature to remember how compromises work. On top of that, I question your critique of the Senate not being representative because the whole point of the Senate was to have 2 representatives for each State (which the small states preferred) and the House was to have population based representation (which the big states preferred). This was known as the Great Compromise. Out of curiosity, how would you suggest states be represented instead?
I have read the US Constitution repeatedly and I have found it too loosely worded to govern the country democratically. Tiny states and the electoral college system give the appearance of the tail wagging the dog. Maybe the tiny states should join to form larger states. Or the larger states should break up into smaller states to make representation in the Senate fair.
What about gerrymandering? It is a device to defeat fair representation. Another blow to democracy.
Look at India. India's Constitution runs into some 350 pages. 300 people met over two years and multiple committees were formed to draft different parts of the Constitution. You might say that a lengthy Constitution did not make India a particularly more democratic or efficient country. Give India 200 years and something remarkable is about to happen. At least, it is becoming better. America, on the other hand, is becoming worse. Once elected, the politicians are totally under the control of lobbyists who are funded and directed by the plutocrats. The Constitution has nothing to prevent that from happening. Wealth is cunningly, continuously, and constitutionally being diverted into the hands of a small group of very rich people. How democratic is that?
The Achilles heel of our democracy is that there are enough voters who don't value their votes. Some abstain from voting all together for a variety of reasons. Some others vote without rational comprehension of important issues. In no election currency (dollars) is counted instead of the votes cast. Yet, time and again, from local to national elections the winning candidates are beholden to the rich who are actually a minority in number. It is as if the campaign contributions from the rich are the true ballots and not the votes cast by the majority! We will have a better democracy and better future for all Americans only when money ceases to have the most influence in any election outcome.
11
You think that this scam is so obvious. It is to me. And to everyone who responds to the article. What is abundantly clear is that it is not at all obvious to far more than Trump's base. I strongly suspect that the majority of voters in this country have no idea what is being done or are misinformed.
13
You guys can nitpick all you want but of course you miss the big picture because you don't like it. Some facts you forget to mention are: over 40% of the people pay no federal income taxes now and don't give a hoot about who wins or loses under the whatever plan may actually be enacted. The working poor will not be affected. Even more will pay no taxes with the $24k standard deduction for most families. The main deductions taken by most families remains, the interest deduction on home mortgages (under $400k) and the child tax credit which is going to be increased. You also fail to note (like most Dems) that the wealthy get a bigger tax decrease because THEY PAY MORE TAXES! And even then the GOP tax proposal keeps the 40% tax bracket for the very wealthy and takes away some of their deductions.
With regard to the corporate tax breaks, i.e. the 20% rate, the important thing is that the 20% tax rate should be actually paid by the corporations and they should not be able to get a tax rate (with deductions) lower than 20%. Finally, everything is premised upon assumptions that cannot be verified until the tax cuts go into effect. Like the partisan Obamacare package enacted seven years ago, we will not know how the bill works until it starts working. If the GOP is right and it generates increased growth, it will be a success and everyone opposing it will look silly. If it fails like Obamacare has, the opposition will increase and there will be calls for its repeal.
2
Obamacare has faltered (it's not yet failing) because the right has been cutting the supports out from underneath from the start...
9
Tax cuts have never generated economic growth. It’s a lie. We know this because it has been tried many times before.
11
The 515 page mammoth is nothing compared to the 2300 page affordable care act bill that was railroaded through the senate on a party line vote only and through reconciliation. Tsk, tsk. It's a shame that what the Democrats started during the Obama administration has come back around to bite them.
1
THe ACA was debated well over a year. Republicans refused to collaborate.
Why don't you feel that health care should be a fundamental right - not something tied to employement?
2
Did you forget all the hearings for the ACA? Because there are many. This bill? It’s a stinker. So bad that they don’t want you to know what’s in it
Any congressman or Senator that votes for this bill must be voted out of office and their careers ended. They are engaged in a grand theft to reward their donors.
That said, unfortunately ignorant people cannot keep Democracy because they cannot see what is in their self interest.
If the voters, Republican or Democrat do not see through this scam, no one can help them and deserve the consequences.
They will all be equal opportunity sufferers.
7
1929 Redux, here we come. It's "deja vu, all over again."
3
This is the final transition to Oligarchy.
The 1% control every branch of government and don't care what the rest of the country thinks.
No one is in a position to stop them.
This is a crisis that few seem to recognize.
Treason comes to mind.
Either this whole crowd ends up in prison, or we have a firmly ensconced Oligarchy.
There's no "in between".
9
Have you looked at your 401(k) lately? Do you even know what the GDP is and how it compares now to the Obama administration? Can you tell me the unemployment rate? My suggestion to you is to lay off Twitter and look at really matters. You'll feel better.
Hope all you republican Reps and Senators, who worry about the competency and mental health of our president, realize that voting for this horrific tax plan assures that you will give Trump the victory he needs to lead your party for the nex 7 years. Is that really what you want?
2
Nero has nothing on Trump and the GOP. In fact Nero looks downright tame compared to what they are doing to America. Would that we could simply describe it as nation wrecking and then try to avoid the wrecking ball by leaving the country.
Just think, we're not even dropping LSD for this wild trip Trump and the GOP are taking us on. We're living in reality.
4
The NYT push for socialism ignores the obvious, the President's economic plan has already added trillions of dollars in investment in the U.S. economy and will continue to help people across the board, if given the chance.
1
Nope it won't. Trickle down never worked and the Bush tax cuts led to a recession for Obama to resolve. Stocks are way overpriced and I don't see where your trillion dollars of investment are invested in. Not in infrastructure, education, health care, to name a few. Maybe the gun and weapons industry? How would that help the average American?
2
What plan? Corporations are salivating because of expectations of massive tax cuts so the stock market is rising. Please provide evidence of trillions of dollars in investment since Trump took office and who this investment has helped.
5
And push thousands more into poverty and death by lack of affordable health care.
GOP, Greed Over People.
6
There's not much more that can be said except that the result on the fiscal house violates the law on reconciliation.
It violates the Byrd rule. See 2 U.S.C 644. Along with the relatively minor offense of having provisions that don't relate to changes in outlays or revenues, or merely pretend to relate to them, it will increase the deficit in a year beyond those covered in the bills. Thus the proposal for a trigger - if a few years in the wild projections don't turn out to be true, some or all of it gets changed to avoid the deficit. That's ridiculous too, since the argument for it is that giving money to corporations will allow them to invest long term, since if they don't know how much they are getting, they won't invest.
And I don't buy the argument that the donors will cut these guys off if they don' t pass it either. Who are they going to give their funding to, Democrats? Are they going to primary more wackos than the ones they funded to get this far? How would they control such folks? Those donors aren't that stupid. Or are they?
7
The Democrats have failed to stand up clearly against the bill in 50 characters or less, and the press has failed to cover it with a clear headline above the fold. Trump has everyone distracted, and we keep taking the bait.
While we pat ourselves on the back for not being deplorable and racist, Trump pushes through a terrible tax bill that funds billionaire tax breaks from our 401k accounts.
13
So if revenue comes in higher than expected, then the bill has a tax-cut provision that would benefit business... but not apply to individuals. Why not use that excess revenue to start paying down the deficit?
7
when state and local deductions are eliminated, along with no health deductions for the elderly which will be a burden on families with the elderly, do you actually people will be in a position to buy more and get the economy moving faster. Do the math. This bill more likely will send us into a recession.
If this passes, being turfed out in 2018 would be the nicest thing that could happen to this crew....
4
For those looking to increase their investments, I’d say the market for pitchforks is about to go up.
1
This is precisely how Wisconsin's Republican-controlled government has been run since 2010. Legislation is rammed through the system within days and without public input or debate.
Good legislation takes months to craft and tweak. Not so with Republicans, sadly.
Why are Republicans so mean-spirited when it comes to governance.
14
They are doing their billion corporate donors will.
3
The GOP has long believed in a strange form of social Darwinism whose basic tenet is that the business class is somehow inherently superior to the rest of us mere mortals . Trump certainly believes this and, rather than having transformed his party, he has merely given voice to its heretofore tacit philosophy. Therefore it is not surprising that despite their oft professed love for democracy and the Constitution, Trump and today's GOP sincerely believe that it is in the nation's best interest to transform it into a Putinesque oligarchy. At its core "trickle down economics" aims to re-create gilded age paternalism and to resurrect the company store. It aims to create a world in which a small measure of economic security is to be paid for by absolute fealty and obedience. In short trickle down economics is the antithesis of America. Yet Americans keep voting for it over and over again.
7
In addition to the negative impact of this so called tax bill on those of us not at the top of the economic scale, also consider the boasting, bragging, nose thumbing, and extreme back patting by Donald Trump we're going to have to perpetually endure if this thing passes.
3
The republican senate is rushing to pass this tax bill in the hopes that
We The People don't find out the details in the bill that will increase taxes on the working poor who will see their Tax Rate go UP from 10% to 12%.
These republicans in the senate don't want us in the middle class who have kids and Itemize our Deductions on our Federal Tax return to find out that in the very first year this bill would go into effect, we will see our Tax Due on that return to have gone UP, yes UP by over $1,000.00, or much more, depending on our gross income.
If the senate passes this tax bill, you can be sure that the house will rush their actions and get it passed and on to the Trump desk for his signature.
5
Should anyone think your medical insurance and medical costs are not included in this legislation -- think again. On Medicare -- that too is affected by this legislation. Single or lost a spouse -- better watch what happens to your deductions if over $12,000.
The process chosen by the Republicans gives the public no time to grasp what is happening. On top of that, it seems the President is not telling us the truth!
4
Seems?
Simplified version of the tax discussion:
Democrats want to spend money to help the less affluent.
Republicans want to spend money to help the rich.
We all know who really needs the help.
We all know which way is the right way.
We must stand up to bring moral conscience back to our country.
16
My secure middle-class life in retirement will remain solid, but I will have to make spending adjustments due to my projected higher taxes:
Dear General Motors: I'll be keeping my car of another couple years, and then look for a late-model used car.
Dear California Pizza Kitchen: No more spur-of-the-moment dinners out. Your not really a special occasion restaurant, so I don't know when I'll see you again.
Dear Housekeeper: Do you think you could come every THREE weeks?
Dear Local Small Business: Congrats on your tax reduction. I'll be renewing my Amazon Prime and Costco memberships.
Dear United Airlines: When my frequent flyer miles are all used up, I'll be flying Southwest or Alaska. (This is just on general principles, has nothing to due with tax increases).
Dear Niece and Nephew: I love and am proud of you both. I'm sorry this Country is shafting you. If your Aunt and I remain healthy, there might be an inheritance to help you pay off your student loans.
20
Everyone needs to write their Senators, complain loudly if their senator is planning to vote for this, or might. That's how this can be stopped. That's the only way.
Senators need voters to keep their job - if enough of us speak, they will back down, and it does and has worked in the past.
7
Considering how much interest the Koch's have in funding college education for their conservative think tanks, I see what's behind the planned tax increase for graduate students who get tuition waivers. This will knock out a whole generation of liberal thinkers. This provision must be part of the plan to create a permanent oligarchy.
17
The Koch boys have also made sure that there are no exhibits about climate change in the Museum of Natural History, even those relating to mass extinctions, which coincide with critical branching points in evolution.
Next they will ruin the neighborhood by transforming the place into a dinosaur amusement park, perhaps with statues of cave men among the fossil displays.
7
exactly. google "citigroup plutonomy report". This has been in the works for decades, now they have the majority to force it through.
2
Koch is no longer on the board.
Pop quiz! Without knowing the details of the Republican tax plan, without even reading any of it, how can we tell immediately that it's a very, very bad idea? Answer: we can know that it's a terrible idea simply because ANY tax cut at this time is a bad idea!
In fact, the basic Republican plan (like all Republican plans), designed to further enrich the already rich, both individuals and corporations, is the very opposite of what we should be doing. We should be increasing taxes on them so that we can invest in infrastructure, in retraining for the chronically unemployed, provide more and better healthcare for our citizens and (oh yeah, conservatives), reduce the deficit and the debt. And that's just for starters.
Instead the GOP is running at warp speed in the opposite direction. How can we stop this rolling existential crisis?
16
Vote Democratic! Phone Congress.
Almost everything about this tax plan is irrational, from raising taxes on the middle class, to promoting it as a 'job stimulus' when corporate America says it is not that at all. The tax plan is just as irrational as the GOP has become on their quest to 'win', even when they know that a year from now they will never be able to justify it. The tax plan is also just as irrational as the man who will claim it as his own; Donald J. Trump I learned long ago, you simply cannot reason with a person, or people, who are irrational. The GOP will get their first 'win' and they will celebrate mightily. Come March of next year, when the primary season heats up, you will see these same folks heading for their bunkers, not their Town Hall Meetings. This is simply a cruel gesture on the part of a political party that has lost all rational thought.
11
This is theft on a large scale from a party that doesn’t give a darn about American families!
Current American campaign finance system Citizens United partisan Supreme Court outdated Electoral College = demise of a working Congress.
There's another term for this insane legislation - it's the Potlatch Tax-Bill. Potlatch parties destroyed North American Indigenous communities because the essence of the notion was to 'give till it hurts'. Canada wisely outlawed the practice in the 19th Century - only to see it's repeal less than a century later. And will ya just look at where it's turned up - Washington DC. The Wall Street/Banker/GOP twist on Potlatch giving is that the 'givers' are determined by those whom the practice benefits and who, most certainly, are not the US tax-payers who will foot the bill and suffer the consequences of loss of social safety-nets which so many are reliant upon. Has anyone in the GOP or the Senate or the House read the entire draft for that matter? 'Stink' is putting it mildly.
6
To the few Republican Senators with common sense and conscience: Please vote NO on the current tax bill. It gives tons of money to people who don't need it, while cutting vital services to those in need. And you know this. You're not like the hoard of clueless voters who put Trump in the White House. There is no need to pass a tax bill before the holidays. If you do, you'll essentially be celebrating the bankruptcy of the U.S.
15
Isn't trump signing into law legislation giving himself a billion+ dollar tax cut a conflict of interest?
15
The GOP tax plan is misguided, wrong for most Americans and understood by few. It’s similar to Brexit where, if passed, will astonish Americans as to the implications and consequences for our future. Hopefully, the backlash will chamge the 2018 and 2020 elections
9
Please. Senators. Stop! Just stop a moment and think! The function of any successful government is about solutions, not winning. There is nothing to win, but there is plenty to fix, renovate, and protect – none of which should be combined, rushed, or secretly bartered by a few. Government decisions based upon winning (particularly just to win another chance to win), is playing the stooge for favors, behavior unfit for anyone with moral integrity, anyone who has been honored with the public’s trust. Do your job with due process in due time, and do not turn us into a nation of sickness, poverty and debris.
11
ha you are trying to use reason. they are not listening to us. only to the billionaire donors. the .01%. Time for new tactics, pleading is not going to work.
Sadly, you may be right. I hadn't considered how obsolete common sense has become.
The Republicans are for themselves and the Republican Party only.
They are not for the people they are supposed to be representing.
How did we get a government that is against us?
14
to answer your question without beating around the bush too much, and looking at strategy and not tactics:
currying favors on the Hill and loading the Supreme Court with conservative lackeys allowed our Republican friends' backers to just buy the government... the root solution to all of this is campaign finance reform..
otherwise, most of us will remain at the mercy of people who would sell their own mothers for a quarter.
2
Keep in mind the agenda of the Republicans and libertarians could never gain a majority vote of the American people, thus they must keep gerrymandered districts, the electoral college, and the push for voter suppression. Read Nancy MacLean. “Democracy in Chains”
19
God doesn't make doing His work easy.
What is particularly galling about the increased taxes that will be paid by many in the middle and lower classes is that nobody will actually realize their taxes are increasing until they file their 2018 tax returns sometime in 2019 - well past the next election.
9
An excellent point.
Just think of McConnell owning a dude ranch. He'd put you on an unmanageable horse and point you right toward the edge of the cliff. Then he'd tell your family that he had to do it for their own good.
How did we let him and Ryan control our Congress? Didn't we realize that they care nothing for anyone other their donors and anyone they can con into believing they have our welfare in mind.
4
Didn't we have a revolution about this over 200 years ago starting with, "taxation without representation". That's exactly what is going on now.
8
We had a revolution led by people who objected to reimbursing the British for defending them against the French and their Native allies in the French & Indian War.
2
You want to stop this 1.5 trillion dollar theft of your children's future earnings then Strike.
General Strikes that shut down this country roads, businesses, trade ,schools,power plants and seaports.
If they want to steal our children's money they need to pay for it with their profits today.
It is are only oppsion. The Corporate Dems may act like they hate this bill but in fact their donors love it just like the Republicans donors.
10
A stop-buying-stuff week - only necessities - hit them where it hurts. And do it again and again. Corporations depend on taking our tax dollars, and taking our spending dollars too.
3
If this abomination of a bill is passed with less than 60 votes in the Senate, and passed without a single Democrat vote, then God help Republicans in the 2018 and 2020 elections.
Basically, it seems to me that the aim of this bill is to create a permanent plutocracy in the U.S. I think Independents and Democrats will team up to impeach Trump in 2019 and reverse this horrible bill following the 2020 elections.
8
Please refresh me on how Obamacare was passed
After much discussion, open hearings, discussions between BOTH parties, input from both parties, Obamacare was passed in spite of Republicans choosing to turn it into a party line vote out of spite.
3
To the Editor:
Yes, "The country ought to be dismayed..." by those so-called doubting senators giving in to feeble concessions. Yes, the public ought to be dismayed and protesting as loudly as they did over the efforts to repeal Obama Care. Yes, "This time it's not about true reform but about speed and bowling over the opposition in hopes of claiming partisan victory."
While we are bombarded 24/7 with the next sexual harassment claim; as we are shocked, shocked at seeing another actor, newscaster, anchor, comedian or politician go down in flames, an immoral, inexcusable and disgraceful tax reform bill, slated to harm millions of middle class as well as sick citizens is being rushed through the Senate by gleeful Republicans.
If this isn't harassment on a major scale by a mean-spirited administration bent on helping the super rich at all cost I don't know what is.
Ellen Shire
6
"History will remember them for what they are: smaller scams aimed at winning support for a much bigger one." LOL--How can History remember if it cannot even get the present straight?
2
Repeal and Replace the Trump-Republican Tax Disaster!
Say it again: Repeal and Replace the Trump-Republican Tax Disaster!
Say it over and over again until November 2018, and then go vote for candidates who will do it (and work hard to elect them from now until then).
6
You should be paying more attention to items not being discussed:
1) Dividends are taxed at a lower rate, mainly because they are paid from after tax earnings of corporations. Since corporate taxes are being reduced, the tax rates on dividends should be increased to recapture these savings.
2) Reduced rates on investment income, including capital gains favor the wealthy, income of lower and middle income taxpayers is primarily wages which are taxed at full rates.
3) What happened to eliminating the loophole of taxing income from carried interest as capital gain. It is, after all, basically disguised earned income.
Fairness requires that Individuals with comparable amounts of income bear the same tax burden irrespective of source. Reduction of rates by source is only justified in situations such as:
a) On dividends to recognize underlying taxes paid.
b) On long term capital gains because of inflation aspect included.
Income tax rates should not be used as an incentive to investment, as this provides reward without actual proven investment. Tax credits and specific deductions are far better targeted incentives.
The proposed tax bill is not reform; but hap-hazard tax reduction for the wealthy that will possibly create unralized consequences and new loopholes.
THIS S IS FOR YOUR EDITORIAL CONSIDERATION AND INSPERATION - NOT FOR PUBLICATION.
2
Have to wonder how they bought McCains vote for the new tax bill? Maybe the new tax cut for beer makers. His wife owns a large beer distributorship. I guess it figures since his roots are in the Republican party.
6
His daughter will inherit multi-millions, all tax free. It's the Meghan McCain-Ivanka Trump Act.
This could not happen in a real democracy, our democracy is rotting away. What we see is nothing but a Potemkin village.
How can this once great nation fall so low? Our so-called government is really a criminal syndicate. Scandal upon scandal, incompetence, and greed everywhere. A president who knows nothing and governs from the golf course and per twitter. A president surrounded by people just like him, people without character, integrity, honesty, and basic decency.
Almost one year after the election and no functioning government, unbelievable.
10
Very good, very strong statement.
This is a piece of garbage being passed to pander to donors and try to look like they're doing something - even though they KNOW it will hurt America as a whole, even though it's a huge bill they don't even understand with loopholes and horrible policies hidden all through it.
Just look at one example - removing the tax exemption for teachers buying supplies for their classes. No one sane would consider thinking that it's right to say that a teacher buying supplemental supplies for our kids should lose their tax exemption - but there it is, on the chopping block.
They've no care for what they are doing and are acting from desperation and a total abandonment of all Republican, American, and human principles.
7
This is not a tax plan. It is a christmas stocking filled with everything the rich and the corporations want. Now they've even stuffed in Arctic drilling. Anyone who votes for it should be ashamed of themselves but republicans are no longer ashamed of anything.
9
What cannot withstand scrutiny cannot be righteous. These Republican Senators are dishonest, as dishonest as Donald Trump.
The tax plan is robbery from the poor to benefit the rich and people like Trump, and just like robbers, they are making a heist and trying to get away with it.
Woe is to America. How has America come to this? To use a famous Chinese expression:
Is there no longer any justice in the realm? That is, Is there no King's Law--"Wang Fa"--anymore? Guess not, when the robber is the king.
In the West, Robin Hood stole from the rich to help the poor. These guys are Robbing Hoods--stealing from the poor. When the king is the robber, there is no hope for the people--it is a den of thieves.
A banana republic the US has become under Trump. May God help America.
5
The Republican Senators are not pickpocketing the middle class , they are also putting guns on our head and robbing us in open day light. They are criminals. They are phony and fraud. They are thugs. They are cheating us. Trump is also awarding the Republican donors top 1% super rich a big tax cut and providing racist tweets to his base. What can we do? These Republicans are of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
4
Yes, and any U.S. senator/house member who votes for this tax bill is a traitor.
5
The go-to GOP chestnut lie, "trickle-down economics," has been resuscitated once more as the GOP, mendacious and cynical self-described patriots, ignores the "general Welfare," and "domestic Tranquility" of and "Justice" for working Americans as it damns "our Posterity" while giving the very wealthy a trillion and a half dollars.
Unless a few Republicans reveal themselves as anything but Koch Bros. and NRA toadies, this benighted plan, exposed by the CBO and virtually every economist of note as a sanctioned and destructive transfer of wealth to the already wealthy, will soon come to fruition, with the virtual certainty that most Americans will get hammered in the short- and long-term as the wealth of the 1% putatively trickles down on the heads of America's 99%.
Lost also is any confidence that American voices are even heard much less considered by Congress as, by pushing this obscene bill without the debate such a complex matter demands, it gives democracy the bum's rush.
But perhaps it's not too late to at least amend this shameful legislation. For example, if state and local taxes are no longer deductible, let's add a proviso that taxpayers will get a federal tax credit, on a pro rata basis, for every dollar collected from states who pay more into federal coffers than they receive. Or a pro rata reduction according to how much a state contributes to the GDP or a deduction based on the amounts states invest in education and infrastructure that drive economies?
1
Of course this so called tax bill stinks, the Republican party has become the swamp.
8
It doesn't matter. Trump could run the country right into the ground like Bush and Fox News would convince half the population it was the fault of the Democrats. Or Obama. Or immigrants, Muslins, transgender people, etc. Pick your scapegoat. Anybody but Trump himself.
10
This bill is Gov. Brownbecks dream for Kansas on a national scale. Republicans never learn. Sad
8
It will take decades to undo the harm being done by this unfit president, his unqualified appointees, and the incompetent good-ol'boy Congress.
Selfish, greedy, mean, hypocrites all.
10
'Wealth Reform', not phony 'Tax Reform', is the only answer.
In retrospect, we were already gutted by this Empire well before Emperor Trump took over the CFPB after Thanksgiving --- so a gift would seem inappropriate.
As I commented on the Harvard Law School's Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation 6/15 analysis:
https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/06/15/financial-choice-act-of-2017/
“What the dual Vichy-party facade of democracy has given the American people through all of these explosive financial de-regulations; H.R.10 "Financial CHOICE Act", S 327, and H.R. 3354 — "Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act" (you can't make this stuff up), even prior to blowing-up the CFPB, is basically equivalent of the Reichstag fire in turning our weaken democratic Republic into a formal EMPIRE --- and a Disguised Global Capitalist Empire best suited to looting our former country and its people.”
Eg. H.R. 10 Subtitle D--Leadership of Financial Regulators
(Sec. 351) The bill amends the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to modify the membership of the FDIC such that 'all five members shall be appointed by the President'.
(Sec. 352) The bill amends the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 to 'allow the President to remove' the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) without cause.
As Porky Pig might well say, “That's all folks” --- get ready for the real 'heavy-duty' looting.
2
"As more senators show signs of sacrificing their principles and embracing the Republican tax bill"
I laughed out loud at this one. Republican "principles" are perfectly represented in this bill.
8
The reasons the Republicans are rushing the bill through Congress is that the longer it takes, the more goodies will get tucked into it for cronies. If the primary provisions get enacted, the tax code improves.
When the Democrats shut down the government unless the Bush tax cuts on the rich were repealed, when the Democrats finally won, they tucked in bennies for Warren Buffett, GE, NASCAR and the movie industry. When the tax cuts expired, households with income over $150,000 up to $500,000 got tax increases. The Democrats considered people with income of $150,000 rich. Buffett and the rest of the uber wealthy got goodies that more than offset the $14 increase in their income taxes.
This bill, touted by Democrats as a tax on the middle class, gives 80% of households with income below $250,000 a tax cut, 80% of households with incomes from $250,000 to $600,000 tax increase.
The only way to increase taxes on households with income above $600,000 is to eliminate their ability to control their fortunes in perpetuity via private charitable trusts. They are not giving up the high paying jobs as philanthropists in perpetuity for their heirs. So that's not happening. Just as the Democrat tax increase on the rich didn't touch the uber rich, this one won't either.
1
Trump has bloviated on how people will be able to file their tax returns on a postcard. REAL reform would have TRUMP filing HIS tax return on a postcard -- and paying at least at the same rate as citizens who mop the floors at the White House.
4
There are many things that elude to this being a bad bill, including the title. But you don’t need to get past the second sentence to find more evidence, as the author states the fact that it is a “515 page mammoth.” Sure I don’t know much about what goes into writing a bill, but 515 pages is above average. With its astounding length most Senators won’t be able to analyze it in detail, allowing the republicans, who have majority, to pass it when voting occurs as early as this Thursday. This proposal would not only push middle class families into higher tax brackets, but also replace the Consumer Price Index with the Chained Consumer Price Index, which increases at a slower rate. It would also decrease government benefits and change how the government adjusts for inflation. Personally I feel this tax plan is ridiculous, and I find the fact that it is even under consideration absurd. The author details what the Reagan Administration went through to finalize their tax plan, including the fact that it took multiple years, numerous drafts, many hearings, and various compromises. The fact that they spent all that effort shows they had the people in mind, so why can’t the Trump administration do that too?
1
In the rush for passage, the tax bill may not be focused or targeted on investing these tax cuts in the right investments; but, instead on those already offering exceptional returns in the midst of price bubbles. Smaller total returns will result from such misdirected tax cuts.
Present corporate stock valuations are at unprecedented levels due to record-breaking profits. With real wages stagnant over the short and longer runs, the opportunity costs of investing in Keynesian "pump priming" via corporate tax cuts seem to be very high versus tilting such tax cuts toward investments in workers with potentially higher marginal returns than can be gained from cuts in already flourishing corporations' tax rates.
As the Reagan Administration's realty tax cuts eventually created a bubble in real estate markets during its terms, via severe shortening of statutory depreciable useful lives; so too this bill may compound and magnify a growing bubble in equity markets.
[JJL Th 11/30/2017 1:08 p.m. Greenville NC]
Never before this year have i considered advocating for a political litmus test in vetting a candidate for any legislative or executive office. But desperate times require desperate measures.
In the foreseeable future, my litmus test is as follows: each candidate must sign a pledge that their first order of governing business as a public servant will be to write and pass a bill which would dismantle each and every provision of the tax bill that will soon become law. She or he must pledge to nullify the structure of the proposed tax schedule in its entirety. Additionally, she or he must vote to nullify each sickening amendment lurking on the fringes of this bill, including the elevation of fetal rights over those of the mother bearing that fetus, the opening of the Alaskan wilderness to rapacious drilling, and the termination of the separation of church and state.
No pledge, no vote. It's come to this.
4
Well, there's a lot of anger among our Citizens - I mean the ordinary Citizen - now. After this so called Tax Whatever becomes law and the affects are felt, and our votes will no longer count, what will happen? Our federal and local governments will not permit street protest or organizations of protest. Are we doomed to this life?
1
The GOP is so desperate to show their billionaire donors that they're not completely incompetent that they are voting against the interests of the voters who elected them. If this bill passes, they may keep their donors (who'll have even more money to support them) but they will lose their voters, the next elections and probably the GOP itself.
2
Too late now, this atrocity of a bill WILL pass.
The American people are paying more attention than usual this time.
If this ends up costing them more, just so billionaires and corporations can have massive tax cuts, they'll remember who is responsible.
Trump and the GOP are hard selling this as a middle class tax cut, where the wages of the average American will go up, and our deficits will disappear.
Obviously that's all a lie.
Hopefully the GOP will be getting the deserved blame for this by claiming these tax cuts will fix every problem in the US.
However, the economy is better today than a year ago. Much better, and that is 'real life'.
Maybe we're heading for a crash, but until then the economy is simply doing better: unemployment at 17-year low, GNP is growing 3+%, and, yes, the stock market is booming.
Any reasonable person would agree the economy under Trump is better than it was for 8 years under Obama. Not great, but better.
Americans vote with their pocket book.
If the economy keeps going like it is now nobody will blame Trump or the Republicans for this heinous bill because the effects won't be apparent and felt enough by 2020 and Trump will win re-election.
But I blame the weak Democratic leadership for this.
Where were the grand speeches by Obama and Hillary, Chuck and Nancy?
Where was the mobilization of seniors, students etc.?
A bill so despicable should be easy to defeat if they really wanted to, but the winners of this bill are the donors of both parties.
3
I would like to know which right wing think tank wrote this bill. It's obvious that our so called "lawmakers" did not, they still don't seem to know what is in it by the number of deals they have to make to appeal to those in their own party who have specific concerns. Had it been drafted in the traditional sense, there would have been compromises long before the draft went to the committees.
But most of all the very idea that a piece of legislation that impacts ALL Americans would be so punitive to parts of the country that were not represented by the ruling party is the most repugnant thing that I believe has ever been attempted before. It shows that this bill could only have been drafted by pure ideologues. And I sincerely hope that because of this, the GOP pays a heavy price in 2018 and the decades to follow for their assault on millions of innocent citizens.
1
Blue states should immediately respond by raising taxes on corporations by 15 percent, raising the top rate for the ultrawealthy and taxing large estates. Every dollar in federal tax cuts for individuals and corporations in blue states should go to these states. The money should be used to fund k12 and college education(and student loans), provide health care for millions of poor who risk loosing health insurance, offsetting increases in medical premiums, guard the environment and maintain regulations, and all the other havoc that trump and the gop are causing. Medicare and social security are in imminent danger. Blue states have to step in ti protect their seniors and vulnerable individuals
2
This bill is not tax reform, it is a catch all nightmare designed to advance so many agendas no one will be able to estimate the destruction to our nation until the damage is done.
3
At this point, my only hope is that like the addict, America finally hits bottom and goes into rehab.
If we are going to borrow trillions for something, I would rather see it invested in education, infrastructure, and scientific research.
6
And the partisan antics in Congress continue, sadly. Many on the Republican side are backing away from voicing their criticisms and doubts, though that doesn't mean that they will vote for it unless something went in to sweeten the pot. Oh well, regardless of what they want, the Senate does not control the purse strings, that's the House of Representatives.
And the rest of the population can see through the scam. However, most people are too apathetic about it or have a learned helplessness that says that nothing they can do will change things. The latter has a grain of truth to it, from a certain point of view, simply because far too many do nothing.
While what I will next say might not be overly liked by some or many readers, I will use an example of a group that does manage to use the people to influence Congress, The National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA is routinely outspent by its opponents by a large margin when it comes to lobbying, and yet it regularly wins or stonewalls the measures they want. It manages to do this for one simple reason, it sends notices to its members and those who subscribe to its newsletter about the issue, along with a way for said people to send a letter to their representatives in Congress. This is around five million people all around the nation who are on all sides of the political spectrum.
In other words, if the people don't like what's going on, they should write their representatives in Congress and tell them. It works.
Excellent headline. Is this the message that will turn McCain into a no vote? He opposed the partisan nature of the ACA repeal and the lack of thought that went into the process. He needs to go a bit further to make me a fan. A no vote on this tax bill would probably flip me.
There was no way to adequately comprehend the Affordable Care Act is it was hastily passed through congress. The new tax bill is no different.
There was plenty of debate and negotiation on both the House and Senate floors regarding the A.C.A. Here, there’s been none; all back room deals.
The two are not equivalent.
The return of the chained CPI was last seen in Paul Ryan’s attack on Social Security, which uses the CPI-U rather than the more accurate CPI-E. Using the chained CPI as a measure of inflation is a terrible idea. This tax bill is a betrayal of the poor, the middle class, the elderly, and the disabled. As another commenter said, any Senator who supports this is a traitor (at least to American ideals of egalitarianism).
2
With the singular achievement of the Affordable Care Act (now being systematically undermined), US federal policy has been increasingly regressive, mean-spirited and shamelessly pro-rich/pro-corporate for decades. Corruption and the role of big money have become more and more evident, more and more shameless and blatant. That's why the US of all developed countries has been steadily marching backward in terms of population health, life expectancy, quality of life, state of infrastructure from roads to sewers to drinking water, and much else, while wealthy Americans and US investors (domestic and foreign) get richer at an unprecedented pace. Some affluent states and municipalities have counteracted federal policy through local policy and services, but most have experienced the general slide. The decline of America for most Americans, rather than creating conditions for more progressive politics, produces just the opposite, with ideology, partisanship, lies and distortions, racism, xenophobia and social exclusion all on the ascent. For such a rich country with such a gifted and energetic population, this is truly tragic. The abomination of this congress is symptomatic of the terrible decline in fairness and decency fuelled by big money, just as the current administration is an affront to intelligence and civility, yet solidly backed. It's hard not to despair.
2
When I read about this bill guts the middle class, it makes me sick to think how the ruling GOP is driving this country off a cliff. I told my university students that under this new bill, they would not be able to deduct their school loan interest from their taxes. They had absolutely no idea. Part of the reason that Republicans are able to (probably) pass this dreadful legislation is that Americans are not paying attention. Among my students, both conservative and liberal, I see a general disgust with politics that caused them simply to turn off. Now is the time for us to be vigilant so that Trump does not further divide us along ideological, racial, and cultural lines, or lead us to greater inequality and global vulnerability in trade and security.
2
Any U.S. senator/house member who votes for this tax bill is a traitor.
31
This is the final transition to Oligarchy.
The 1% control every branch of government and don't care what the rest of the country thinks.
No one is in a position to stop them.
This is a crisis that few seem to recognize.
1
Make no mistake this is a Ryan McConnell bill padded by ALEC. This is a not make America great again bill it is turn the country into a thirld world country. What a major feet these charlatans have accomplisded. Not only are taxes slased for those who need it least, states and local entities will not be able to compensate. So mush for states rights.
So this is what "freedom" looks like if you are conservative. Eventually the golden prize in the gop eyes will be cut, medicare and social security. Education will be slased along with other middle and lower class programs. But hey it is Ok since fetuses are now people, churches can engage in politics, and gun rights enshrined.
25
Under Obamacare, Democrats voted to remove $0.8 trillion in funding from Medicare. Now that $25 billion of those cuts are phasing in, the NYT is blaming it on Republicans.
What does eliminating the deduction for taxes that the states and municipalities are charging have to do with states rights? The states are free to charge their residents as much as they like; there is no need for the rest of the country to subsidize their profligate spending, or subsidize their underfunded pensions.
The next time you see anybody bashing liberals, remember what they are selling you: nothing left to lose.
Life begins at conception, and ends with birth.
- Conservatives
2
The similarities between how the flawed ACA, otherwise known as Obama care, law was passed and this tax bill which is about to be passed is uncanny. I quote Nancy Pelosi's famous words in a speech when she was pushing passage of the ACA , "we first have to pass it before we know what's in it". Well Nancy it passed and we found out what was in it we didn't like it. Now the Republicans are faced with the same dilemma, unfortunately the NYT back then didn't take the stand they are now taking with this tax reform bill. Perhaps they are reflecting on that past mistake and trying to make up for it now,better late than never.
4
Wrong. The ACA had a year of hearings, and it is increasingly popular. It is unfathomable that the squeeze that will be placed on the majority of the country will be offset by the benefits to the billionaires. Trickle-down economics has been shown not to work, yet here we go again. The people writing and passing this bill are unfit to do so.
5
The mechanisms for passing the ACA and this tax bill cannot be equated. This tax bill has been invented on the fly. It has gone through no hearings. It has been devised strictly on party lines. The process is going through "reconciliation" so that it will only take a majority vote by the GOP. It has been introduced quickly, with final negotiations going on up to the minute of the vote. A 515 page bill needs to be studied over time so that all of it's ramifications can be unearthed and communicated to the public. The ACA took months to pass. It went through bi-partisan hearings and studies. You may not have liked the ACA but the "Process" under which it was put into law was not made secret, nor rushed.
2
Completely false. The Affordable Care Act had more than a year's worth of hearings. This has had less than a week. Nice try!
2
Lets face it the Republicans are con artists,who are deceiving the american people.
23
This is the final transition to Oligarchy.
The 1% control every branch of government and don't care what the rest of the country thinks.
No one is in a position to stop them.
This is a crisis that few seem to recognize
1
Well, Republicans are certainly trying and they are successful wit their base, but that's about it.
I don't find the change to inflation-indexed tax brackets will matter much since no one actually working for a living will be getting raises.
Also, robots don't pay taxes. The deployment of them will be YUGE in order to push more of those troublesome humans out of the workforce.
10
Robots don't buy goods either...they don't need food, water, clothing, tv's, Iphones, cars... will currency not be tied to work in the future? Perhaps a person's entitlement will be an allowance from the government that will be based on how much your grandparents were worth in 2018!
1
If this terrible plan passes, I'm going to retire 15 years earlier than planned rather than see my tax burden exceed half my income. Fortunately, I've saved the resources to do this. Others aren't going to be as lucky.
7
When you retire, you will move to a low cost-of-living state and abandon the folly of California. Who is going to make the payments to bring the pension funds up? Not you.
Buy real estate now because after this bill passes, even the cost of residential property is going to shoot up (the bill frees up more cash for real estate investors to buy more property and has the lowest income tax rate - 20% vs 39.6% - for high income earners). Millennials thought it was difficult to buy property now? They’ll be lucky to retire in their own home.
Ditto with stock prices - buy your stock now. These bills are big ole smooches on the president’s tush by Congress.
3
The real estate industry is saying the housing market will collapse if the bill passes because homeowners will be limited in the deductibility of mortgage interest and property taxes.
6
Raise real estate prices? How? Where? Not anywhere there are high property taxes. In many parts of NYS now the escrow for property taxes is almost as high as the mortgage payment. Who will be able to pay it with the tax deduction limited and the mortgage deduction capped.
Maybe when red staters can no longer afford homes they'll see what we blue staters hate about this bill, too.
Rushing through bills that stink....what Congress does for a living...ACA comes to mind. Quick pass it before anyone can see how terrible the details are. Quick pass it so we (the GOP, the Dems) are taken seriously. and not seen as the pathetic actors we truly are.
9
Please remember that the Dems had hundreds of hours of hearings, consideration of amendments, rewrites and revised mark-ups for the ACA over months. It was not passed quickly but was done through regular order, something the current Republicans in Congress refuse to do about anything. It was passed along party lines because the Republicans could not bring themselves to vote for it for a variety of reasons, even though the entire premise of the bill was based on Republican ideas perfected in Mass under then Gov Romney. And BTW, the overall impact for the country from the ACA has been a resounding benefit, something I see every day as a physician. The current tax bill will cause thousands of people to lose their health insurance, leading to fewer people accessing needed care leading to more untreated disease and preventable deaths. Those are the simple facts. And when the debt explodes b/c of this bill, the Republicans will try to gut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in order to reduce the debt, again hurting the most vulnerable and needy Americans. Crazy!!
1
For everyone that complains about the ACA, what was it about the bill that negatively impacted you? The vast majority of Americans' health insurance was covered by their employers. For those with employer provided coverage, the ACA provided a minimum standard for what their policies should cover, adding protections for pre-existing conditions, cancer screenings, prescription drug coverage and more. And despite rumors to the contrary, the standards of care that this created helped flatten the insurance markets by eliminating essentially junk policies, and slow the growth in the cost of delivery of health care by improving efficiency. What is bad about that?
I'm guessing however, that most people who oppose the ACA are not aware of this. They hear only the Fox News talking points, authored by right wing think tanks funded by the oligarchs who hate the ACA because it placed a new tax on their incomes. Or maybe it's the cries of the libertarians who hate the concept of any government service they would be asked to pay for--until they need it of course.
1
Agree 1000%
Republicans are rushing their “Yea” vote. Like deceitful, pushy salesman and saleswomen trying to get you to sign on the bottom line, they are doing this to stop any thoughtful reading or understanding of the consequence of this Tax Cut.
A 515 page document that is likely incomprehensible to read was introduced just last week. It is filled with lobbyist loopholes for Corporations and the Wealthy to pay even less tax then the Tac Cuts offer. It is technical language with implications throughout a nearly incomprehensible tax code. And, no hearings!
At best this is gross negligence, at worst criminal. If not criminal, we as citizens should make it so – and retroactive!
Also, stop saying the $1.4 trillion added to the federal deficit over 10 years. It is $11.5 trillion over 10 years. The $10.1 trillion already planned plus this $1.4 trillion.
We must find a way to hold self-interested Elected Politicians and their staffers, from both parties, personally liable, responsible and accountable for the lies they have told US, their gross mismanagement of our county, our $20.6 T and growing national debt (108% of GDP), and our $100 T in future, unfunded liabilities they forced on US jeopardizing our economic and national security, while benefiting themselves, their staffers, their party and special interest donors.
http://www.usdebtforum.com
https://www.facebook.com/USDebtForum/
https://twitter.com/USDebtForum
11
If you want to reduce the deficit, you have to reduce spending.
1
The Republicans, every Republican member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, have neither the courage nor the moral integrity to govern. Combine that with an ignorant, self-absorbed, racist, corrupt sexual predator in the White House, and you have a disaster in the making. The only questions left are how much pain and grief they will cause for how many people and how long it will take to right the ship of state once they have been thrown out of office.
8
NYT - don't write what we know, get deeper into the mud. Tell us what we can do that might impact this theft of our now so small middle class.
17
Is there no one left in Congress to speak for the majority? Wy aren't folks marching in the street shouting "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore"?
18
Two other civilizations that increasingly relied on regressive taxation to fund morally bankrupt, authoritarian plutocrats come to mind: Rome in the 400s and France in the 1700s. Wonder how these efforts turned out...
8
Seriously? Credit to booze makers and importers and reduce credit for child care (which allows many women to work) as well as eliminating the credit for interest on student loans.
My despair keeps growing. More wine, please! Dang! Now I've just helped the booze makers again!
8
Let the class wars begin...
Oops, they began some time ago. And Republican plutocrats are beating the $$ out of the rest of us. Income distribution skews, the gini coefficient shows plutocrat gains, growth slows, social safety nets considered mediocre in the rest of the world are attacked.
I spent a career at a leading multilateral development institution that spent $ tens of billions annually to correct such structural flaws in developing countries --the same flaws the GoP's ACA repeal and tax proposal are going to exacerbate to favor the very richest who in turn pay for their campaigns... not to mention environment policies and enforcement. Notwithstanding vested interests, our Third World clients were very much in favor of an inclusive democratic development agenda.
The US is no longer a roll model. It is rolling back our demoratic fabric and gutting watchdog institutions to pay for the greed of the few. It eschews human rights concerns. It cozies up to dictators and risks our international standing and ability to influence events in a good way. The Republican plutocrats are winning.
Time to begin in earnest the class wars. So we can reverse everything Trump, Ryan, McConnell and their GoP Mafia has put in place while America was enjoying itself at the coliseum watching the circus: Moslem bans, neo-Nazis and sexual harassment and the clown president.
8
Compare the gini coefficient for blue cities. Also look at Democrat voters.compared to Republican voters.
On an education basis, Democrats have an overwhelming majority of PhDs as well as an overwhelming majority of people with less than a high school diploma.
There's got to be some big time income and wealth inequality there.
Republicans have a majority of those with a college degree, a smaller majority of those with some college, and the 70% of the wealthiest in the high school diploma as their highest level of academic achievement.
You are apparently one of the elite academics who believe that progressive policies are beneficial. Perhaps you can explain why blue cities in the US have the greatest income inequality and the largest homeless populations as a percent of population. Could it be that your theory is flawed?
Your readers would very much appreciate a detailed list of all the bizarre special items in the tax bill. You could start with the disguised deductibility for private school expenses and oil drilling in Alaska. We need to see that this bill deals with so many things beyond taxes.
21
Wow!! Elections really do matter. Who'd of thought it?
7
Maybe too the Senate is rushing to pass tax reform before Trump gets indicted and the Republican circus turns into a posse of criminal clowns.
9
This tax bill should be killed by the 98% of Americans who it will hurt. The most obnoxious part is where they repeal the estate tax which provides a billion plus to Don Jr. and Eric, the Russia colluding elephant killers and offshore Ivanka. But the bill is wrong and un-American, anyone who votes for it should be voted out. And lock 'em up!
12
Eighty percent of Americans are better off with this tax plan.
Big business cronies are fighting it with their publicity program that it is a tax on the middle class. It is essential that it become effective in 2018. By November 2018 elections, the majority of the educated voters will be well aware that they got a small tax decrease, rather than your hyperbolic 98% are opposed. The majority of the educated voters vote Republican.
>Eighty percent of Americans are better off with this tax plan.
-That's a bald-faced lie.
>Big business cronies are fighting it with their publicity program that it is a tax on the middle class.
-This is just pure gibberish, why would "big business" be "fighting" a tax plan that massively favors them?
>The majority of the educated voters vote Republican.
-And the poor rural folks who will be hit by this the hardest.
Why are you lying to everyone?
2
Is Donald Trump one of those" educated republicans"?
Not to mention what it does to seniors who rely on Social Security and Medicare and the institutions that provide their care; families who care for disabled and seriously ill children; rising healthcare costs for those who bear the burden of increasing expensive care for cancer victims.
7
Obamacare decreed that Medicare beneficiaries have to absorb $25 billion in additional costs in 2018. Why are you blaming Republicans?
Disabled and seriously ill children are covered by Medicaid and have been since decades before Obamacare.
IF, and that's a big IF, the NYTs was actually sincere in what it says, instead of just mouthing the Democrat Party's talking points, then why doesn't it argue for getting rid of ALL deductions, credits, loopholes, etc.? Doing so, in combination with lowering ALL tax rates, would be fair and just, and would get the politics out of the tax code. But no, the NYT only wants to keep the tax breaks it likes in place, while removing those it doesn't. Such an "us versus them" mentality is precisely why the American people are fed up with Washington, hypocritical politicians, condescending elites, and pedantic editorial boards. Enough is enough.
4
Are you kidding? Us vs them? It is, in fact, the small minority benefitting big time at the expense of the huge majority. Some of the deductions *are* beneficial, like the deduction for college loan interest. And why do away completely with the estate tax? Do you want Trump and family to get even richer? This bill is a travesty, and it is the responsibility of the New York Times and all media to shout it from the rooftops.
6
How is it fair and just that a parent supporting children pays taxes the same as a single person with no dependence? How is it fair and just that a school teacher spending her own money on supplies to educate kids has to pay taxes on that money she is spending from her own income?
Eliminating all tax breaks is not "fair and just" - it's the opposite.
Please don't forget the nasty tax on graduate students who will have to pay taxes on the value of their waived tuition. These students are the backbone of academic research, and work for tiny stipends. They are our future teachers and researchers. Many will have to abandon their hopes of a degree. What a loss to our country!
13
Smash and grab is the only policy the Republicans have.
9
Voting these out in the next elections might be too late. Organizing large scale protests take time and that might be difficult before the vote. May I suggest a "Run on the Banks" as a mass protest? Everyone goes to their bank and withdraws as much cash as possible on the day before the vote on this bill? If enough people do it it is sure to send a message!
11
Obama had eight years of opportunity to overhaul the tax code and he did absolutely nothing. It's obvious that the Democrats and their liberal agenda have no interest in making any headway in strengthening our economy. That's why Trump was elected President. Granted this is not any way to pass tax legislation; it is the way it's going to get done. This is really going to unhinge the left.
3
This is untrue...... Republicans who controlled the House and the Senate during most of the Obama years, blocked any bipartisan attempt to overhaul the tax code. They didn't want to have a conversation. They wanted to dictate. That's what they're doing in this terrible bill. And that's why this bill needs to be defeated. Remember Sen. McConnel's infamous charge to the Senate Republican: "Our number one job is to make sure Obama accomplishes nothing."
Ken- Obama had plenty of time to pass tax legislation before he lost both houses to the Republicans.
Having let the financial sector off the hook for the malfeasance of the financial collapse of 2007 and let the Bush 2 war mongers off the hook in 2003 how do you expect to hold the war and financial criminals to account now! These criminals, financial terrorists, political minions and religious Zealots are entering the final ‘administrative re-arrangement’ to the specifications of the unearned income of ignorant billionaires.
Your political system has become a Spoils System, not unlike the south of Tennessee Williams the playwrite, all polite and sweet as long as the boss man was obeyed. Pretty sick place to be.
It may be helpful for once in your life to seek help. Learn from other countries but NO then we might have to share.
2
Give me a break! Corporations are considered citizens under the 14th Amendment. This is a large part of the problem. Leadership has not been able to keep up with Globalization. A return to basics is needed: public transportation for everyone to cut the cost of new highways. People just starting out need: housing, food and transportation. If you have any one problem out of the ordinary, you cannot get these basics here in America, our great Democracy. All the offshore money could pay for may basic needs of citizens in the U.S.A.
2
Corporations pay less tax towards the governments revenue than real flesh and blood people do! Less, the behemoths of the world, pay less tax than people.
Not to mention our government borrows 15% plus each year because we already do not raise enough through taxes to pay as you go. Yet a tax cut will solve all problems.
I could not be more furious and do call my Congresswoman and senators each week. Keep phones ringing!
A special shout-out must go to Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, who, because she occasionally acts normal, often gets a free pass and faint praise from the other side of the aisle. On the day of the final vote, however, we’ll find out that she is bought and paid for just like her Republican colleagues and she is as capable as anyone of selling out her constituents.
5
Absolutely. Maine is one the states that this bill will do the most harm to. If Susan Collins votes for this bill I will actively speak out against her re-election to the Senate.
I'm genuinely curious - who does the Times think their going to convince. Read the comments. These folks already hate the bill. Who in your extremely liberal echo chamber do you think will be swayed by your continual arguments and ineffective social media campaign?
3
I love when people ask this question. Just think of how Lionel answered Lucy in a Peanuts strip. Lionel, you're not going to sell very many cups of lemonade at $100. a cup. He answered: 'I only need to sell one'...
1
I am so tired of being frightened by every piece of legislation that comes before Congress today. Healthcare and then this truly appalling tax giveaway to the rich at the expense of middle class Americans. As the deficit blooms to unexpected heights in the coming years, we can expect reductions in Medicare, Medicare and Social Security. Is everyone ready to retire at the age of 70? These are truly appalling times in which to live. I've given up hope. In the meantime, I cannot help but remember the words of that song from the 1920's: "The rich get richer and the poor have children. In the meantime, in between time, Ain't we got fun." I'm sure the wealthy are singing this all the way to the bank.
3
The only way American workers can compete with the rest of the world is if they are paid the same as workers in Bangladesh and Pakistan. The stagnant wages for 30 years has allowed the American worker to get closer to that. The elimination of health benefits, pensions, vacations, unions and higher taxes will do the rest. Then Trump will declare this a victory and workers will be worse off than they've been since the Great Depression! Welcome to the republican future!
4
We need to capture economic rent via land value tax. Shift from taxes on productive activity to a tax with 0 deadweight loss. Henry George was right.
Rob the poor to fatten the rich. What convoluted version of Robin Hood and His Merry Men were these GOP Cretins told as children? Or is this the Ayn Rand version.
4
Wow. If the average fourth grader were given the problem of raising money for the government, he'd figure out pretty quickly that the best place to get it is from those who have it: the uber-wealthy and corporations. He'd also be able to grasp the simple fact that spending what you don't have always ends in trouble. And one hopes that the concept of shoving the issue down the road for others to solve - making it Someone Else's Problem - doesn't really make it go away. This stinkbomb of a bill wraps up everything that the Greed Over People party stands for: loyalty to those who bought and paid for their House and Senate seats, a desperate chance for a win that's meaningless to anyone but themselves and their overlords, and the complete abandonment of common sense, common decency, and the common good.
5
And it would permit drilling in the Arctic.
7
This tax bill does smell bad. But the hypocracy of liberal progressives is something at which to laugh. Without a single Republican vote, ACA was rammed down US citizens’ throats despite a 36% public approval rating at the time, because the ACA stunk. And it still stinks.
2
Not sure what you mean -- The ACA was debated in committee for nearly a year. The Senate tax bill had less than two days of debate. Low popularity at the time of its passage was primarily due to a vast public misinformation campaign by the bill's political opponents. Today, afterit's been in place for many years, the ACA is supported and used by the majority of the people in this country. The Republican tax bill, on the other had, has neither popular support, nor has it passed yet. It's had almost no public debate..... And I can promise you that if it is passed.... four years from now, when any tax savings for the middle class are rolled back, you'll hear a howling and gnashing of teeth unlike anything you've ever heard... The two bills are not comparable.
1
Please remember that the ACÁ, in order to appease Republicans, ended up looking a lot like the Massachusetts bill, passed when Romney was governor. It also looked a lot like what the conservative Heritage Foundation recommended. The reason no Republicans voted for it is that the did not want to give Obama credit for anything, ever. They could have worked with Republicans to fix it, but they cose to scream, “Repeal and Replace,” until it turned out they had nothing decent to replace it with
Now, if the individual mandate goes, the ACÁ will crumble. Rural hospitals will close, Poot people will get their care from emergency rooms, and guess who will foot the bill? Not the donor class.
If this passes into law, it will be the proverbial nail in the coffin. American capitalism has paid its way into making its own laws via the GOP. 2018 may be the start of another wave of immigration, this time of Americans going to Canada and elsewhere.
2
The sexual harassment scandals are more interesting to the average person. The graphs show that many middleclass will receive a tax cut (temporary) and some will not. It's like a lottery to them. Which is fine with most since the lottery is their retirement plan. They are willing to take a short term drop in taxes followed by an increase and then hope that the wealthy overlords show mercy on them and actually install some factories that they can toil at for their owners. At least they are not a famous sexual harasser like all the sinners they see publically humiliated. It hasn't occurred to them that the majority of these guys are so wealthy they don't have to work ever again and can just go on a permanent vacation.
1
This is the reason, the singular goal, the Republicans tolerate Trump – because they know he will follow through on the things they only dreamed of but dared not do; that Trump has no clue what is in the tax plan and could care less if low and middle-income people are harmed, or if the economy is robbed of its economic engine for prosperity and progress in order to stuff more “mad money” into the pockets of the already obscenely rich with which they can buy politicians, policies and power; that Trump has no scruples or moral compass or ideology or intellectual curiosity or ability to analyze the long-term result if the deficit balloons and the Republicans use this to slash spending for Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. The Republicans are cheering they have such a stooge in the White House, even if he is Putin’s puppet or will estrange the US from its allies, or will trigger a nuclear holocaust with North Korea. The Republicans know that their tax scam will strip away every tool to upward mobility and financial and health security while reinforcing an entrenched monied power elite. Trump is their useful tool, even if he is the creation of Steve Bannon, a Leninist with a goal of violent destruction of democratic government.
3
(From The Houston Chronicle, 25Nov2017) "THE TAX BAMBOOZLE: GOP plan scraps deductions for the middle class to bankroll tax cuts for rich people ... The sheer fiscal recklessness of this plan ought to be enough to kill it in a Congress filled with politicians who call themselves conservatives ... Teachers would lose their tax deduction for buying classroom supplies out of their own pockets ... Foster parents would lose their tax credit for adopting children ... Sick people would lose their deduction for catastrophic medical expenses ... Student loan interest payments would no longer be deductible ... you'll find all sorts of details that will raise the tax bills for average Americans ... let your representative in Congress know that you're not buying this bamboozle, and you're going to remember it next time you vote ... "
3
A Trump "promise" is probably just what you need to wipe off the stain from this odious piece of... legislation. That Senators are willing to suspend normal cognitive function and actually believe two words in a row uttered by Trump shows just how their honor, integrity, and character has been compromised by those who have bought their fealty with legalized bribe "political speech". McConnell has already proven his seditious 'party over Constitution' believe with the stolen Garland Supreme Court nomination, but some of the other Senators still have some reputation to self-destroy. After the vote, we will know which are really people honestly representing the best interests of all their constituents and the entire nation, and which ones are self-deluding thralls bidden by their masters, the very wealthy. 2018 cannot come soon enough for our sadly beseiged nation.
3
The Senate is also rushing because the "analysis" Mr. Mnuchin claims justifies all the GOP claims of economic benefits does NOT exist and never did: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/us/politics/treasury-analysis-tax-bil...
THIS ladies and gentlemen is GOP "dynamic scoring." Instead of relying on thorough and professional economic analysis, hearings, and inputs from experts, you simply have top administration officials cite the findings of non-existent reports and plug in their own "estimates" of revenues and economic growth based solely on vastly over-inflated guestimates and argue "trust us".
America...wake up: You are being flat out LIED to over and over. This bill is so bad that the two GOP Senator from Kansas are warning that its reliance on the fantasies of "trickle down" economics have been tested for years in their home state and resulted in absolute budgetary chaos....school budgets gutted so badly the state Supreme Court found the state was violating its own constitution, roads left un-repaired, already minimal social safety net programs such as child welfare protection gutted.
The GOP is once again within a vote or two of passing a major bill so awful that no respectable economist will support it and one that has been crafted in secret, rammed through at warp speed without hearings or witnesses, justified with outright lies and opposed by nearly 3 out of 4 Americans.
Call your Senators TODAY and tell them to vote no.
3
This is beyond disgusting. The Republicans are committing political and moral suicide. The only conclusion I can reach is that the lobby money now and the prospect of future work for the lobbies is more important than reelection. They have little concern for their constituents, truth, ethics or common human decency. We are one step closer to a feudal system, where the 0.1% own the wealth and the politicians.
Meanwhile many other countries, with far fewer resources, are passing us by for standard of living, healthcare, infrastructure, etc. They used to envy us but now they feel sorry for us. Sadly, fewer Americans can afford to travel overseas and are unaware of the advances other countries have made in recent years while we have let ourselves go.
6
This is a Republican war on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
This Tax Bill is the first step in their strategic plan to "Starve the Beast"
The Republicans are taking away your Social Security and Medicare!!
5
No doubt about it, Republicans are sociopaths. (not hyperbole).
Just witness Paul Ryan's dead eyes as his anti-social dreams come to fruition. Why does WI support him?
7
The photo accompanying this article is so perfect with the warped reflection of the capitol dome reflecting the warped thinking of these Republicans in Congress, Trump and all his minions.
2
Pillage of the Public Purse - that’s what the GOP is doing to America!
5
While Trump and friends burn us, the broadcast media fiddle with his unhinged but well calculated tweets and lurid sex scandals. NYT readers are well informed of this horrendous "tax reform" bill. But most Americans who get their news from cable or broadcast tv receive and have little patience for the sad details. Chris Cuomo and his counterparts yell "squirrel"' audiences' heads start spinning. Trump is truly e master of the airwaves.
2
Republicans are going to crash the economy (AGAIN) and blame poor people (AGAIN). So tired of this same old movie.
3
The senators and representatives who vote for this bill are criminals. They're so busy wrapping themselves in red, white, and blue. Perhaps they should wrap themselves in dollar bills; that would be a clearer representation of what they're doing.
2
An absolute indication of 'monkey business' is the wipe out of the AMT!! At least, with a DJT type Businessperson, they pay SOME tax. Without it, and some fancy dancing, they (read that as DJT) get away with paying nothing!
One of many, many, many defects in these bills.
3
Everyone please flood the offices of your representatives and senators with calls and faxes NOW! We shouldn't have to wait until 2018 to have our voices heard.
4
"The country ought to be dismayed by the way senators like Bob Corker, Susan Collins and Ron Johnson appear to be backing away from their principled objections based on half-measures promised by President Trump and the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, that will not address its big flaws."
Maybe if the press handled this the way it should be handled we would have a better chance of stopping it.
Big headlines up front is what this deserves but what do we get? Trump made another bad smell, right lead with that. Were I in charge I'd lay out the facts with bullet points up and down the front page. But, oh no, can't do that, just going to take it as it comes and act like its just another day when the worst piece of legislation in modern history rolls over the American people. Meanwhile Dean Baquet is hanging with J Zee and the cameras.
Republican Senators, someday you will regret this.
1
The republicans are the party of corporate greed and guns.
3
The President admitted he has no monied friends, and I believe him. He wants their approval nevertheless and is willing to misrepresent anything necessary for a win. A win means satisfying the minuscule number of donors to Republican campaign coffers and giving them what they want so quickly none can debate its true implications. Trump,s base isn’t generally equipped to understand the press analysis of the bill, or even Read the papers where such analysis appears. Trump clearly does not know what it contains and doesn’t care, because he is only interested in being able to self-praise the glory of passing “something” which he can then misrepresent as he likes. PT Barnum had it right. There are 50 suckers, not one, born every minute. This is not democracy. It is shameful.
2
Despicable McConnell from Kentucky. He does not care the plight of his constituency. Subservient to his lord Donald.
2
Make America KANSAS, again. NOT going well.
2
Does anyone feel like the America of today is like the Germany of the late 1920s.
3
We are fast approaching the stage where a kleptocracy is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens bow in submission. It will go down as one of the darkest periods in American history. It could mark our end.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
3
The American colonies went to war for tax injustices less egregious than this. By the looks of it, the average person back then was better informed than the brainwashed right-wing zealots or the celebrity-besotted cult who make up the GOP these days.
3
I guess this is the Republican take on Pelosi's infamous quote “But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it....”
Goose, meet Gander.
1
The sole intent of this abomination is to shaft democrats especially in blue states. These are the very states that are paying the bills for the red states republicans represent. No republican should ever, ever be allowed to be in a position of governing again. Vote anyone but a republican in 2018 and 2020 and for the rest of your life. Remember this is OUR country NOT theirs. Time to take it back.
RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE!
3
It is stupefying how the senate Republicans are marching behind their psychotic leader, knowing fully well that the only reason to vote for his preposterous tax bill is to give him a win.
2
I am not Rich but I have met many Very Wealthy people and they all work 24/7 very hard and give back to the country in many priceless ways ....I would much rather a person keep there Hard earned Money than have our tax and spend Democratic Party throw it away ...The Market is Up Thanks to TRUMP and with this tax plan, it will get $tronger!
1
So tragic that this miserable bill is written for the people....the people being the rich republicans who are the most selfish group of self-centered egotistical maniacs in the country. Too bad that the senior citizens won't enjoy their golden years because they will be the rusty years.
2
What non sense. The rich aren't getting a tax break, I know I'm not and I already pay 40%. I guess 1-2% GDP growth is good for the liberals and the NYT. The hatred for the tax bill is close to the hatred for Trump and the people who voted for him.
The liberals are angry because they lost and then make things up to support their insanity with all the lemmings going along blindly. Objective news my eye.
1
This pathetic tax scam bill more than "stinks". It deliberately attacks the poor, working and middle classes with extreme economic hardship such as during the Great Depression along with appalling indifference and injustice by saying our lives don't matter and our children's future doesn't matter. Our nation is crumbling from within because of insatiable greed and extremist ideology by those who have bankrolled the GOP.
3
There are many problems with the tax bill. Among them, it's absolutely disgusting how we're going to treat those in medical professions. We're essentially creating a huge burden and disincentive for doctors, dentists, and specialists. Just walk through a typical example of how a future doctor will be burdened by this tax bill.
Tuition Waivers, which isn't really income but is a grant from a university - gone under this tax bill! Therefore, for every year that one would have had tuition waivers will be slapped with a tax bill of ~$10,000 - 15,000 that they will have to pay out of pocket.
On the other hand, say you didn't qualify for Tuition Waivers - instead took out student loans. Education Tax Credits - gone under this tax bill! Student Loan Interest - gone under this tax bill! Previously, this would save doctors thousands per year, but now they'll have to make up the difference with a de facto tax hike.
Meanwhile, doctors, including private practices, will be taxed at top tax rates of 35% to 39.6% (depending on where the house/senate bill lands)...compared to large corporations....who will pay a rate of 20%. Compared to S-Corps (which private practices won't qualify for) who will pay a rate of 20-25% (depending on where the house/senate bill lands).
What a huge punch to the gut to doctors and aspiring doctors in this country, or anyone pursuing a PHD or LLM in general.
74
When I was a grad student in molecular biology at Columbia, I wasn't even aware that I was receiving a "tuition waiver". I was working my tail off for a $16,000 stipend (which was taxed!). If I had to pay taxes on the waiver there is absolutely no way I would ever have pursued a PhD--there are plenty of other, more financially rewarding things a student with the brains and work ethic of a typical PhD student can do instead.
"repeal of the A.C.A.’s individual mandate"
Does this also repeal the 3.8% tax that the 1% pay for the ACA? If so, this bill is a bigger give away for the wealthy than I thought.
I want to a specially thank all those who voted for president TRUPM.
Now you will understand the truths that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
tried to get across to most of America. You are privy to the cowardice of the Republican Party, and the biggest CON MAN that ever sat in the Oval Office. If these actions going to law your children and grandchildren will pay and pay for kickbacks to the special interest groups/big business. And of course let us not forget that every time you pick up a drink to drown your sorrows these jerks are also getting huge tax breaks. How does it go, eat drink and be miserable.
7
I just got through listening to Orrin Hatch shed quantities of rambling crocodile tears about the lack of cooperation among senators. This wave of regrets would have been welcome if it were not for the fact that Hatch, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, had not pushed through a bill in which Democrats were systematically excluded. It was a bill put together by Republic leaders, literally behind closed doors, where Republican interests, Republican issues, and only Republican goals, were pushed and inserted.
So, Mr. Hatch, let me tell you a secret, if you want to talk to people, you need to open those doors.
12
Maybe we should vote out the Republicans in '18, and then repeal their so-called tax cut.
btw - A 0.4% increase in the $18T or so GDP calculates to $72B, which, if taxed at our current approx. aggregate rate of aboutd 15% of GDP, would return a whopping $11B to the treasury. "Dynamic scoring", which is roughly equivalent ot compound interest, would improve that a bit, but not much. But the anticipated increase in GDP could easily be lost in a even a slight downtick in GDP due to other factors - another spate of disasters, increases in Federal Reserve rates, reduction of mortage and student loan activity due to cancelation of tax exemptions, etc.
Vote the bums out!!!
37
Some time ago, I came to the conclusion that it cannot simply be the desire and the need for fat cat donations that compels these snivelings to do what they do to keep their jobs. For what are the jobs they wish to keep? Do they wish to continue to promise one thing to the electorate in order to obtain its vote and proceed to do the exact opposite once elected? Over and over? Again and again? This is the CAREER they want? They wish to retire after years and years of it? It cannot be that simple.
There must be offers that cannot be refused. How awful it would be if something terrible happened to their...
It is true that habitual, incessant lying has made careers for Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest. Yet these are men with serious pathologies: they enjoy lying. But these 'Senators'? They must be running scared for more than their jobs.
28
We will learn if there are 3 Republican senators patriotic enough to put the United States and its citizens first and vote against this terrible bill!
MR
35
Don't hold your breath.
3
"The Senate Is Rushing to Pass Its Tax Bill Because It Stinks." Well, yeah. Of course.
They don't want the real impact of the bill analyzed before it passes. Nor do they want it on the news cycle long enough to take attention away from Matt Lauer or the next person to flame out and fall to earth like Icarus or a burnt out meteorite. And they especially want us to conflate the bill with Trump. I am sure they all chant a mantra - "Blame Trump! Blame Trump! - in their heads as they dump this toxic piece of wealth welfare on the unsuspecting masses.
Government despite the people. above the people, against the people. A Lincoln night mare.
29
I wonder what will happen to the stock market when Blue State folks have to cut their investments to cover their increased tax burden? How many of us are contributing to mutual fund and brokerage accounts, and plan to offset a huge fed tax hike (my wife and I are looking at something like $9,000/year) by killing their monthly deposits? Some of us will undoubtably get raises to "cover" our big tax hike, but many of us will not. We will be the "big losers" as Trump would say. I and many like me in NY, NJ, Conn and CA will see our overall tax rates hit 50%, or thereabouts. Do the math, 38% to the feds, 7% to the State, 4.5% local or property. Boom! There goes the mutual fund, there goes another $500 a month in other spending. The money has to come from somewhere. Ah to be "wealthy" in America.
25
At least you are wealthy. At the other end are people like my daughter who is a widow with an eight year old, works two jobs despite having Multiple Sclerosis and wouldn't be able to make ends meet without financial help from her stepfather and me. And, believe it or not, she does pay taxes, state and federal.
1
The bill and the process that created it are a disgrace. Where are the public protests against this attack on middle class and poor Americans? We should be marching in the streets in our thousands in cities all over the country.
23
This bill is so bad that some of the "nuggets" found by reading all 500+ pages are more significant than the top line numbers. The small wording change to the chained consumer price index is reminiscent of the change in the drug legislation to basically stop anyone from holding the distributors responsible for opioid crisis. Sneaky, lawyerly, repeated death by a thousand cuts that lawmakers can say they didn't see.
Always shafting the individual and letting the corporation (especially big ones) skate free. Its unconscionable. But that has been the modus operandi of this gop Congress since January.
Any one of these provisions would be breathtaking on its own, but since they exist in a chiasmic slurry of ill formed cuts to the middle class and give-aways to the rich it's hard to concentrate on any one thing.
Heartless and cruel.
Unfortunately, my gop senator has a six year smile and we won't be able to hold him accountable for quite awhile and my representative is in one of those "safe" gerrymandered districts so I have no voice.
23
Vote anyway! There are probably many more people than you imagine in your district who are fed up. Make your representative aware of what you think whether s/he listens.
These egregious problems are what John McCain and others trivialize as “fear from perfect.”
town halls.
Democrats should run on "repeal and replace" of this gigantic evil concoction, and the first order of business must be to actually do it as soon as the tides turn.
22
Trump's strategy to Make America Great Again is finally working. His supporters curse Fake News (anyone in the press who opposes Trump). Billionaires write more Republican campaign checks. And most folks figure they can't do any more to control Trump than Russians can control Putin.
7
Americans need to understand that the Republicans' overall strategy is to convert America from a semi-democratic Republic into a corporate plutocracy by redistributing all of America's wealth from the poor and middle classes to wealthy family dynasties.
Clearly, modern Republicans are very bad people, but they now possess all the political and economic power, so Americans need to accept that, henceforth, we will be living in a very bad country.
And the world needs to understand that the Confederate slave states finally won the Civil War and America forever will remain a white supremacist society.
20
While some Senators may have caved to the scam of tempting tax bill promises, they should consider two facts:
First, this bill will NOT benefit the middle class or the poor once the trade-off losses (SALT, college loans interest, medical expenses, health insurance) overcome the crumbs left of their reduced tax liabilities.
Second, while many of us may pay our taxes grudgingly, there is NO popular demand for this bill, and there is substantial opposition. Any short term gains will leave future generations burdened with higher deficits and less government assistance available (remember, wage earners pay as they go for medicare and social security benefits).
The pressure for this legislation comes from a President who has a history of contradicting his own promises and welshing on his own business deals. He has sabotaged programs (health care, infrastructure, immigration reform--DACA--travel restrictions) with scurrilous Tweets and erratic behavior described by some as pre-dementia.
Members of Congress, desperate to pass something before a looming budget deadline, ignore their constituents and sign on for their survival in 2018 by pandering to their wealthy campaign donors.
15
Tax cuts = increased deficits = cuts in entitlements to compensate. This is a well-espoused and not terribly well-concealed strategy by the GOP to get the spending cuts they crave without anyone, hopefully, noticing. We need to be smarter about this.
17
The Senate bill contains a big tax cut for beer producers "for no reason"? One of the reasons could be that John McCain wife,Cindy McCain is the rich heiress of a big beer production company.Senator Mc Cain might soften his "moral" objections to a bill which directly benefits his wife.
21
This is the stuff of revolutions. Congressional Republicans are in the throes of collective mania, all consuming greed and blind ambition. While watching the 1% stuff themselves with gold leaf cake the 99% will start feeling their wallets shrink, their help disappear, their health decline. History books are full of lessons about this. These Republicans have an obsessive attachment to themselves. They are no longer able to provide logical governing. We have a president going more and more off the deep end. We have white supremacy in our universities and in our streets. Add into the mix the fear from nuclear bombs. The cauldron is boiling. Yes, this is the stuff of revolutions. I don’t know about you, but I’m scared.
19
Of course, the New York Times Editorial Board would object to the tax reform bill because it will eliminate their ability to deduct their state and local income taxes. Its high time the federal government stops subsidizing the state and local taxes of high tax states. I have made the comment several times and the reply I receive is that the high tax states, mostly Blue, subsidize the Red states, especially those like Tennessee. But I maintain that the Red states with low or no state and local taxes subsidize the high tax states. As a Red Stater I have had enough of subsidizing the high tax Blue states! Its time they pay their own way. If they choose to have high taxes then that's their problem. Here in Tennessee, we do just fine with financing the state budget through sales taxes. Also I have had enough with the federal government subsidizing interest on mortgages over $500,000. As far as I am concerned if you can afford more that mortgage, then you can pay for the interest yourself. Buying a house that expensive is just to show off, show that you are a big shot. Well if that is all you can show for yourself then you are pretty insecure. The Federal government does not need to subsidize the insecurities of big shots. Thank you.
Right - and where does TN rank in economic contributions per capita? Not in the top 10 or even 15 the last time I checked.
Tennessee, eh? Living in the land of cheap power, courtesy of the TVA and subsidized by the rest of us. I wonder how you'd feel if the Federal government sold off the TVA to some private entity, which would then be free to jack up your rates at will? Red America, generally speaking, receives far more from Uncle Sam than it contributes. If this "tax reform bill" does pass, I hope the next step will be stripping the subsidies that you and yours have come to take for granted. Then you might have to raise your own taxes to pay for your roads, bridges, etc. But since Red America voted for Trump & Co., that ain't gonna happen. Personally, I don't think that the denizens of Red America will be truly happy until the rest of us are as poor, ignorant and miserable as they are.
When this bill is passed, every person who will find themself funding the wealthy, their healthcare cancelled, and unable to afford their homes or send their children to school with no hope of managing old age must demonstrate loudly, in person, in public.
So long as we huddle in our homes trying to figure out how to make things work when they won't, the lying, perverts, who are plundering anything they can get their hands on and are stirring up hornets nests abroad while firing those whose skills are to calm and persuade, not to mention pack the courts with judges to cement their actions into legal precedent, they will continue to do so.
The time to act is now!
10
You can demonstrate loudly and publicly all you want. This doesn't scare our legislators one bit. No, the time to act is 2018. A massive loss of seats by Republicans is the only message that will be heard.
The GOP has preached Repeal And Replace regarding Obamacare. If GOP majorities in Congress pass this scam of a tax bill, it will hurt the majority of American voters, including Trump's own. Will they react angrily and vote the GOP out of congress? With a Democratic majority in both chambers, could Dems repeal and replace this atrocious tax bill? Or will the right wing media machine obscure the real facts and serve Trump voters "alternative" (read fake) facts?
6
It's beginning to look like our children and their children will be getting lumps of coal in their Christmas stockings and soot in their lungs. And about health care.............
11
Noticeably absent from any discussion- what is the money being spent for? The NYTimes only focuses on the class-warfare aspect. How about instead we talk about why we are spending trillions on overseas wars with little impact on most of our citizenry except those who serve on the front lines and those who own defense contractor stocks? This debate is a sham. We are being sandbagged.
11
One thing is sure. Never again believe a Republican politician when s/he protests against ballooning deficits or cares about the middle class.
17
Our collective voice with Congressional "Representatives" is muted. My heart breaks for the tsunami rumbling towards freedom and pursuit of something better... in the name of power, arrogance and with the intent to crush the souls who need citizenry the most. Mother liberty is on life support. Time to signal SOS (if anyone still knows what that means...)
7
My gosh...thankfully they are only making it 515 pages rather than the 2,300 pages for Obamacare (sorry Afforable Care Act).
As I think about it, I don't remember the NYTimes stating, "The Senate is Rushing to Pass Its Health Care Bill."
3
It took over a year and a half to get the ACA passed. This tax bill is getting rammed through with little time for debate or examination.
The NY Times should have thought of this before endorsing Clinton over Sanders in the Democratic primaries. Identity politics will destroy this country.
4
In what universe can anyone imagine Sanders, long branded as a Socialust, and a Jew, no less, winning a presidential election.
Assuming the general masses are clamoring for tax cuts, why haven't the Democrat representatives proposed a real tax reform proposal that benefits workers and their families, as an alternative to the Republican abomination? If the Democrats want to keep their message simple, they could start by demanding restoration of the personal exemptions, which benefit each worker and each family member. It seems that Democrat representatives are mostly sitting on their hands.
2
Pretty obvious why we still have these lax gun regulations, it is expected if people have been sliding down the economic ladder to the bottom -thanks for the help McConnell, Ryan and company- to end yourself with a $250 Glock investment.
Such is the compassion of our Christian elite.
6
Let's remember that Donald Trump built the Wollman ring in Central Park in record time after everyone else had been trying to do it for years.
1
Democracy itself was invented to limit the power of the wealthy, i.e. the nobles and landed aristocracy.
If we allow super rich people to pass on wealth then they become a noble class not susceptible to taxes as it was before Democracy.
Lack of historical understanding and context exacerbated by the GOP attack on truthful curriculum around the country is responsible for this travesty of a bill and what will ultimately bring down our empire. Yes folks, we Americans have, but don't benefit from our vast military and economical empire around the world.
4
Another article in The NY Times ( says this bill is quickly becoming a life changing piece of legislation for Americans. Well, we can change things, too this coming year. Vote the criminal legislators OUT and keep them out for a generation. Tit for tat -- it is the American Way!
3
I suggest the Blue States that are being punished and pillaged by this Tax Bill pay their federal taxes into a special account held by each state. If Trump and the GOP want their new taxes to lavish on the rich and distribute to real red America, try and get the money! Hold these robber barons to account. Then maybe we might get some reality.
3
"The core of Rand’s philosophy — which also constitutes the overarching theme of her novels — is that unfettered self-interest is good and altruism is destructive."- PBS, 2/16/2016 article: "This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand seriously"
And this tax bill takes Ayn Rand very seriously. It is anchored in social darwinism- ensconces patronage, self interest and oligarchy- and reinforces extreme inequality. Thomas Piketty in his book "Capital," undoubtedly anathema to Republicans, clearly warned against the acceleration of “patrimonial capitalism” and Stiglitz and others also warn against the political, social and economic dangers of growing inequality. Nor will this tax bill accelerate economic growth to the point that it will chip away at this inequality. On the contrary it will embed it even further and in the end promote political nationalism and upheaval.
In a bizarre mixture of objectivism, predatory capitalism, prejudice, racism- and patronization of the Middle Class- the bill seeks to undermine the social contract and all notions of fairness. It rewards the irresponsible wealthy and corporate tax cheaters- while handing out crumbs to the middle class and poor. It delays hard choices on spending and all but guarantees slower future economic growth and a further erosion and collapse of infrastructure, social welfare spending- and military expenditures. The decline of the American military Empire its likely and only good outcome.
3
America has been a failing state ever since the end of the Vietnam war, really.
We lost our way in that war, and our purported "ideals" were increasingly unmasked over the ensuing years as merely self-serving propaganda.
The Republican Party has been intent on looting the nation of its remaining wealth ever since Nixon; this is merely the last and most stark phase of that long theft.
The average American citizen now is sufficiently illiterate, politically unempowered and economically fragile or dependent to be helpless in the face of it; our political systems have been corrupted to the point that they are no longer functional.
By the original principles of our government, founded in the Constitution, the present regime is a completely unrepresentative, illegitimate, authoritarian intruder, owned by a small oligarchy that links hands with other rich authoritarians around the world.
There is only one solution to this situation, a solution that has repeated itself throughout history. Whether we are strong enough at this point to engage in the necessary problem-solving is the final question. All signs are that we are not.
And so, we have only ourselves left to blame for remaining helpless in the face of this mass theft of our rights, our wealth, our citizenship, our fundamental identities, as individuals, and as a nation.
The tax bill is merely symptom, not cause.
8
I watched Sean Hannity and he found ways to say it would be great for America.
This is a big part of the problem.
Fox News viewers don't know how terrible this is for our country.
This tax bill is truly heartbreaking.
A huge deficit increase which means and even bigger debt increase to be paid for by our children and grandchildren.
And then will come even more cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Truly heartbreaking what Republicans want to do to our country.
3
Shouldn't it be illegal for Trump to sign tax legislation into law without sharing his tax returns so the public knows how much he stands to gain?
6
It's all about making and taking money, for Republicans.
6
Here we go again. The fiscally “conservative” Republicans will throw a huge tax reduction party and then complain bitterly when the supposed fiscally “illiterate” Democrats have to clean up their mess. It’s very sad that so many Americans have such short memories. Perhaps it’s the opioid crisis?
3
Let's not mince words: This is Civil War, not between slave owners and their opponents but between Rich and Poor, Greed and Social Justice, Guns and Non-Violence, War and Diplomacy, Money and the Climate, Today and the Future.
Never has the United States been less United.
5
They are just doing the bidding of the plutocrats who own their votes.
4
70% of people who do not itemize will get a return, the child care and personal deductions are extended, it eliminates people cheating. Yet liberals in NY and CA complain because their SALT is not deductible let those states become fully accountable for their run with the taxpayers money via democrats for decades. Eliminate all deductions and a flat tax would have been better but this is next to better. Too bad the spenders hate it. And don't give me the argument about the rich who pay more, employ people, initiate jobs. The poor do not pay taxes and no one is taking a thing away from them. Entitlements are killing this country.
Holy cow! For a second there, I thought I was back in 2010, and you were editorializing about Obamacare when you stated, "This is not how lawmakers are supposed to pass enormous pieces of legislation." How come the Senate tax bill is a "515-page mammoth," but the ACA, at over 1000 pages, was just fine?
I appreciate you giving us a preview of "this terrible legislation and some of its lesser-known provisions." However, I would have preferred it Pelosi-style by passing it to find out what is in it.
1
Ah, the infamy. The "Backdoor Booze Bargain" and the "Prudhoe Bay Give-Away". Rivals the "Nebraska Kickback" of ACA days. Guess the republicants have learned to read since then coming in at over 500 pages of statute. So has this blessed "reform" reduced the tax code and its regulations appreciably? Nope. The accountants and tax preparers and tax lawyers remain fully employed. You, my friends, have simply been fleeced.
3
Democrats are on the ropes.
The Bible speaks of a Promised Land that could only be entered when the slave generations that departed Egypt & served the Golden Calf had died out, with the exception of the only two leaders untainted by the Golden Calf. The entire population except Joshua & Caleb had proved too corrupt to proceed into the land that would become Israel.
The democratic party is at a crossroads. Led by an old guard of technocrat limousine liberals personified by the Clintons & Charles Schumer, it's failed to offer a credible, intellectually coherent response to escalating inequality & wealth concentration that profoundly jeopardize our democratic principles, allowing Trump/the republicans to seize congress & the white house, setting us up for an epochal tax legislation debacle that can happen any moment, setting the liberal cause back for a generation, or at the very least until the next election. It's called DEFEAT. Last November was the verdict, this legislation is the sentencing.
Who will enter our Promised Land of fairness, economic justice, revitalized democratic principles? I fear there will be no entry at all without major purging & attrition. Clintons: out! Anyone tainted by sex scandal, out! Anyone overly connected to Big Tech, out! Out: almost the entire old guard.
Stronger, more expansive safety net, free, learning-focused (rather than inequality-exacerbating/ratifying/reinforcing) college education; candid, aggressive wealth redistribution.
While Democrats eat their young over wandering hands, the Republicans are remaking America in their own image with the tax bill.
3
Why aren't Trump supporters outraged? Easy--they don't know what is happening. Fox News website has literally ZERO coverage of the tax bill. Front page news for every major outlet, but conveniently missing on the Trump mouthpiece channel.
5
Great Photo! that is how i feel about this whole republican administration - in one photo!
1
One wonders, if the massive corporations that have loosed the bounds of the nation state and now behave as colonizers of us "the new indigenous" of the spaces they have conquered; who now claim "personhood" while hiding behind their corporate shells, do they believe they are now gods, that obeisance to them is ordained in the heavens. What exactly is to stop them in a world that is being ravaged by their unchecked greed. When at last they look upon the horizens of their empires and see the sun never setting, will they believe themselves immortal? So then has it begun? Have they begun, in their madness, to forget that they too will die, and so consume themselves.
1
Collins, et al your country needs you to do the right thing.
How about saying, "this is an enormous bill that affects all citizens. They deserve our thorough vetting of it as their representatives."
Senator Collins, this is not good for Maine, not good for your New England neighbors or the country. He has lied about everything and you cannot let yourself be attached to that.
Senator Murkasky, you're Alaska for goodness sakes, you'll get anything you need as far as energy.
Senators Flake and Corker, you both know this is a horrible bill so stand your ground. This isn't the only chance to reform taxes and there is zero need to rush it. It is irresponsible. And do you really want to be the poster children of how Trump demanded you turn and you did because you're weak or he's such a master negotiator.
The ACA was voted to repeal 50 times. Don't tell me this is the only vote that can be had on the tax bill. If you want to give the middle class a tax cut, just do it. The corp already said they are hiring with it. We're already at almost full employment.
3
Stinking is in the nostrils and mind of the scent smeller context, perspective and mind. Chitterlings aka hog guts carry an unbearable stench in my nose. Cooked aka boiled they look like big earthworms. Some members of my family tolerate their scent for their taste.
My first summer job was as a temporary letter carrier where I worked out of the U.S. Post Office Chicago Stockyards Station when the Union Stockyards were still open and slaughtering. While the stench was year round the neighborhood it was most offensive during hot muggy summer days.
I delivered mail to the Union Stockyards offices and slaughter house one time covering for the regular carrier. And I could not eat beef nor pig the rest of that summer. That left a stench in my nose and mind that had me retching with nausea.
A swamp has a fertile dank productive smell. Draining the swamp kills the most diverse natural environment after tropical rain forests and coral reefs. Congress "Stinks and shines like rotten mackerel under a full moon". Because it is a corrupt Barbarian House of Lords and Organized Crime Families bent on pilfering, plundering and pillaging from the 99.9% of American peasantry.
2
Tax breaks for booze while the Republicans refuse to fund the Children's Health Insurance Program.
8
The photo at the head of the article is priceless. Congress is upside down and melting.
3
We, THE LITTLE PEOPLE, are being hurt.
4
This is what happens in a country with a one-party system.
3
Exactly. And in this regard, we are now no different than Russia or Communist China.
Amazing that most Americans haven't caught on to this yet.
1
So the Republicans represent mercantilism and the fearful. The fearful are afraid of the changes that have been happening over the last decades, including automation, globalization and Netflix and all the other digital influences in our country. Their children know more than they do about the devices we all must have. Computers run all our accounts and digital voices tell us how important we are but please hold for the next representative. Don't go to the bank or the post office anymore, they are not there. And soon a computer will drive your car. All the fearful want is their jobs back and enough income to live comfortably and take a good vacation and help their kids get to college. These are not "deplorables" and they are rational in their own way. They are the muscle behind the Republican party as it turns out and they have been fooled into hating witches, hobgoblins, Muslims as terrorists, Mexicans as job thief's and black people as urban terrorists, all of whom have taken their place. The Merchanilists want low taxes and regulations and freedom to sell their goods at whatever price. But what they may want even more is cheap, loyal labor like the servants in Downton Abbey, a return to the Randian natural order. "this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a wimper" TS Elliot.
2
Americans should realize, to the Republicans, the majority of Americans do not matter.
3
"The Senate Is Rushing to Pass Its Tax Bill Because It Stinks"
When I first saw the headline.
I thought the article was going to be about the passage of Obamacare.
1
Obamacare proceeded at a snail's pace in comparison.
2
May have seemed that way to you,
Cause you weren't paying the medical device tax,
And maybe you "got to keep your plan, keep your doctor"
Not me. And few million others.
So much for a "snail's pace"
1
But hasn't the argument regarding taxes for the Republicans been "all the debt we're leaving our children and grandchildren"? Over and over they talk about the poor grandchild tax acts - but now under this Trump Clown, they have suddenly lost their grandchild concern!
Senator Ron Johnson, who at first said he opposed this tax bill, who now supports it, even had a commercial in his Wisconsin campaign last year changing his grandchild's diaper, pointing out his care for that generation because of all the debt that baby would be faced with! Changing the diaper was part of the gig.
Perhaps the diaper wasn't smelly enough, because this bill sure does stink!
3
As in 2001 with the Bush tax cuts, this tax bill for Americans will increase the deficit astronomically, no jobs will be created and conservatives will demand that entitlements be cut. The conservative hate machine with all it's dark money funded organizations (Club for Growth, American Prosperity Foundation, the Heritage Foundation and all those IRS 501(c) so-called nonprofits dodging taxes), the corporately controlled media, conservative talk shows, Fox NonNews, and Donnie the Clown Show will get rich while blaming Democrats and most Americans.
Pray to the Lord that our hero John McCann puts this down.
1
John McCain will probably now vote for it because it contains a provision that will benefit his wife's business (beer) enormously. And we know that with only 7 or 8 houses (he couldn't remember which) the McCains are not rich enough.
The WAR on the POOR is going great.
2
booze, sports, guns and bibles.. induced complacency is the only thing keeping this country afloat.. welcome to the new banana republic - the corporation of America.. a sleazy soulless brand.
No one has the guts to reset this mess, do they?
4
The Senate also rushed to pass the ACA because it stunk.
Epic cruel hateful failure of a so called tax bill. It's is regressive in every way, will hurt all Americans except the 1% and corrupt donors. These absolute monsters in the GOP are rushing this through hoping the public doesn't notice. Well, we do, and we will in each and every election. In my unfortunately red state, people came out in droves and voted overwhelmingly for women and democrats. Replace Repubs at every level, sweep the field, and try to undo the damage of this corrupt cruel so called congress and so called administration. Mueller ain't going away either!!!
3
Overthrow the government if this passes. Taxation without representation!
3
There are not sufficient words in the English language to describe adequately what is happening. Any member of Congress who votes for this abomination will have demonstrated that he or she cares nothing for the betterment of this country and deserves to be publicized on a wall of shame for the rest of his/her life..
2
Recent evidence suggests our president has lost his grip on reality. The proposed tax bill Republicans are trying to rush through suggests they have joined him.
I’d like to hear from the NYT columnists and op-ed contributors who often play the role of apologists for Republicanism as to where they stand on this piece of legislative pornography. I’m talking to you, Bret Stephens, Ross Douthat, David Brooks, Peter Wehner, Arthur Brooks, etc. You, gentlemen, have been known to collude and conspire with Republicans in the past. Isn’t it time for you to stand up as a group and to denounce the pornographers?
2
My question is did NY Times ever support a tax cut? Hope the company would give the tax savings it receive as a result of corporate tax cut from 35% to 20% to Govt. or to charity. Be an example to all liberal multi-millionaires and billionaires.
1
The tax bill is all about eliminating tax deductions for workers and doubling down on deductions/lower rates for businesses/business owners. Even Reagan at some point argued that income from work and income from ownership should be taxed the same.
My taxes will go up -- I lose a lot of deductions, only a 1/3 of which gets offset by slightly lower rates. My Mercedes driving neighbors that make twice as much through ownership of a fast food franchise paying minimal wage employees will keep ALL of their deductions AND get a significant tax cut. They will pay less as a percentage of taxes than any middle class worker. I get poorer, they get richer. I work a clean 40-50 hours a week, they only work when they need to hire/fire a manager. But this is the republicans version of America -- only workers pay taxes. Wake up america.
22
We all know that the main concern here is their reelection, not what's best for the country.
22
The crazy thing is, why should NOT doing what is good for the country get them re-elected?
Look to PT. Barnum for that answer.
3
Then they should be afraid, because in 2018 and beyond, voters will remember being sold out.
The so called tax bill is now an Omnibus Bill which will change the US for decades to come. The country that we have created over the 80+ years will be changed almost overnight into a unrecognizable entity. As things stand now the worst base instincts of our society will be given free reign. Our grandchildren are not going to enjoy the life that we have created for them nor even know of its existence. Thank you DT and the unprincipled Republicans in congress.
33
Any one with a knowledge of history and who has studied the decline of the Roman Empire or the British Empire can see all the parallels here. These changes do not occur overnight, but the election of DJT and now this implementation of the worst of his ideas will mark the beginning of the end for our nation.
I wonder if this same message is somehow penetrating the minds of the 38%. Or whether they’ve found some way to justify it.
15
If one substitutes the English crown for the present-day GOP with their life-denying "tax reform" bill, and the oppressed and over-taxed colonists for the U.S. electorate, you get an historical scenario worthy of your attention. And also some clear-cut and time-honored solutions would follow here.
14
To all those voters in the rust belt and other victims of globalization, what tax deductions you had are now gone---and next year, Trump is coming after your social security and medicare benefits---someone has to pay for making America Great Again and it isn't going to be Trump or his monied friends.
34
This is not a tax cut bill -- it never was, never was intended to be, and never will be. It is, part and parcel, a wealth redistribution bill, and a benefits reduction bill. The wealthy won't even see reduced taxes because now they pay little or no taxes. They will only get a redistribution of wealth from the lower classes, who will, in turn, see their few government benefits disappear.
It actually should be called "The Republican Shoot in the Foot Bill", because, in the long run, it will simply mean the republicans have shot their means of becoming re-elected squarely in the foot. And that can't happen soon enough for me.
24
Really? You think the Republicans won't be reelected, when the top 1% elite will have that much more money - $1 million in a 4-year election cycle - with which to buy politicians, policies and power? You think that the majority rule? That they care if 85% oppose this bill, Trumpcare, and 95% want universal background checks? They obviously don't care because of gerrymandering, voter suppression, Citizen United and outright election theft (the Russians only pointed the way to the new election hacking/manipulation methods that they will employ the next time).
1
Of course I expect some of them to be re-elected -- there is no accounting for stupidity. But I also expect many of them to be defeated -- possibly in the next election, when the stock market drops from $24000 down to about $14000, or less. The tale was already written on this play back in 1929, and those who either do not remember it, or refuse to read up on the history have a mighty climb ahead of them.
As I said, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
It was all devised through the Mont Pèlerin Society and the Citizen's United decision.
Forget infrastructure investment, we have now entered the Putin Playbook era : when a road is needed to serve the needs of an oligarch or or a stadium to pacify the masses chips are called on a few oligarchs to pitch in and make it happen. And if the masses bring their pitchforks out as Nick Hanauer so aptly predicts the militarization of our police forces will contain, aided if necessary by the battle hardened National Guard as we have seen in the past.
This is the end of the America I was born and raised in, morphing into an upstairs - downstairs authoritarian regime that dumbs down the masses by controlling what they are taught, told by the loss of net neutrality and are allowed to hear by evermore concentration of the media à la Sinclair Broadcasting going national.
To understand this new modus operandi suggest reading Luke Harding's new book Collusion.
20
With this bill, we will truly become a third world country, where the political elite benefits while the middle and lower classes suffer and continue to shrink. We have nothing to envy Russia for, we have our own oligarchs and we have Putin to thank for all of it.
17
How can anyone seriously believe the "big corporations" will bring their cash beck here be cause they will be taxed less? The big corporations do not pay any taxes... what's better than that? They will leave their money off-shore because even if this abomination goes through, if we still have a democracy, in a few years this bill will be drastically changed ... at what education level is this congress working on? 5th grade?
17
So I guess it stinks. Does it also stink that the stock market is going wild and unemployment continues to decline. One might say this is simply the result of salivating wealthy investors; however, I know one thing for sure: markets do not go up when there is pessimism about the future in general.
Wall Street is totally disconnected from Main Street. The market also went up in the lead up to the 2008 crash, when hundreds of thousands of people were losing their jobs each month. Wall Street reacts to the next quarter, especially when you have the incentive to trade instantly on a fractional change in price. Only 20% of Americans are invested in Wall Street. What is more, these represent only paper (digital) increases - the only time anyone "benefits" is when they cash in. Higher stock prices have nothing to do with jobs creation or investment, and it is absolute fiction (but one that Trump trumpets) that it is a measure of economic vitality.
Markets care about 1 thing -- corporate profits. The Market is going 'wild' because investors see that corporations will have more cash to buy back stock to prop up the market more.
As for unemployment -- that is a lagging indicator, not a leading indicator, so you can't use that until Q2/Q3 next year.
This is all leading to disaster. This tax bill hurts a lot of upper middle class workers. If it passes as currently is, I will have to cut about 500$ in spending a month to pay my higher tax bill, as will several million more people. I will have to fire about two graduate students in order to increase the pay on the other two enough that they can still eat after paying their tax bill on waived tuition and fees. The people that gain - the rich, won't spend a dime more on any goods/services as they will be chasing that stock bubble. A big tax bill like this will change behavior, and most of that behavior will be detrimental to the economy. This is a recipe for recession by 2018 Q3.
1
Sure, the rich want to get richer, and how do they expect to do that? Certainly not by paying less in tax. They do it by expanding their business. Has it ever occurred to anybody that this might create badly needed jobs? At least that’s the only way I have ever seen it done. I have never understood the logic that taxes saved always go into consumption or savings. Businesses, especially small businesses, struggle to stay afloat and the odds of a small business surviving for five years is little more than 50%. Not many years ago this country respected success in business. What has happened to those values? Might they require too much hard work, 60-70 hour work weeks, sacrifice of family time and the possibility of bankruptcy? You bet it does. These bleak facts together with the unpopularity of the so-called “wealthy” may doom us to eventual socialism. Thank goodness we didn’t elect Bernie Sanders.
How could this possibly happen when the majority of Americans do not support this tax bill? Perhaps because the United States of America is not a democracy though it pretends to be one. Through Citizens United money, gerrymandered districts, and propaganda disguised as "News," the oligarchs and corporate chieftains have rigged the system. As a recent Princeton study showed, "When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose." http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oliga...
20
Why pick on a few quasi-reasonable senators? Did Maine elect Collins to save us from McConnell, Rubio, Cruz, and McCain?
The entire Republican Party is corrupt. We know ye by your legislation. There's no justification for this bill as public policy. Nearly every provision is worthy only of contempt. No hearings, no Democratic support. Polls show 20% in favor. And yet it has near universal Republican backing.
16
I listened to economists Joe Stiglitz and Lawrence Summers, the last couple of days regarding this tax cut, they made the case that this bill is nothing about tax reform.
They both explained how previous tax reforms were done, and it usually is a long, two to three year process to look at all of the various ramifications of the changes, in order to make the best decisions for the long term health and benefit for the economy.
Everyone in Congress should be listening to them, and anyone who worked on the 1986 tax reform should speak out now, and stop this debacle before it does serious damage to our country and economic structure.
25
And don't forget the enormous hit that higher education will take by increasing taxes on graduate students, loan interest, and institutional endowments. This comes at a time when we need more highly educated people than ever.
17
I just received an email from Senator Lindsey Graham asking for his constituents' opinions on the tax bill. It contained a phrase stating that the non-partisan tax policy committee was guestimating a $2300 tax cut for the average South Carolina family. Of course the average SC family is rabidly republican and extremely victimized as evidenced by recent corruption and mistakes made by their own state legislators. Bait these folks with $2300 and they won't think beyond their next football game let alone five years down the road when this republican give away to the super rich and corporations comes back to haunt them by reducing Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, health insurance but increasing their taxes to pay for the republicans' gifts to their biggest campaign donors. You really can fool many voters most of the time.
37
If you believe in the idea of reforming the tax code to help grow the economy and simplify tax preparation, this bill is a huge lost opportunity, On the other hand, if you dislike having a massive debt that your children or grandchildren will have to pay, then this bill gives away the opportunity under a strong economy to pay down some of that debt, and instead, exacerbates the problem. If you believe inequality is getting out of hand, then this bill helps broaden the already historic gap between the richest and everyone else. And if you hoped for actual leadership, even conservative leadership, then this bill disappoints as your conservative heroes sell out most of the principles they have claimed to believe in, selling their souls for continued largesse from their donors or for a victory that is actually a huge loss.
23
ALASKA Has a precedent for sharing the wealth, in the form of sharing the profits from the extraction of gas and oil from public lands. I'm not sure what sort of effect the sharing has had on Alaskans. Nor whether there is an option to invest in a portfolio of government selected stocks and bonds as an option. But if we went around the country and looked at the profits of industries extracting mineral and extracting wealth from the cultivation and/or harvesting from public lands, we would discover that the government has given away the heritage of wealth by leasing public lands for a pittance, while the exploiters of such land have raked in trillions of dollars of profit over the years. If profit-making greedy corporations can become in land grabs, the government, asserting eminent domain, can create a sharing of the wealth for all citizens. Of course the GOPpers and 1%ers would start having major tantrums, hissy fits and histrionics. You see, they believe that they're entitled to have such wealth due to the contributions of other taxpayers. Otherwise there is the risk of redistribution of wealth for persons of all economic classes. The ghost of communism raises its ugly head. Besides, neither communism nor socialism solved all of societies problems. They never will because humans are flawed and mortal. So let's hear it for financial justice.
12
If the very wealthy and corporations will be getting tax breaks, and if Trump wants to increase our already bloated expenditures for the military, I think that we normal middle-class people should ALL go on a tax strike. We've got taxation without representation. We don't need to pour tea into the Bay, but it's time to reduce our taxes by the 57% that will go to the military and let those corporations (Raytheon, Grumman, Lockheed, etc.) who will be reaping more billions from Trump's military folly to foot the tax bill. They're the ones whose meager taxes should go to the military. Not the rest of us.
16
The whole republican party has taken on the veneer of their president elect. As is trump, so is this bill, shallow, thoughtless, cruel to all but those who already have the most. I used to feel respect for some republicans, who offered an alternative view, but now I simply feel despair.
18
Veneer, perhaps. In substance, the reverse. All his populist rhetoric has turned out to be lies, as his policy promises have been subsumed in the traditional Republican malfeasances of economic policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the common people, the government, and the social net.
It's not necessarily what happens today that's as important as what today might lead you to tomorrow. This "tax reform" package stinks. Everybody, including a lot of, okay a few, sensible Republicans know it, but they'll vote for it because they were told to out of fear of alienating their sugar daddy class. Tax cuts raise revenue. Comparable in an earlier time to human sacrifice makes the sun rise. The real Republican tomorrow is based on the certainty that the deficit is going to explode. Republicans will then quickly rediscover their aversion to deficit spending. Rather than, heaven forbid, raise taxes to right the ship, there will need to be massive cuts to entitlement programs. This is actually what's driving the tax cut furor. Republicans hate Social Security and Medicare and they really, really hate Medicaid. But a big section of the base is old, white and retired therefore...These tax cuts are nothing but a cowardly opening gambit in a long term game. The social network is the real target. VOTE!
13
What goes around comes around. The last time the GOP crashed the economy, under Dubya, the Democrats captured the White House and both houses of Congress. The fallout from this monstrous bill will be huge, and it will affect not only those who normally vote Democrat, but also those who are inclined to vote Republican (e.g., well-educated, well-to-do suburbanites). The Republicans resemble nothing so much as the Socerer's Apprentice. Possessed of power, they have no idea how to use it, and eventually overwhelms them. They have no long-term plan, no clue how this will all play out. They're about to find out.
8
Trump was made POTUS by an aristocracy that was afraid of Sanders. I voted for him because the others made my stomach turn. Better a random choice. It was like throwing a bomb. First time I had ever voted Republican.
1
"Like the House tax bill, the Senate measure would change how the government adjusts tax brackets and other tax provisions for inflation, replacing the Consumer Price Index with the Chained Consumer Price Index, which tends to increase at a slower rate. While most taxpayers would not notice an immediate impact ..."
The "not notice" is the Democrats' challenge. You'd have to be tax wonk to understand -- or even care about the hidden math.
The Republicans and Trump will look good because the vast majority of middle class families will be getting a tax cut. See the NYT's graphic:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/28/upshot/what-the-tax-bill-...?
Trump opponents point to the 2027 reset date.
Few Americans think that far ahead. And ten years is thousands of seismic news stories into the future.
Hate to say it, but in the short term Trump is going to look very good, especially for the 2018 and 2020 election cycle.
2
More than anything else, this tax bill and the race to pass it is like sitting in a car where the driver is careening at high speed down the road while having little understanding about his destination. He ends discussion with this brief exchange:
Passenger: "We are lost. Where are you going?"
Driver: "I don't know but we are making good time!"
7
No, the Senate is hastening the passage of the obscenely plutocratic tax bill because each Senator is a beneficiary. The Senate hates the little people that Leona Helmsley famously sneered at who pay the taxes and support its revenue stream. They want to reduce us to serfs. And those little people are so busy with two thumbs and other fingers playing with electronics that they could care less about anything else. End of story.
10
The USA will soon be like Russia. In terms of infrastructure, it already is in many places. And we have one party rule, just like in Russia.
6
Reporting suggests everyone is thinking that if the Senate quickly passes their version it will go to the House and end up in conference committee to meld the Senate and House versions for a final bill.
But there have been whispers the House will take whatever bill the Senate sends them and vote immediately on it since they have the numbers and don't need Democrats. Where as if it went to conference it would require time that would allow Dems to get the word out about how bad the bill is and rally support against the bill.
Long story short, it would be wise for everyone to email and call your senators today, before they vote, and let them know how you feel. Otherwise, this tax bill could slip through the Senate, Ryan immediately puts it to a vote and Trump signs it. And then we are stuck with it. Even when Americans wake up and find they've been suckered. It will be a done deal at that point.
A huge success for the Republicans fulfilling their decades long dream of getting rid of the estate tax and slashing corporate rates. Which is what they've been all about all along.
5
The Republicans have always railed against what they view as the Democrats' redistribution of wealth in the form of entitlements and subsidies for the middle and less advantaged classes. Both the House and Senate tax bills are travesties cloaked as tax reform and indicate that the Republican Congress really does believe in a redistribution of wealth, after all, from the middle class to the wealthiest among themselves. If passed, this will profoundly alter the fabric of American society, creating an even greater divide among the classes, further fueled by an intentionally divisive and unstable White House administration. As Republicans and Trump strip away benefits, deductions and access to health care for millions, they fail to remember the lessons of history. These efforts, if successful in passage, will ultimately destabilize our democracy. The Republicans may get their short sighted, short term "win". However, they are fools not to see the long term consequences by creating such economic disparity which will ultimately destabilize our democracy and eventually topple their very comfortable lives.
2
Untruths meant to deceive are lies and those who tell them are liars.
The GOP plan is nothing but a device to make the already-rich richer. Calling it a gift to low- and middle-income people is a deliberate untruth meant to deceive.
What does that make its GOP champions?
3
of all the horrible policy in this bill, you picked the alcohol reductions and note that they aren't inflation adjusted. I can't imagine that this is in the top 50 reasons why the go tax Bill is bad policy. Sin/excise taxes paid on alcohol production are often the most expensive ingredient. while I agree that the reductions should be tiered based on production volume, this is actually an area were one industry has an inordinate tax burden. with excise taxes measured by volume not by cost. they are regressive. 12 oz of cheap beer is taxed the same amount (not percentage) as 12 oz of the most expensive.
The GOP legislators are acting like the team on offense in the NFL that runs a play that should have been penalized and rushes to the line to get off another play before the penalty is enforced. Guilty people scramble to evade justice. There is no justice when the GOP shuts out congressional Democrats by skirting regular procedures in order to hastily ram through a tax bill that flagrantly hurts the working class while lining the pockets of the super-rich. They are driven to declare any kind of legislative victory and I bet most of them (and definitely Trump) do not even know the total contents of this bill. We can only hope that people realize by the mid-term elections that they elected Republicans who favored the rich over them, and then vote in a Democratic controlled Congress to reverse what will certainly be horrible legislation.
2
Republicans are lining up in lockstep to pass this bill a few tweaks here and there perhaps - but it will pass.
Short term it will not make a lot of radical changes - but longer term it will become the new norm and by the time of the next election it will be accepted that Democrats cannot repeal it because it will hurt the middle class more.
so its a successful coup de tax for the wealthy
4
The concept of public debt must be understood on its own terms. It is an amount above taxation that invests in entities that will spend the money widely resulting in return of revenue back to the government.
When it is misused as the GOP seeks to do by sequestering in places where none or only a small fraction is spent, the nation is unable to unleash its productivity potential, and subsequently allow citizens to increase their spending power including the ability to pay a fair share of taxes.
Debt becomes a problem when there is a miscalculation of potential economic growth or it is placed where there is inadequate distribution to the economy along with a manufactured shortfall in government revenue.
The latter describes the present GOP approach that is a throwback to a feudal system of tax extraction from vassals to enrich the lords. The Irish potato famine is a classic example where the serfs lived on bare subsistence because of poor return for productivity, and starvation set in when the crop failed in the famine.
I know conservatives value tradition, but it is a bit much to proffer such an anachronism that failed miserably.
2
If the Republicans get away with this smash-and-grab legislation it will be because conservative lawmakers couldn't resist the lure of more wealth at the expense of our nation's solvency and the well-being of its citizens. Our founding fathers would be heartbroken to see what they're doing.
5
This bill does only one thing -- it shrinks the US economy as a way of protecting the wealth of the mega-rich. The people who are hurt will be those who can least afford it.
The old Soviet Union collapsed from the same blunder. A tiny oligarchy, acting to enrich itself, used its absolute power over the economy to make decisions that protected themselves, while remaining deaf to the worsening situation of the masses.
2
Death and taxes are not the only certainties in life. With any discussion of changes in tax law, we can always count on politicians, particularly Republicans, to oversimplify the discussion by boiling it down to an ostensible and often short term reduction in rates for their favored, often wealthy, and powerful political base.
In reality, tax law and policy are ultimately driven by social engineering and policy preferences, and accompanied by largely sub rosa attempts to tip the balance of governmental services and benefits in favor of or against various political constituencies, depending upon which party is dominant.
Rates alone, in the short term, are the skirts behind which politicians nefariously hide in order to garner votes in the next election. Nevertheless, they also rely on craftily deceiving voters by misdirecting their attention away from the less desirable consequences of rate "reductions," hoping that they won't notice the unsavory details until it's too late.
For Republican members of Congress, dizzying speed is of the essence, but deceptive greed is the fuel that always drives them.
2
How about a truly fair and simple tax plan?
Everyone (including corporations, investors and estates) pays a flat 25% with zero deductions and the first $100,000 exempt.
Dream on. I've been hearing this idea for decades, but its never gotten anywhere beyond the occasional campaign speech.
1
Of course Republicans know this is no way to pass legislation -- especially a bad one, and that's exactly why they do it. Apparently they learned their lesson when trying to do the same thing with that dreadful health care bill that they hatched up behind closed doors, in all secrecy.
Maybe now the Americans who voted for this president and his administration are finally getting an idea of what they've gotten themselves into -- but that probably won't start to happen before they lose what health insurance they might have, lose their Social Security and Medicaid, and then go into the whole by paying higher taxes so the wealthy and corporate elite can flourish.
And that's called "winning".
2
Is this process no different than what happened with the Affordable HealthCare Act? Should we expect a rational and inclusive process from this behemoth mess we call our federal government? Partisan blinders, on both sides, are limiting our ability to progress, let alone function, as a nation. Toynbee would be very busy on his WP now, or would that be in tweets on his smartphone?
Unfortunately, the press is distracted by sexual scandals that receive both major headlines and extensive coverage. So although Republican leadership is doing all they can to push this reform through without examination, the press is aiding and abetting this process by giving this financial heist scant coverage in favor of lurid stories. In addition, Republicans are reluctant to criticize Trump's tweets because they give them cover to work behind the scene to give their secret agenda momentum.
1
This editorial is just another installment in the ongoing saga of predictable and ineffective opposition to all things Trump. The engine of the economy is already humming (3.3 GDP), and the tax bill will send it into turbo drive. Instead of focusing on the end of stagnated wages, increasing workforce participation, and growing optimism among Americans, this editorial focuses on dubious projections, booze, and a chimera called "transparency." The only "scam" that really matters is the one perpetrated on the American worker that reduced thriving cities and towns to blighted husks. This tax bill, with all its imperfections, will usher in a new era of prosperity in which all Americans will share, not just the one-percenters that have gobbled up the nation's wealth and promise.
This abomination of a tax "reform" bill is a Trojan Horse for a social revolution long in the making. The racist and misogynist distractions emanating from the Oval Office have allowed this bill to reach the point of passage without any real examination by the public. If this passes, blame falls partly on the media -- particularly cable news -- which has chosen to cover Trump's tweets rather than society-changing legislation, and the Democrats who have not shouted the bill's egregious components from the rooftop. Let this legislation also be a wake-up call for those students who will be terribly affected by it, those who decided in a dangerous wager to vote for candidates who had no chance of winning or who chose not to vote at all rather than sully their principles with a vote for Hillary. Pragmatism sometimes requires one to make the mature choice to vote for the candidate whose platform and experience has the best chance of helping the most people. We are experiencing what happens when that choice is not made.
1
I have never felt so frustrated, angry, dismayed, and disillusioned about this country and where it's heading. We have truly been taken over by kleptocrats who have no regard whatsoever for the welfare of the country or its people. We have a president who is a disgrace and embarrassment beyond words. Our elections are indeed "rigged", thanks to gerrymandering and various forms of voter suppression. The Republicans hold all the cards, yet defy the will of the People. It's hard not to feel hopeless. It seems the "American Dream" is no more.
2
The Republican Tax Cut Bill has one purpose only: to deliberately bankrupt the United States, so that the top 1% and corporations can transfer wage earner taxpayer assets to themselves. When the bills come due and can’t be paid, because of the documented and clearly substantiated failure of the trickle-down scam, they will go after their real target: social security (paid for by wage earner taxes), health care, medicare, medicaid, public education, privatization of public infrastructure, internet access, and wage earner pension funds or savings of every kind.
Goodbye America!
2
This tax bill will probably pass in some bad form or another because IT REALLY MATTERS to those who really matter --- the rich and powerful who have special interests and who have captured our government.
Can I put it any simpler? The American people DO NOT matter. The economic prosperity of the country DOES NOT matter. Reason doesn't matter. Good governance doesn't matter. Facts do not matter. Rich and powerful people want a tax cut to get more money. It's easier than earning it.
Just remember how many times in your life you have confronted an issue that was clearly right and wrong, only to find it being decided by someone who had a special interest in sweeping justice under the rug. It hurts and burns, doesn't it?
2
Assuming that this "Tax Bill" will pass in the moral abyss that is the Republican Party, how can the middle class undo this mess at the ballot box in 2018?
1
It’s not just Trump. There are millions of Americans supporting republicans and their welfare up ideology who think that someday they too will make as much money as the monthly payment of Trump’s trust fund. Dreaming of course, but that sick aspiration keeps the deplorable at a beggars distance and in awe of their masters.
1
Any Senator, or Representative, who opposed funding for the $800 stimulus bill proposed by Democrats and Pres. Obama to provide relief for the worst economy conditions since the Great Depression cannot in good conscience vote for this corporate giveaway. It is not tax reform, it is theft.
1
$800 billion that helped save the American economy and just half the $1.5 trillion theft taking place today.
This Trojan Horse of a Trump/Republican Tax Bill
a) greatly enriches the very wealthy and corporations who have already experienced the greatest increase in wealth in the past two decades while others wealth has stagnated
b) rewards corporations to further off-shore American jobs and use off-shore tax havens
c) requires only the low-wage worker and middle-class earner to pay more in taxes
d) adds $1.4 to $2.5 Trillion dollars to the national debt which will require further borrowing from China and decrease available revenue for social programs here at home... as the need for those programs will skyrocket
e) disingenuously makes permanent corporate tax breaks and inheritance tax on the wealthy while sunsetting any lower of taxes on ordinary earners
This tax bill represents everything that is wrong with Washington... a shameful sham of "legislation" designed to help those who need no help, at the expense of those who do really need help.
Our enemies couldn't have designed a better plan to weaken and destabilize our nation. Oh, I forgot, maybe they did!
Are there not enough legislators in our government that will stand up for the other 99% and vote for what is right and fair?
1
This tax bill has two pluses from the Republican leadership's point of view, 1) it rewards their donors and allows them a large ROI on their donations, 2) it "starves the beast" throttling the flow of revenue to the government (not even they believe the "trickledown" theory they espouse) requiring further cuts to everything but defense. It's crisis capitalism, when there isn't a crisis handy, make one, and this bill will do just that as it turns the entire country into Brownback's Kansas.
Our democracy will be in ruins if this bill passes. The GOP doesn't want to debate... it wants to rule with an iron fist. They want their money and as much as their greedy little hands can carry (figuratively speaking, of course). They are so greedy and unapologetic that it is staggering to conceive we are actually seeing them get away with their despotic acts against the wishes of the majority of the people. Astonishing. Trump once mentioned that he could go outside of Trump Tower and kill someone and no one would ever do anything about it. Well, that is exactly what he's been doing as President. He is killing our country and no one (the GOP) is doing anything about it. In fact, they are complicit in the death of America. Greed has become the word of the year. If you're not greedy, you're just not an American and will end up as a serf to the wealthy.
This bill needs to be defeated. It will ruin our country forever. The only hope we have if it passes, is that we get a Democrat majority in both Houses next year and they reverse this bill, with enough votes to override any veto from Trump. Otherwise, our country is doomed to punish the elderly, the poor, our children, and continue taking more from the middle class while rewarding the wealthy.
One primary selling point of this Tax Deform Bill is to reduce Corporate tax to make it more competitive to the tax of the other nations. We are told that if the businesses pay less tax, they will invest more an the economy will grw. This the Laffer curve theory. It did not work before as Reagan's budget director has sai later. An we are told that majority of the economic scholars including the Nobel Prize winners debunked that. But all this is lost voters who are not economic experts. And Trump's Wall Streeters are using this ignorance to push their pla nto increase Wall Streeters' mey bags.
I have a simple question: If we give more money to corporations, will they invest in productivity growing projects? WILL TRUMP BUILD MORE TRUMP TOWERS IN THE US OR WILL HE BUILD THEM IN RUSSIA< CHINA AND SAUDI ARABIA? Investors invest where there is demand, not because they have more money? Will they invest in projetcs that have longer payback period? The corporate tax cuts should have been targeted for pruuctivity investments in the US. Everyone will uderstan this lgic, not complex economic theories.
1
Whether or not this abomination of a bill passes, there is just one solution to this problem: VOTE THE REPUBLICANS OUT OF OFFICE.
Yes Citizens United has made this harder. Yes Gerrymandering has made this harder. But short of a rebellion on the scale of the initial American Revolution, this is the only rational option.
The tax rewrite along with the healthcare “reform “ has shown the notion that we live in a democracy is false. There was one vote a year ago won by Clinton by 3,000,000 votes that gave total control to Trump. Since then it was just a matter of time until the disorganized Trump party did what they wanted without meaningful discussion or input from anyone out of their small inner circle.
Unneeded and unfunded tax cuts for corporations and the GOP's rich donors that will add more than $2 trillion to our national debt, rob millions of health care, penalize students and teachers and lead to the elimination of Social Security and Medicare. Republicans are taking our country over a cliff just to satisfy a mean, ignorant dotard who shows every sign of mental instability and seems determined to make Russia and China great again while reducing us to beggary. And so much for those "principled" Republicans who spouted high-minded ideals in their speeches to Congress only to cave ;and put party ahead of country.
1
Does McConnell really think that people will not notice what a cynical, corrupt bill this is?
He can push it through quickly, and people will analyze it at their leisure.
Then the chickens will come home to roost. Grab what you can now Republicans. The pitchforks and the tar and feathers will be brought out and used in due course. Count on it. The majority of Americans realize that this bill is counter to their interests. They will not be still if this tax bill is passed into law.
I am writing to my senators (both Republicans) to defeat this bill. they will surely vote for it though only God knows why. i hope everybody urges the bill's defeat. The bill is both unnecessary and harmful. People will die if it passes and it represents a threat to entitlements and national security as a result of the huge deficits it will create..
This bill is nothing more that a looting of the treasury. 515 pages of loopholes and give aways to the rich. How do make America great by taking out the national credit card with little orno spending limit? We need infrastructure spending not corporate tax breaks. The GOP has lost its way is leading us into financial ruin.
Individual US citizens must pay taxes on their worldwide income.
But corporations don't. they can keep money off-shore for free.
But corporation are individuals now. Citizens United! the supreme court has spoken.
So, given that corporations are now individuals, why aren't they taxed on their worldwide income?
We don't need any tax reform at all. We just need to enforce the supreme court decision in Citizens United and collect thirty percent of every dime in cash hold in foreign banks by US corporations.
Problem solved.
None of this is surprising, unfortunately.
Republicans, to a man or woman believe above all in cutting--no--slashing taxes on the rich and on large corporations. They justify it by attesting a diehard faith in "trickle down" economics, where these sort of tax cuts will result in more jobs and higher wages. It is a matter of faith and the fact that it has been tried again and again and has never worked in the real world does not matter--neither do the resulting deficits--unless of course a Democratic president, who is stuck with the thankless job of cleaning up the elephant dung, is in office.
This bill seems particularly bad. This president is easily the worst in my lifetime. The Republicans in Congress are cowards, unable to stand up to their wealthy donors or President Trump or more particularly the 30% or so of the electorate (80% of Registered Republicans) who he commands like a lynch mob.
If this bill passes, and it's looking pretty likely, the devil in me looks forward to laughing at my Republican friends bemoaning the loss of their state and local tax deductions and other percs when this bill passes or when the inevetible reckoning comes.
It's notable that Trump's role in this criminal tax bill is to be a court jester who distracts the publics and the press" attention with increasingly noisy tweets. Most of the news is analyzing him rather than the bill.
1
The Senate is like a pack of beagles at the hunt, with their masters resplendent in hunting gear atop their horses, the beagles rushing to do the masters' biddings. In their beagle minds, they must think that they are part of it all, that their efforts will earn them a place at the table.
Imagine their surprise when following the hunt, as the masters enjoy a huge fine dinner, then brandy in front of the warm fire, they are ushered into cold kennels, their job done, no longer needed.
Fortunately, our forefathers did their work well. The next presidential election will hopefully bring in someone who is a president for all the people, not just the very wealthy. The tax bill that the beagles helped rush into place can be repealed. There will be plenty of damage done, some of it irreversible, but our forefather's framework assures that bad legislation does not have to be permanent.
Vote a better president in. And take the time to cast informed votes, don't vote beagles into office.
It is not just this rotten tax bill. The patern of the Republican conduct during the past decade, including the way they obstructed President Obama, their support for big money in politics, the way they rammed through the latest Supreme Court justice, their obsession with wrecking the healthcare system, the 180 degrees turn on their traditional principles (deficit, Russia, family values....), their contempt for science, and lastly, their cowardly support for Trump, indicates that something is awfully wrong with this Party.
Republicans are, now, essentially anarchists attempting to destroy the very idea of America to benefit the moneyed class. Yet, they need the continued support of the voters whose interests they work to subvert. That indicates a national intelligence deficit best illustrated by the current occupant of the Oval Office.
While Trump is padding his white supremist bona fides he leads the charge for an unseemly unnecessary greed driven raid on the treasury. Of course Trump personally benefits handsomely. Mitch McConnell makes sure all the Republican big contributors get their faces stuffed with largesse. Greed and bigotry rein supreme in Trump's Washington.
6
The Republicans are being responsive to their true constituents - their big donors. The TRUE reform we need is election finance. Once we get big money out of politics, maybe our Congress will start working for US again.
13
Therein lies the dilemma. The people that have to come up with and vote in campaign finance reform are the very same people that are sustained in office by the corruption of the current system. Same with gerrymandering. How do we fix it if the people who need to fix the laws are the ones that benefit from the gerrymandering.
In 1776 the then Colonists found a way ...
1
I've said it before as have others: This bill of enrichment for the wealthy and corporations is an end game for Republicans to get an eventual cut to entitlements--especially the long sought dismemberment of Social Security & Medicare.
27
This is Bush II without the wars (so far). Businesses will plow the savings back to shareholders: watch the stock buy backs, designed to prop up share prices, soar.
Here’s the thing I don’t get about the captains of business slavering for a corporate tax cut: what businesses need are customers. Raising taxes (or virtually keeping them the same) on the middle class takes away money that spend at those businesses. This doesn’t help business.
The Republican calls to cut Social Security and Medicare will of course immediately follow passage of this mess. Democrats should run on simple repeal.
35
Tax cuts are not needed with our current economy humming along well balanced between good growth and low inflation. This is just a massive heist. It's called Capitalism whether we like it or not. The rich take money from millions. Are you really surprised that this grand theft is occurring by the G.iant O.il Pirates who will pillage the nation and bury their treasure in secret locations on islands? Oh, and by the way, the price of Oil is once again rising under Republican leadership.
13
Not surprising. The name Tillerson keeps coming to mind...
Does anyone remember that the basic reason for having taxes is to fund the government's spending? Does this tax bill do that? No. Why then are we even considering it?
25
Because Trump and the (R)s need a win. Plain and simple, at the expense of millions of low- to moderate-income Americans.
There may be an unintended consequence of the Republican tax bill. It punishes citizens of New York and California, Democratic states. Some of those may move to states which are less clearly committed to either party, like Florida or Nevada. Even a moderate influx of Californians or New Yorkers could swing the vote in those states, making them clearly Democratic.
16
The targeting of NY and CA is not "unintended."
The 1986 Tax Reform Bill addressed virtually every provision of the Code and was 3000 pages long. The Republican bill, of 500 pages, is obviously not nearly as comprehensive. This is not to say that the bill is getting due deliberation. But the comparison with 1986 is misleading and wrong.
And I don't think the Republicans are hiding what they think is a bad bill. To be fair, McCain and others have already demonstrated what they do with bills that they think are bad. If they are moving forward quickly, there are two main reasons -- they are reasonably satisfied with the bill and they need to get it passed well before the 2018 election to prove to their voters that they can get something done. Just because Democrats don't like the bill doesn't mean Republicans dislike it, too. And, to be fair, the reason that Republicans haven't gotten anything done is that they haven't been able to come up with any bill that 50 out of 52 Senators like.
And by the way, you do remember Harry Reid. He was a no nonsense guy for our team.
1
I am 57 years old and I cannot believe what I am now seriously considering - moving to another country when I retire. I truly do not recognize my country any longer.
47
I said the same thing under Obama. It’ll pass.
1
I also do not recognize it. In my lifetime I have never seen a time when the POTUS has been derided by so many with such pure hate.
You're not alone. My wife and I are going to renew our passports.
2
Here's how my family will help pay for tax cuts for corporations and millionaires and billionaires:
My father, 84, has prostate cancer, and my mother, 82, has heart disease. The largest part of their income comes from Social Security, and they will no longer be able to deduct their medical expenses. They will pay more in taxes.
My children will no longer be able to deduct the interest they pay on their student loans. My oldest, 28, a PhD student in statistics, will have to pay taxes on the value of his tuition waiver, from his meager $22,000 stipend as a research assistant. My children will pay more in taxes.
My husband and I will no longer be able to deduct state and local taxes. We will pay more in taxes.
How are the rest of you contributing to this tax cut for corporations and the wealthy? Please share.
463
Our son has extensive medical expenses, and we have itemized our Medical expenses for the last few years. Now that Medical Expense deduction will not be allowed against our Federal tax return. We also live in a State with State Income tax, and high real estate taxes. Deductions for SALT will also be gone if this tax bill passes. We have Democratic Representatives in Congress, so we can't even petition our Reps for help.
19
I don't know! The bill has been public for a couple weeks and it is more than 500 pages long and hasn't been debated in bipartisan public hearings. So, I guess we will see how it affects me and my family in April of each year when our sellout leadership passes it in the senate.
1
Rochelle - I'd say that your parents and your son will safely fall into the 47% of Americans who don't pay taxes but will get a bigger deduction due to the Trump overhaul. As for you and your husband you need to get out of those high priced liberal, east coast states and move further into the heartland and experience what real living is all about.
The process reminds me of how Obamacare was enacted. Large, complex and unread before it was passed. The big difference is that tax legislation gets changed pretty regularly. We had tax laws passed in 1981, 1984, 1986 and 1987. Obamacare, on the other hand, has been a bit more intractable.
1
The ACA spent months in committees and floor debate. The only way this passage process mirrors that of the ACA is that Republicans are now doing everything they (falsely) claimed was done on that bill.
Worth noting as well that the relatively rapid-fire tax adjustments during the Reagan years were to accommodate the massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the gargantuan military spending.
18
are you kidding me? they spent months debating it, adding provisions and taking away things, amendments, hearings, begging the senators from Maine to consider it and doing what they asked (only to have them not vote for it wasting precious time). Not to mention they allowed and asked for republican input, which only got poison pill amendments added to the bill, intentionally designed to waste time. Let's not forget the input from experts, the medical field, and asking insurance companies what they wanted...
This is a common talking point from the Right but the ACA took over a year and many public hearings to enact. This is being jammed through without seeing the light of day.
1
For fear of getting fully exposed about their anti-people usurious budget plan the Senate Republicans are rushing it up with a breakneck speed, though hurdles are still many in the path.
6
I live in New York, the state of high taxes and fees, and I welcome this tax change. It will mean lower taxes for me and most of my retired friends.
Think so?
I too live in NYC and expect to pay way more with the elimination of SALT (State And Local Tax) deductions, among other things.
11
We can only assume that you and "most of your retired friends" are happily ensconced in a high income bracket. Congratulations! Most retirees are worriedly facing the eventual cut in Social Security and Medicare -- somebody has to bear the brunt of paying off the huge deficit that will ensue from the tax cuts.
If ever there was a time for citizens to take action it is now. Pick up your phone and call the Washington office of your senator to tell them this is unacceptable. Regardless of your party affiliation this will hurt you and yours. You will be adding to your tax burden in order to relieve the burden of the wealthy, who already have benefits not available TO YOU. tHE DEFICIT CREATED WILL NECESSITATE CUTTING BENEFITS SUCH AS SS AND MEDICARE.
Do it now.
13
Both my senators and my representative are all democrats who will vote against this. I guess i could call Susan Collins and John McCain but why would they care what I have to say.
The more we read the bill, the more we find the pork and the special interests and lobbyists have their faces in the trough. As to the middle class, don't bother your poor congressman or senator. He or she could care less about you. You don't have a seat at the table.
18
I've never been ashamed to be an American until now.
Not that we lack issues, but in the past, there was always evidence of some movement toward a ''more perfrect union.'' The complicated process eventually moved us forward, at least a little.
Not now.
Yesterday, the President endorsed via retweet the odious work of white fascists in Britain, one of whose followers murdered a British MP last year. His increasingly erratic behavior, unchecked by the Congress, threatens us and the rest of the world.
Yesterday, the few ''conscientious'' Republican Senators who took strong stands on healthcare repeal folded, succumbing to cheap tax cut buy offs and threats from plutocrat donors.
Republicans seem capable of doing only one thing, cutting taxes for the already wealthy at the expense of everyone else. There is no ''public'' in this policy making. There are no limits on what this President can do or say.
Mueller is the last bastion. Light candles for him.
138
If we go in debt when it’s not needed, what will we do when it is needed? This is what happened with the Bush tax cuts. We turned a surplus into trillion dollar debts and then had to rely on the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing in the Great Recession. We will spend decades unwinding that debt.
We’ve followed “conservatives” down this road before, let’s not make the same mistake again while we’re still paying down our massive debt from the Bush tax cuts.
68
massive debt from Bush tax cuts? did you forget the $10 Trillion in debt from 8 years of Obama? more than all debt accumulated under all previous administrations in history?
Nelson,
Per the analysis cited below, Obama was responsible for about $900B of the $9T debt accumulated during his 8 years. About $850B of that was due to extending the Bush tax cuts. Of course the Great Recession was the effect of Bush's Presidency and the cause of the $trillions in deficits run up during the Obama years, due to lower revenues and measures to fight the downturn. See the following link for the summary analysis:
https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-under-obama-3306293
1
We're approaching this bill from the wrong end.
It should be named an entitlements cut bill since that will be its main effect in the end.
Second, along the way, it will increase the deficit, to force the entitlements cuts.
Third, and only third, it is a tax cut bill. In this portion of the argument, which we see first, we spend the money that we agreed to withdraw from the Federal balance sheet by moving it upward in the income distribution.
This giveaway is not inflationary because none of the recipients plan to spend it on increasing wages. It's just a wealth transfer. And it's values-based. The folks who support the politicians who are voting for this bill are willing to tilt the tables towards themselves to increase their own comfort at the expense of the rest of us.
That willingness is immoral, in two senses. First, it separates work from reward. Second, it deprives us of hope for the future. The American ideal that success can be newly achieved through hard work is being betrayed.
140
Social security, medicaid are not entitlements. We paid into them.
2
You missed it...wealth transfer actually occurred during the Obama period. This simply rolls back some of the giveaways.
1
The provision for territorial taxation needs to be called out. After all, even if the corporate income tax rate is reduced to 20%, 20% of nothing is...nothing. Territorial taxation will allow multinationals to shift pre-tax US profits to subsidiaries in foreign tax havens like never before. The rate of tax is meaningless if the tax base that it is applied to is meaningless. Territorial taxation is separate geographic accounting.
Exxon tried this with the State of Wisconsin in the 1960's, reporting losses in that state for fours years. Wisconsin didn't buy it and neither did a unanimous US Supreme Court in their 1980 decision. Territorial taxation will shift the tax burden away from multinational corporations to smaller businesses and to higher sales, property, and personal income taxes and/or budget cuts to education, road & bridge repairs, child care, health, etc.
28
If takes on alcohol have not increased since 1991, then why did the cost of beer, wine and, spirits have increased so much in NYC in the last 20 years? They doubled, and in many restaurants, a glass of wine is between 20 to 25 dollars.
7
That's the free market at work. Prices have gone up because consumers will bear the cost.
From what I've read there are two or three companies that own most breweries, distilleries and labels. It's a monopoly. They will eventually be broken up in a few generations. We just seem to need to repeat all the mistakes of the past for the greedy gains of a few people.
2
Taxes are rarely the reason prices go up. Inflation, rise in costs of the raw materials, and ripping off new yorkers is why the price changed. Same reason you pay more for a cup of coffee in NYC than anywhere else...
Small wonder that rush. All the markets are at record highs and it would be a good time to "take money off the table." If that can be combined with a greatly reduced tax rate that would make it money heaven. The markets by most measures or estimates is wildly oversold and there is fear of some "correction" which would mean a loss of indeterminable size. Markets have adjusted to the instability in the White House. But no one thinks this can go on forever.
12
While I've never been fond of them overseas when I've encountered them, the impact of these bills are so far reaching, negative to all but the donor class, that national strikes may be in order. What other way can the majority get their point across when elections can't?
44
Given that the American system allows a minority of voters to control nearly every level of government, the majority may have no other way to make their voices heard than by taking highly disruptive action. I'm not sure Americans realize the depth of the constitutional crisis we are already in, but things like the electoral college, the method for allocating seats in the Senate and House, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and court stacking have created a system where the majority can be effectively shut out of power by a minority, as long as the minority can control enough state governments, electoral votes, and Senate and House seats. In our system of government controlling districts is what counts, not having the support of the majority.
The constitution is now actually preventing America from having a healthy democracy—but in the current environment responsibly amending the constitution is impossible. So I'm afraid you are right—we will need something disruptive to effect change—and strikes may be the most benign of the options before us.
29
Now at the end of the century-long, Republican drive to destroy the private sector labor movement in this country, who exactly do you imagine will organize those strikes?
4
Elections work if everyone:
1) pays attention to how their "representatives" vote, so that they cannot be fooled by election ads, filled with lies about how much a Republican cares for workers, paid for by wealthy donors who have been rewarded by the Republicans they buy.
2) Vote in EVERY election. Gerrymandering is done at the State level, and was enabled by Democrats who did not vote in the 2010 midterms.
3) Don't be fooled by those who whine that there is "no difference" between Republicans and Democrats. Just watch how they vote on this tax bill, for example. Don't be fooled by lies that it is motivated by helping hard working people-- why would the huge Estate tax reductions be in there if that were the focus? Remember that Republicans opposed Medicare and Social Security from the beginning and have been trying to undermine them ever since.
4
My normally placid and centrist boyfriend is now very worried about what the consequences of these tax cuts for the wealthy and I replied that I hope the problem with the GOP will be solved at the ballot box in 2018 and 2020. He is still not sure, and neither am I, any more.
I used to think we all were proud of our system of government and that our constitution, our covenant as Americans, would see us through rough times. These days, I'm definitely not sure of that.
The GOP is now deliberately pitting states against each other, granting some compliant states political and economic favors, and turning its collective back on others that are not willing to go along with the GOP agenda.
At the same time, it is weakening the central government that holds sovereignty over all fifty states and maintains our cohesiveness, dismantling agencies that provide protections and regulations for citizens and our environment, and decimating our entire educational and healthcare systems.
It is like a multi-pronged attack on the United States from within. They are sowing disharmony, and if we the people fall for the party's machinations, then we will indeed descend into chaos and misrule.
Everything the GOP is currently doing will also have unintended repercussions. It will be nothing if not interesting to see how this push to impose a radical, right-wing, theocratic agenda upon the entire nation will backfire on Republicans.
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Think about how many republican senators are up for vote in 2018 (8) compared to how many democrats (24). I may be a little off but you understand the issue. It is more likely than not the republican control of the senate increases as opposed to decreasing. Secondly think about who is the democratic savor in 2020. Can't think of anyone. Neither can I. So trump is likely reelected. So get used to it.
This seems to me to be the logical conclusion of electing people to run govenment who don't believe in governmnet and actually think the institution they work for is the problem. It's been happening in towns, cities, and counties for a generation. I fear it won't end until the whole country is Kansas, and then, like the failed Sam Brownback, the super-wealthy will just move to another country and start all over again. Maybe that's the only way we get the America you describe, and I miss, back.
5
Yes, Allison, let us only hope it backfires on Republicans in 2018 and 2012. I for one, intend to do all I can to make it happen---- and I am a former long-time Republican.
4
The real question should be: why do we need a tax cut in a booming economy? Shouldn't we be knocking down deficits and debt?
The GOP would say that our tax code makes American companies uncompetitive. Even if you drop the top rate to 20%, how does that compete with 0? Let's fix that first.
54
Maybe, what we should be asking, is why, in a "booming economy" are we not looking at spending cuts to rein in the debt?
3
It will cause lots of Californians and New Yorkers to move to move here to Nevada. A real boost to the local economy. Also full employment to me as a CPA.
5
I thought that only a piece of paper the size of a postcard was all it was needed to file the tax declaration.
I was thinking that that was what everyone wanted, and now we need again CPAs
What a scam!
It's bad -but not that bad.
Meanwhile Trump distracts, diverts and inflames with his bigoted language and posting of repellent videos on his Twitter account, this to divert us away from reviewing this despicable albatross of 'tax reform', hoping that few will notice that the tax bill may be just days away from passing and becoming law.
Properly labeled it would be called Republicans Dream Bill of Reverse Robin Hood ... subtitled 'how to rob the poor and middle class while enriching the richest individuals and companies in America'.
58
It’s the Gusher Up tax cut for the wealthy. A huge gusher of benefits up to the already rich at the expense of the poor and middle class. It is unconscionable that they will ram this travesty of a bill through with barely any debate or proper analysis. Why are we going to allow a bill with such enormous consequences to pass so quickly without proper review and debate? Wake up people and contact your senators and congress people.
1
What makes it a bunch of snake oil salesmen peddling their wares is the realization that the 20% tax rate will itself be lowered further still given that Republican lawmakers didn't even bother to address the existing tax loopholes already providing so many deductions that few corporations actually pay the stated corporate tax rate. When all's said and done, most corporations will be paying far less than 20%. The robber barons would have blushed from such a obscene spectacle.
46
If this so=called Tax Reform goes through our economic viability will be shattered. There is no "trickle down," from tax breaks for corporations; never was and never will be. The ripple effect of pulling out monies from the lower class and middle class, sabotaging the ACA will offset any economic bubble.
If the consumer has no money to spend how in the world will businesses thrive. No money to buy health insurance, goods, services; it is the little guy who doesn't save, but spends. No more.
40
How are we living in a democracy when Republican write major legislation behind closed doors; when they gerrymander districts so that politicians can pick their voters (Virginia Democrats won 54%+ of the vote total for the House of Delegates, but are likely not to control the chamber); when voter suppression is a pillar of electioneering; when the institutions that protect the environment or handle diplomacy or advance education are being dismantled by unelected, unqualified mercenaries, and when Congress votes on life-changing bills that nobody has read carefully?
The above is to democracy as Trump is to truth.
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Don't forget computerized vote theft.
https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election
How Hackers Broke Into U.S. Voting Machines http://fortune.com/2017/07/31/defcon-hackers-us-voting-machines
The Insecurity of America's Old and Underfunded Voting Systems
http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2017/07/20/538312289/fresh-air-for...
Laughing Their Ossoff: Did Computer-Aided Fraud Play A Role In Georgia's Special Election Upset?
https://www.mintpressnews.com/laughing-their-ossoff-did-computer-aided-f...
Dear Santa,
Can we have a tax break that serves the most needy? Sorry Kid, here's a lump of coal. That should keep you warm! You're Welcome!
31
All those lumps of coal will revive the coal mining industry, just as Trump promised.
This would be a huge win for President Tumor, both politically and personally.
And THAT is why Flake, Corker, and McCain need to take a stand and pause this.
What's left of their party, actual people, and the date of the nation all depend on cutting Trump out of the body politic.
43
The bottom line is will Americans sit still for this scam or fight to stop it here and now? Its our loss if this goes through. Take the time to let your Senators and Representative know "NO"!!!
26
They will sit still. Most of them don't even know its a scam, thanks to their alternative media and anti-government ideology.
Just more proof that Republicans have no principles. If you are a Republican you, by definition, have no principles and are on the payroll of an elite group of neo-Royalists.
32
It's clear that this tax cut benefits corporations and the very wealthy, and that the GOP is doing its best to continue the lie that this will somehow benefit lower and middle income Americans. This, despite corporate executives - of companies already experiencing record profits and available cash and low interest borrowing potential - responding to polls acknowledging that any windfalls will be allocated to shareholder benefits (ie, more for the already wealthy).
Then what - will the Republicans in Congress finally, having accomplished their holy grail of tax cuts for the wealthy - finally cut Trump loose? Will anyone develop a backbone to call him out for his ignorance, lies, and incompetence. If so, it still won't be worth it on the backs of everyday taxpayers who aren't getting the windfalls, but it might ease the pain a bit.
7
Top 10 Reasons This Bill Stinks:
10) It won't increase wages, as the money will go to stock buybacks.
9) It won't increase investment, see #10.
8) It will raise the deficit by $1.5 trillion.
7) It benefits owners over workers by a 5 to 1 ratio.
6) The bottom 60% get 20% of the benefits during 2019 (i.e., at the deepest of the cuts), while the top 10% get 50% of the benefit (per TPC).
5) It takes health insurance away from 13 million people.
4) It raises health insurance premiums by 10% for millions of people.
3) Economists nearly unanimous that it will barely change GDP.
2) A booming economy is when you do austerity, not stimulus. We should be raising taxes on the rich, not cut them.
1) It was sold using a series of often-refuted lies. The purveyors of these lies need to be taught a lesson about integrity.
68
This tax bill is only step one in the long held Republican Party goal to, "shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."
That means starting with a $25 billion cut to Medicare, cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and much much more so that massive debt service payments can be made to bond holders, a great percentage of which are foreign. And, oh yeah, hundreds of billions dollars for excess military spending.
Money for much needed nation-wide infrastructure investment? Forget it -- unless you count Trump Wall as infrastructure investment.
16
In time final details of this bill will be known, and numbers will be published (changes in GDP, consumer spending, the deficit/national debt, etc) - and neither will be "fake news". Either Republicans think normal voters are as accepting/gullible as Trump supporters or they don't realize the top 1% are only 1% of voters.
8
So envision this, the bill passes. Next election cycle. The Democratic candidate speaks. "So the incumbent Republican voted to raise your taxes, to raise the taxes of the most vulnerable, people with medical debt, and to raise the taxes of people with student debt, and the poor. And why? To help the sick? To educate our children, to fix our roads and bridges? No, not on your life. They are giving this tax break that you will pay for to give more money to wealthy, to allow wall street elite to keep more of their money at the expense or yours, and finally to add to the growing nest egg of the President and Chief Real Estate developer. If you vote for me I will do everything I can to get your money back!"
Maybe if the Dems really pay attention passing this bill might turn out better in the end.
10
Time will tell. The Democratic party needs a leader who can get elected.
Greed is a hunger that can never be satisfied.
20
They don't represent us and proud of it.
8
Republicans are behaving with all the seriousness of a local supermarket raffle ticket winner who gets an empty shopping cart and five minutes to load it up with whatever he or she wants while friends and family members hysterically shout out their special requests from afar; an ugly scene that soon turns even uglier with an orgy of junk food consumption followed by tremendous belly aching all around.
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And the Democrats are standing outside looking in through the window wishing they were the ones grabbing all the groceries. You had eight years under Barack, now it's our turn.
Kurt , if you are not one of the donor class all you will find in your Xmas stocking is coal. Of course being from Tennessee you probably love coal.
I live in a pretty blue area - Dem Governor, 2 Dem Senators, Dem Rep. But I have occasionally voted for moderate Republicans, like our Secretary of State Kim Wyman, who I believe has represented our state well.
I can tell you that in witnessing this circus in the other Washington, which is just a naked money-grab pure and simple, that the GOP brand is more than dead in my eyes. The zombie party, walking but without a soul. I hope that Ms. Wyman and any other moderate Republican understands that from this day forward, he or she will have to renounce the GOP in strong terns and run on an independent label. What does the GOP have to offer to anyone not in the 1%.
I don't believe it to be hype to say that a handful of moderate GOP Senators hold the fate of the US in their hands. Should this come to pass I don't see the tribal rift ever being repaired. Ms. Collins, Mr. McCain, Mr. Flake, Mr. Corker - please explain to me why I should ever again even consider the GOP ideas as having any credibility for my and my family's future.
It this succeeds, I predict it will be a short and pyrrhic victory for the GOP. And the mob will be angry this time.
57
I hope you are right. The Amercian voters never seem to get it. They fear/hate D's on an irrational level. The R's might be bad, But the D's are worse, no matter what. The R's should have gotten their comeuppance over stalling on Obama's appontment to the Supreme Court, but here we are one year into this never-ending chaos...
This is a kleptocratic coup d'état. And like a coup it was plotted secretly by a small group of conspirators and is being pushed through lightning fast accompanied by a disinformation campaign. Ten days to go through a reckless feeding frenzy about a 500+ page bill at breakneck speed, excluding Democratic senators from its creation and with no hearings.
This is against the Constitution. Citizens elect their representatives. Democratic senators represent far more Americans than Republican senators do. Excluding elected officials from their Constitutional responsibilities is the same as locking them out of the Capitol.
On the evening of Nov. 20th, the Putsch began when all kinds of carefully considered deductions were slashed and enormous tax breaks made to transfer almost all the money to private wealthy individuals or to rich corporations. This is anti-American and will impoverish the nation.
George Washington in his Farewell Address warned the country to avoid the accumulation of debt. The GOP bill will blow a hole in the deficit, adding somewhere between $1.5 to $2.2 trillion to it. He warned to not throw "upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. .. it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant."
The revenue was just given away to the wealthy.
27
You know Congress has the power to adopt any law.....including retroactive ones!
The GOP should be eradicated in the next elections; then, gerrymandering and businesses should be banned from politic ......These measures should bring back the democracy
For a long, long time pirate corporate executives have practiced devouring other corporations. Once they get control of a smaller company, they sack its pension savings and other funds, run it into the ground, and leave an empty shell. It has long been a dream of this milieu to break into the highest offices of government and sack American social services by tax cuts that will increase their wealth. They have been succeeding for some time and the name of it is privatization. They have coalesced their wealth to gradually infiltrate government. With, apparently, the support of Russian money and Russian hackers, they have finally reached the top with the Trump presidency. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is an example of a corporate exec reaching one of the highest offices in the land and sacking the State Department, while Pruitt sacks the EPA. This rolling pending disaster has been threatening middle class and poor America for a long time with the effort to overturn Obama's health insurance program, and now with the pending tax cuts. And it's looking seriously like a disaster can no longer be deferred: the social services for Americans are going to be sacked by a cartel of Republican Congressmen and women and the Trump administration. Meanwhile Trump shows more everyday that he is either very sick or very smart at distracting his crowd with a puppet show while the heist goes on.
29
No Republican worth her or his salt would support any tax legislation without first seeing Trump's tax returns. To do otherwise is dereliction of duty, at best.
23
Really? Then why aren't they demanding it? The GOP Congress IS completely derelict in its duty.
I don't know what the word of 2018 will be, but I suspect that the word of 2019 will be "clawback."
13
It goes well beyond stinking. It is toxic waste that will slowly but surely damage the middle class and poor. The damage will be harsh and, once discovered, will be be very difficult to cure.
18
So my mother--93 years old, who pays 110% of her income (widow's pension and SS, drawing down her saving to make up the difference) on her care in a group home for the elderly with dementia will pay taxes under the Republican Pillage plan. When my daughter goes to grad school in a couple of years, if she's lucky to get a tiny stipend and tuition, she'll pay inflated taxes because tuition will be taxed as income. As we go down the road, the deficit will swell and this will be a perfect excuse to slash Medicaid. Sorry, my brother. No health insurance for you. Housekeepers will pay taxes. All so that Trump and his kleptocratic cronies can keep even more of their pile. I keep hoping I'll wake up from this nightmare. But it keeps getting worse.
33
By the time the toll of the GOP tax plan is felt on the middle class, a new round of senators will be in office and predecessors will cast blame on their successors.
Americans who are not wealthy do not have the critical thinking to understand the fundamental virtues of tax revenue, are amnesiac (remember the unspectacular middle class windfall of the Reagan/Bush tax cuts that didn’t grow the economy) and consistently vote against their financial interests.
Blue collar voters who elect GOP legislators are the wealthy’s golden eggs.
12
Is there anybody left in Congress actually representing the interests of us American taxpayers? And how many taxpayers do our members of Congress actually think they are fooling with this tax bill?
20
You are saddled with a 9% state income tax. Look to your state legislators first.
The photo accompanying this article is artful, journalistic and a true statement of the upside down nature of this tax bill and this Trumpian universe. The Trumpian difficulty with reality afflicts even persons with Harvard Law degrees, like Senator Cruz. He said this week on a public debate stage that a very similar tax cut bill, passed during the administartion of Calvin Coolidge, spurred significant economic growth for three years. None of the moderators nor his three fellow senators asked him what years. It was 1926, 1927 and 1928. Apparently the Great Depression, which began in 1929 and lasted for more than a decade, is an alternative fact for Senator Cruz.
18
The Republicans, always, give the great bulk of their tax benefits directly to the rich, while stating their aim is to have those benefits flow to those below. Here's a novel idea on achieving that stated aim: Try giving most of the benefits directly to those below. I've always found a shower's more efficient than a trickle.
10
I've been following the tax fiasco quite closely but wasn't aware of these three other horrors: the new way to measure the inflation rate, the booze tax repeal, and the special "credit" businesses get back if the treasury overflows due to an expanding economy.
Wasn't that the whole rationale for this abomination of a bill in the first place?
Not much has been made of other special benefits I believe for now only in the house bill, regarding churches. First, tax exempt churches will be able to contribute to political campaigns--seems unconstitutional to me, but what do I know?. Second, the establishment of an unborn fetus as a human being, ostensibly to allow parents to claim them for a tax-exempt college fund.
At the risk of sounding churlish, does the taxpayer have to pay it back if the mother miscarries?
I'm sure they'll come up with other goodies once they go to reconciliation. At the rate they are adding special giveaways, they'll be grabbing even more from the middle to pay for higher deficits.
I think word is getting out, as protestors have descended on Congress. I heard that Bernie Sanders is going to barnstorm the country holding tutorials in tax injustice.
Not that these clowns care--as their own tax breaks (and campaign contributions) come into closer focus, greed is making them giddy, and increasingly unfiltered.
With visions of dollar signs, they've lost all sense of shame.
249
I think that if the mother miscarries, there is an inquest with police and coroners to determine whether it was murder, manslaughter, depraved indifference, or accidental death.
If a fetus is a person, then every fetal death must be investigated by the authorities, after all.
I expect that next year I will spend my entire tax cut on lower-priced whisky and long hours staring at Obama era highlight reels on YouTube.
144
Only if YouTube pays the big ISPs not to throttle it in the coming post-net-neutrality world!
1
Except with net neutrality now rescinded, you'll pay more to watch YouTube, so it's a wash.
2
Yes you are kidding because those highlight reels will be blank after The Donald gets done with trashing BO's legacy.
Perhaps, the most ominous occurrence of this year under the Republican executive and legislative branches (and soon to come, judicial) is the growing realization that our government is neither "of the people" nor "for the people." It is neither a republic nor a democracy. Not in its true sense, not anymore. The American majority is, for a multiple of reasons, against this tax bill that will most likely become law....a law that will trigger more struggles for the everyday individual and more silver platters for the affluent. The majority, too, is now pleading not to take away from us the closest we have come to universal health care, the ACA. But our pleas fall on deaf ears. This president and his GOP Congress are without shame, without conscience. They, because of greed and corrupted souls, care not one whit for the people who elected them into office (and, of course, those of us who didn't). Yet, they continue to have supporters who have believed their relentless lies and hypocrisy. Something has to give here...perhaps, a metaphorical magic wand that will awake this country from its false, vacuous hopes. Hope re this administration and its sycophants is wasted energy. However, proaction to make sure these fools are not reelected in 2018 and 2020 is energy well spent.
101
The tax bill punishes the Blue States by taking away property, state and local tax deductions, medical deductions. The blue states like New York and California have some of the highest health care costs in the nation in addition to the highest property taxes. This tax bill will force people to sell their homes, and if you need deductions for cancer treatment or high medical bills, the deduction is gone. This will force people into bankruptcy, and forgo life saving medical care. The bill is so cruel as you go down the list it is breathtaking. It also will no longer allow tax deductions for catastrophic losses from wildfires and earthquakes, but permits deductions for hurricanes. For anyone living in California who knows someone who lost everything in the devastating fires, this is simply brutal. These people will also need ongoing medical care because the cleanup is comparable to 9/11. And since there isn't much coverage about this, to get Senator Murkowski to vote for this travesty, they attached legislation to the bill to allow for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I guess her vote against the repeal of the ACA wasn't that important. What else is in there that we don't know about?
The question I keep asking about very tangible things like this tax proposal, the winners and losers of which should be clear for all to see, is why do Trump voters maintain their support?
This tax "plan" is long-range pocket-book stuff that will not help the low-to-mid-range middle class and those who earn less very much if at all in the short-term and will end up hurting them in the long term barring repeal, which we all know is hard to do.
There are also elements of a sustained attack on the social safety net that most people will need to use at various points in their lives, most likely in their old age. That means harder times when we grow old. This is part of a long-range plan of the wealthy to minimize what they see as a burden that will take more of their wealth in taxes to support the safety net for those who need some help (more people than not).
There seem to also be provisions to increase taxes on students in grad school, a time when most students just scrape by. We want to increase our talent pool, not place obstacles in their path.
Where is the sense in any of this from the perspective of Trump's base? These criticisms are not ideological or irrational. It has become very clear, more than at any time in my life, just who the GOP works for. Why do Trump supporters not see this?
30
Because they are uneducated, they don't know how to discern real reporting from the pro-Trump rubbish they are fed on Fox News, and they can't admit they voted in a con artist who is taking them all to the cleaners.
1
Christian: I agree that many appear to have exercised poor judgment, but apparently, a high percentage of these voters are college educated (not a guarantee of good judgment). From
https://newrepublic.com/article/138754/blame-trumps-victory-college-educ...
"The average Trump voter is not poorly educated or unemployed, nor does he live in a rural area. Back in May, FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver punctured the myth of the “working class” being Trump’s voter base: In exit polls of 23 states from the primaries, all showed a higher median income for Trump supporters than the national average, usually around $70,000. Exit polls last week, while not definitive, reveal that both college-educated white men and college educated white women voted for Trump by much higher than expected margins ... The voters Clinton really lost—the ones she was targeting and relying on for victory—were college-educated whites. Most polling suggested she would win these voters, but she didn’t, according to exit polls: White men went 63 percent for Trump versus 31 percent for Clinton, and white women went 53-43 percent. Among college-educated whites, only 39 percent of men and 51 percent of women voted for Clinton."
Republicans have a win-win scenario in play here. In years ahead when Democrats regain the legislative advantage they will be compelled to raise taxes to fund basic necessities of Medicare, Social Security, and many other components of a civilized society.
Republicans will scream, "There they go again! Democrats only want to raise your taxes!" And, of course, the public will take that at face value, forgetting who slashed revenue to begin with.
Republicans depend upon an uninformed, fact-phobic, and intemperate voting population to sustain this ruse, so all indications are that the future is looking great for Republicans.
60
Or the Dems could do something much more sensible a few years from now - Since Trump has made very clear that he intends to favor the areas that voted for him economically, there will be little appetite for blue voters to continue to redistribute their tax dollars to the states (just about all red ones) that get more back from the federal government than they pay.
Instead of walking into the GOP trap, a smarter Dem party would pitch a policy of strict limits on how much a state can receive in federal dollars versus how much it contributes. The free ride of red states getting $2, $3, or more per dollar they citizens pay in taxes can come to an end and balance the budget that way.
1
Yes, I am a Republican.
My rice bowl is full, how about yours?
I'm not fan of the GOP's Tax Scam bill either, but if the DC Democrats don't like this version of tax cuts for the rich, why did they and Obama extend Bush's Tax Cuts for the Rich when those tax cuts were within weeks of expiring? And not just for a few years, Obama & the DC Democrats made Bush's tax cuts for the rich permanent. Their complaints now seem hard to swallow. Until the go-along-to-get-along DC Democrats start advocating for the working middle class, they better get used to following rather than leading.
3
Bush cuts were reasonable. These are over-the-top.
BTW, Obama DID offer to cut the tax rate for repatriated profits IF corporations would agree to use some of it for job creation - none would commit. The following article doesn't discuss using profits to create jobs, but discusses details of Obama's plan (including a one-time 14% tax to repatriate profit). Nothing became of it. "Obama targets foreign profits with tax proposal, Republicans skeptical". It sounds reasonable.
19
George... the Bush the tax cuts were made permanent for single people earning less than $400,000 per year and couples making less than $450,000 per year, BUT they were eliminated for people with higher incomes under the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
Additionally, ACA taxes included an additional 0.9 percent payroll tax on earnings and a 3.8 percent tax on net investment income for individuals with incomes exceeding $200,000 and couples with incomes exceeding $250,000.
Your knowledge and/or memory of history conflicts with reality.
27
No offense, but I don't see why the Democrats not sun-setting the Bush tax cuts should make see the GOP's tax scam as OK or anything close to OK!
10
This is as bad as the deconstruction of the EPA. I don't know which is worse. The tax bill is a sham on the general population on the US of A. There are provisions in there that are not related to tax such as allowing political persuasion in churches, something the the alt-right wanted. What happened to the separation of church and state as written in the Constitution? I see a court case resulting from this provision. I am 71 and retired living in a condo with no appreciable debt but it is my children I worry about. This tax bill will have a terrible effect on them especially since they live in NYS with high state taxes that will no longer be deductible. The general public will remember this bill when elections come around. Maybe we can get a responsible congress elected that will modify this tax plan to save the middle class and graduate students and put back help for the poor like the CHIP. The rich would probably agree they do not need this tax bill as they hide their money off shore and pay little taxes. The same is true for big business that also ships their profits off shore and pay little or not income tax. This bill puts the burden on the middle class and the poor. It is an insult and wrong doing for most of America
29
Dear NYT,
This doesn't mean anything to people: "Over the next decade, changing the inflation measure would mean that families would lose $134 billion by paying more in taxes and receiving fewer benefits than they would under current law."
You have to give them an approximate number of what each family would lose. No individual middle-class family is going to lose $134 billion; that is completely meaningless.
5
Focus - the tax pain of the little people is to keep this revenue default below 1.5 trillion - say it again - to keep the give-away *less than* 1.5 trillion. We have to pay a little bit more in taxes so that 1.5 trillion AND what we pay can go to the rich people, either in tax cuts - or corporate dividends and equity gain.
And then we will one day have to pay back that 1.5 trillion, because we will owe it to the people we gave it to in the first place.
12
...Bob Corker, Susan Collins, and Ron Johnson appear to be backing away from their principled objections based on half-measures promised by President Trump...
By now it has to be clear to even the Republicans that Trump is a compulsive liar. It's foolish to believe anything Trump says. He's back to obsessing over Access Hollywood and Obama's birth certificate. Why believe anything that comes from a man who seems to think Obama is still president?
34
To say this bill stinks is an understatement. It’s a junk bomb. It will harm America in a way that will be felt for years to come, by bloating the debt and deficit. Republicans will use the debt they create as an excuse to tear down Medicare and SSI as they are working to tear down the ACA. They will add 1.5 trillion to debt while doing nothing about our rotting infrastructure. They couldn’t be bothered to fix the infrastructure when the country and the economy were on the precipice of disaster,and learned nothing from the great recession. Anyone voting for this bill knows that it is horse poop, bull poop and garbage thrown into a blender. It’s consequences are terrible, but they don’t care.
38
When will the deluded souls who voted for Trump realized they have been had?
36
When no jobs "trickle down" to rural America, federally subsidized red state obesity rates decline (from food stamp cuts), and they start dying because of no healthcare for diabetes.
Arkansas [35.9% Obese]
West Virginia [35.7% Obese]
Mississippi [35.5% Obese]
Louisiana [34.9% Obese]
Alabama [33.5% Obese]
Oklahoma [33.0% Obese]
Indiana [32.7% Obese]
Ohio [32.6% Obese]
2
Based on past performance... never.
Alas.
Never. They are falling for the same con as they have for over 40 years.
The republicans are the ethical equivalent of people looting in the streets during a disaster or a riot. They know there will be no legal ramifications for their actions and so they don't care what they are doing to the American people. If they get voted out of office they will just make money hand over fist working in the private sector.
The thing that really bothers me about the tax reform bill is that they are loading the backend of it. The worst part of it won't kick in right away and if the democrats are in power when it does kick in they can just say it is the democrats fault.
29
Interesting that you mention pickpockets. Pick-pocketing is a crime in most places and the criminal will face court and possibly time in prison, even for trivial amounts of money lke $20.00. Then I could still get restitution above and beyond the amount stolen from me.
Congress on the other hand is likely to take more than $5,000 per year from me, but it is legal and I have no recourse, save one. I will vote against my Republican congressman, but I will never get the money back.
Some county.
21
You could follow the Republican tax theory to get back your $5000 - tax fraud. They keep reducing the risks by eliminating IRS agents and give tons of loopholes. In this environment what is the benefit of honesty?
3
Well, I was considering setting up a corporation, transferring my house to it and renting it. Then I suppose it becomes a business and I can deduct taxes, some operating expenses, perhaps some depreciation, maybe even have the corporation own the car I use-perhaps a nice BMW 7 series. It would be legal I suppose, so not fraud. Saving $5K through outright fraud is not worth going to jail. I suspect I could achieve my savings this way. Maybe even more. Just playing by the rules they establish.
This Tax Bill Scam is an expressway to the Rights big dream... Overburden the Nation with debt, whereas we are forced to slash Medicare & Social Security. This Bill is caustic. A pox on the house of all soulless politicians that sign on to this crime.
26
Great headline, because it’s true.
If this cruel and undeserved pack of thievery and lies called a bill was a good thing, Republicans would lay it bare for all to see, to inspect, to amend - just like President Obama and the Democrats did with the ACA, which, for an entire year, took commentary from the public and medical professionals, and included nearly 200 Republican-led amendments, with President Obama taking the public option off the table, and practically begging the Republicans to help him fix its flaws once it passed.
But Republicans are cowards of the utmost; even the base is reduced to mere bumper-sticker, ideological, data-free defenses. Is poking liberals in the eyes and getting back $100 a year in taxes really worth millions losing health insurance, dirty air and dirtier water, smog, no consumer protections, and 40% interest rates? And no jobs?
One thing is clear: I will not ever be able to stop laughing the next time Republicans howl about the sanctity of life viz. the unborn as they simultaneously yank sick children off chemotherapy and steal food from the mouths of babes by eventually decimating Medicaid to help pay for these “cuts,” all to reward their donor patrons.
Ever.
39
The entire GOP is irredeemable and must be destroyed at the ballot box. The midterm elections can't come soon enough.
34
Trump stood before an audience of (apparently) mannequins today and said with a straight face that he would not personally benefit from the tax bill. The mannequins cheered.
I believe the Times and other media need to rethink their mission. It is no longer to report the facts. As in Trump spoke to an audience in Missouri today, and start reporting on the absolute and unvarnished lies this man and his entourage spew out every day without the least conscience.
This obscene tax bill is another example. Professional journalism has failed to truly convey the disastrous details of this monstrosity, and the disgusting cowardice and avarice of Republican Members of Congress, who will willingly sink the future hopes of millions of people for a short term gain for their financial backers.
This is a Rubicon moment for America, and the walls are giving way.
40
Yes, Paul, "crossing the Rubicon" is the proper analogy for devolving from a Republic and metastasizing into an Empire --- which is where our former country is under Emperor Trumpitas.
1
A special dispensation for the small batch makers of alcoholic suds? (Like they need help to be profitable?)
So much for closing those no unnecessary loopholes that the Republicans claimed needed to be removed so the new, lower corporate rate would insure an honest revenue to fund a government without a labyrinth of breaks they utilized over the years that allowed behemoths like GE and others to avoid paying anything altogether.
11
The last thing we need are richer and more powerful corporations. It's the stock optioned billionaires that are driving this legislation. Money is so ubiquitous in the legislative process that it's impossible to keep one's values and keep getting elected. We're watching so-called "honorable" senators fold like an empty hand in poker just to get through the next election.
We can't allow these tax cuts to make even more monolithic corporations buying our legislators. Mergers make companies successful but they don't make them accountable. Government regulations do that; no wonder they want them gone. Every time regulations are dismantled there is a financial crisis. Amazingly the ones hurt most by the housing collapse voted back in the group that caused it. As long as Republicans make it about race and immigrants they can fleece their own voters.
20
I think the Republicans know that Donald Trump winning was a fluke and that their electoral future doesn't look very good, even the 2018 midterms. They are rushing this monstrosity through because they think it will be their last chance for a very long time. Ironically, passing this may help to insure this.
15
BTW, you are correct that some senators, including Corker and Collins, are quickly giving up their claimed principled objections for almost nothing. (And given that their objections have been withdrawn based in part on promises by Donald Trump, you might say absolutely nothing.) However, Ron Johnson's objections were never even colorably principled. He objected that the new and much lower tax rate on pass through corporations (which previously had been taxed as ordinary income of the recipient) was too high. He wants it lowered. Senator Johnson, you will be surprised t learn, owns a pass through corporation. I give you this week's poster boy for Republican greed.
33
"The Senate tax bill, a 515-page mammoth," is incorrectly named. With four senators (Robert Corker, Susan Collins, Ron Johnson and Lisa Murkowski) now backing away from their principles, their "silence of the lambs" is about to allow Hannibal Lecter escape from jail in Memphis.
If it was never clear to the broad swath of Americans that this "president" and the Republican majority in Congress lied when they swore their oaths to govern responsibly, then it should be after Thursday. But by then it will be much too late. The off-years are a year away and memories in America grow shorter as the Trump administration's days lengthen.
Where are the voices of Republicans who once owned the honorable brand of their party and stood for conservatism as we once understood the term, even if we didn't agree with all of its tenets? This "tax legislation" isn't "draining the swamp;" it's re-stocking the treacherous, slime-covered waters with monsters of a sort never seen before. These creatures have come pretty near to making America over into their own private board game of Monopoly, and all four squares are Park Place and Boardwalk properties. No one else is admitted because no one else counts.
The cascading torrent of additional damage (repeal of the ACA's individual mandate and the estate tax, e.g.) that will fall heavily onto the shoulders of mainstream America will damage us internally for perhaps a century.
Somewhere, Vladimir Putin is smirking. America is in his pockets.
48
So the biggest and bestest tax "reform" and "improvement" ever in the history of the earth will come up for a vote in 20 hours or so?
7
The American people have a right to know how much Trump and his family will benefit personally from provisions of this bill.
21
"By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office." So helping the little guy is a complete Republican lie...please call it such.
24
So much of the GOP platform and strategy and agenda stinks.
And so much of it is passed in a rush, without careful consideration, just to be able to avoid the necessity of having to have 60 out of 100 Senators favor the legislation.
60 out of 100. If you can't get 60% of elected officials to support something - maybe it has no merit?
60 out of 100. A small majority to reflect the constituents that elected them, that feel they can go back to their districts and tell people why they voted for something.
If 60 out of the 100 Senators who represent the total United States can't agree that a bill is good, does good things, for the majority of us, then why should it pass through the hook and crook of a 51 vote?
39
A large swath of the country doesnt even have a clue how wealthy the rich in this country already are. They are simply not anywhere near them geographically and existentially. They will have more money which they will sock away for their progeny and the inequality becomes a permanent class system of the aristocracy and the serfs. I thought there must be a couple of members of the GOP with integrity but wow was I wrong. Talk about being corrupted by the donor class. Time to throw the bums out.
81
All this going on under the radar while we fiddle on the left with sexual harassment. Important, yes, but this tax bill will hurt many more in the long run. They have us looking over there while they pick our pockets.
73
Let's not forget the family farms!
1
We’ve got two parallel crises going on in this nation. And I think they are two forms of the same thing.
1. An attempt to ram through a series of anti-social laws that prey upon the public, rather than help them.
2. A series of powerful predatory males who preyed upon women, rather than treat them with respect.
I think there’s a connection!
Consider the methods so many of these sexual predators have used to lure people, to keep them silent, to use them as objects for their own pleasure. No respect! No consent!
Consider this tax scam they want to “ram through” Congress. A secret process. Luring the unwary with lies. “Ram through” as a type of rape. No respect! No consent!
Our Free Press is trying to expose both of these crimes. And yes, to rape the US public, in a secretive process, where you steal from the poor to give those “not in need” (the wealthy) is a crime.
18
As one of the upper middle class New York residents who will be hammered by this bill, I've just got to say that I'm already delaying purchases until I see what happens, and I plan to cut back on spending significantly next year if this passes. A lot of that spending occurs right here in my small Hudson Valley community, having an immediate impact on our local economy.
405
I was just thinking about you, John, after reading from someone else in the upper middle class.. YOU are the people who feed much to our economy. 70% of our GDP comes from consumer spending and the group who contributes much to this is going to get hit hard. I haven't seen many articles about the ripple effects of this tax change, but it WILL hit the bottom line of high-enders whose businesses depend on consumer spending (including Trump-owned facilities).
11
Same here.
1
I am in your same exact boat.
There are reasons to dislike this bill... but this op-ed doesn't discuss any of them.
1. Removes the medical expenses deduction, leading to people paying much more for out-of-pocket health care costs.
2. Allows the middle class deduction increases, especially the standard deduction increase, to expire after 10 years. This is either stealing from the middle class in the long run, or more likely, a gimmick to appease deficit hawks and still benefit corporations.
3. Removes the tax-exemption for graduate tuition waivers. This artificially increases the income of graduate students, especially PhD students and other students receiving merit-based/need-based waivers, most of whom make less than $30,000/year and live in extremely expensive cities. It will greatly harm american competitiveness in everything from astrophysics, to economics, to mathematics, to zoology. And, it will incentivize research institutions to admit even more foreign applicants, who often pay full tuition, at the expense of domestic applicants.
4. Does not cap the income levels of individuals incorporating as pass-through entities, allowing many wealthy individuals to re-categorize their income and avoid paying actual income tax. (I'm all for actual small business pass-through rates being lowered, as those individuals tend to be double-taxed, but in the higher brackets, this is a pure giveaway.
Those four items have significant impacts. This op-ed lists none, and focuses on fluff.
24
Although not stated here, one news report said that the so called trigger that kicked in if revenues were lower than expected might be forced spending cuts to offset the deficits. What could be more Republican? Slash taxes then cut social programs because of the lack of funds. Let's see what's in the fine print when they finally release this thing.
If that is bad enough, think about this. The bill is supposed to generate a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit. We have been told by the trickle down gods that the cuts will generate additional revenue that will wipe out the deficit. If that sounds like a contradiction that is because it is. Then they throw on another contradiction. If the bill generates more revenue than anticipated, it should be given back to the big companies. Wait a minute. I thought the whole idea was to supercharge the economy to generate revenue to pay down the deficit. Now the Republicans in their tax cut hysteria are going against their sacred deficit wars from both sides. Cut revenue to boost revenue but just in case the revenue is good, give it back. The deficit then continues to grow no matter what the outcome. Then they will just blame the next sitting Democratic president.
These people have lost their minds. All of them. This is their last panicked attempt to burn down the house we all live in. So those of you who voted for Trump because he would shake thing up. He sure did. Now who gets to clean up the mess?
216
Heads we blow up the deficit, tails we blow up the deficit.
2
The house is still shakin' baby! Don't you just love it!
The Republican Tax Cut Bill has one purpose only: to deliberately bankrupt the United States, so that the top 1% and corporations can transfer wage earner taxpayer assets to themselves. When the bills come due and can’t be paid, because of the documented and clearly substantiated failure of the trickle-down scam, they will go after their real target: social security (paid for by wage earner taxes), health care, medicare, medicaid, public education, privatization of public infrastructure, internet access, and wage earner pension funds.
1
The details of this tax bill are irrelevant. All you have to know is that it’s designed to bloat the rich who do nothing at the expense of the people who work for a living.
Republicans are using the pervasive chaos of this insane administration as cover for their actions. It’s as though they’re looting a burning house and hoping that no one will notice the ransacking that is going on, given the conflagration.
Yes, things will explode a few years from now, with a ballooning deficit, a healthcare crisis, massively worse income inequality and utter collapse of the nation’s infrastructure. But by then, corporations will have been given a gift that will keep on giving for years to come.
Money ruined the electoral process, back when Citizens United allowed elections to be bought and paid for by corporations. Now the same thing will happen when Net Neutrality is neutered, the government officially becomes a plutocracy and ignorant voters exceed a critical mass that ensures common sense is no longer that common.
There are consequences to voters putting a moron in the White House, and stuffing the government with self-serving plutocratic ideologues bent on crushing the Obama legacy. This Republican feeding frenzy will consume everything in its path, including the people who put them in office.
It won’t be much consolation to see them eaten alive by their own lack of understanding. But it will be some.
154
Deficit increases as designed.
Economy more stimulated.
Interest rates rise.
Debt load mandates cuts everywhere, except Military will be spared.
SS and Medicare get steep cuts.
Mission accomplished.
21
The reduction in tax income from corporations has to be compensated with rising tax from the poor.
That's not capitalism. That's corruption.
243
What it is...is feudalism.
Republicans are thrilled with this wholesale return to the Dark Ages.
18
And yet another mean-spirited and cynical way to stick it to the people ... and the Democrats. "Republican tax cuts will hurt Americans. And Democrats will pay the price. The consequences of the tax program will shelve support for the Republicans, but once in power the Democrats’ hands will be financially bound for years." An analysis by Bruce Bartlett who advised Reagan and Bush, Sr.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/20/republican-tax-cut...
It's actually feudalism. That's what the kings and feudals used to do - tax the poor to the bare bones, so they can live a lavish lifestyle.
The GOP is wholly unAmerican and Anti-Democracy.
Trump voters own any and all effects of this.
NO MORE WHINING ABOUT COAL JOBS.
Disgusting.
20
Yeah but people still vote for same senators and congressmen. So blaming the politicians is not right. Blame the voters who blindly continue to vote them in.
16
Reread my comment, please.
There's only one "particular reason" for the "break for booze." His name is Jake Leinenkugel and he's the beer magnate who was given an office in the private suite of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Yes, Mr Leinenkugel served as a Marine, but no one knows what he's doing stationed at the VA Central Office near the White House. I suppose he's been working on special tax cuts for himself?
16
What a stinking title for an editorial.....but it's at lesast better than it's content. As for working across party lines, I believe the Affordable Care Act passage was also a tour de force by the former President and his party.....but by NY Times standards that smells rosy. You have to laugh.
4
The ACA went many reviews and revisions and town halls before it was voted in. The tax bill that affects us on our income was neither debated nor any town hall held.
22
Sure, Ed B, laugh away. It sure beats reviewing the legislative history of Obamacare. If you did, you'd realize that these two bills are dissimilar in every way.
19
I am laughing away not only at the monolithic hypocracy of the NYT Editorial Board but also at the lemmings who always rush to the defense of the Oracle of 45th Street.
And by the way with the ultimate of the supposed well vetting of the ACA it still came down to one party versus another so maybe the Republicans learned a lesson from that experience.
Have a Good day figuring out what you'll do with your extra money. I hope you give it to the needy.
Blessings,
Ed
They should be tarred and feathered. But, I'll settle for their unemployment, and shame.
17
The photo is perfect.
3
Thank you for the no-nonsense headline.
21
The GOP’s effort to ram through abusive legislation reminds me of the aggressive, abusive behavior of rapists.
And rape is what this tax scam intends to do to ordinary citizens’ financial health and physical health.
Predators, like the GOP Congress, work in secret. They try to surprise their victims, confuse them, put something over on them. They treat them like dirt.
Just like women are not standing up to predatory sexual behavior, civil society must stand up against the egregious abusive tax scam, which threatens to victimize ordinary citizens over and over.
I am sickened by the venality. It’s like the GOP wants to rape the citizenry. To ram through a harmful tax scam in a way which mimics a rapist violating a victim.
18
It was staggering to hear the flippant way Lindsey Graham described the tax bill, basically that he thinks it will work well, but if it doesn't, oh well, then he will be proven wrong.
No, Mr. Graham, if the bill doesn't live up to your talking points, far worse will happen than you eating your words. The takehome pay of those who most need it will be reduced, and those so wealthy they won't feel a difference will have more. The economy will be jeopardized with the deficits sure to follow the reduced revenue. Social conservatives will have some irrelevant goodies thrown to them in this scam legislation.
The fallout from this bill would probably outlast the Senate career of Graham and others. The rest of us will pay a much higher price for the bad tax legislation than he will.
489
N M,
If the R's are proven wrong then the deficits will increase and the R's will be shouting about the need to reduce it by reducing the social security, medicare , medicade funding. A higher price indeed.
1
Lindsey Graham has to vote for this or his donors will leave him. Proving that he understands exactly how the girls who were molested by Roy Moore felt: powerless in the face of great influence and power to make independent choices for fear of retribution. Lindsey; you understand but don't do anything about it! just as expected.
2
America the Clueless seems to have no idea that the architects of these tax law changes are going to play their effects on the relative values of asset classes in financial markets to cash in on them, if they get the chance.
7
The holy grail of the Republican party is cutting taxes for their donors, anyway they can, lies, distortions, haste you name it. Nothing stands in the way! Not exploding deficits, not burdened middle class, not general welfare of the nation, nothing! If the people of this nation had any clue as to the true goals of the GOP, they would have made it an endangered species, from which a party worthy of Abe Lincoln would have emerged. Unfortunately, pocket book issues do not matter, to some folks anyway, who put ideology and perceived injustices above their own economic welfare. This particular legislation does a con job on the middle class, which is purposefully designed to make it the proverbial frog in a pan of water heated slowly. By the time they realize the con that has been played on them, it may well be too late! But then, there is no one to blame but themselves for allowing such a travesty to take place in the first place by ceding control of all branches of our government to GOP!
11
Those who haven't been under a rock or who are zombies for Trump keep asking how this juggernaut tax bill could possibly be passed. It is simple. Partisanship is "Trumping" statesman(and woman)ship. That and the fact that the .01% overlords told Republicans that if they don't extort money from the poor and middle classes to make them richer, their campaign contributions would dry up.
So, instead of caring for the public good, Republicans are responding to blackmail by attacking the poor, minorities, college students, and people living in Blue States) and any programs that help people. In other words, the people who will pay are those who do or ar likely to vote Democratic.
It is sickening. I have never seen this cruelty before in U.S. politics. Even in the most divided political times, the President and Congress tried to do what was best for ALL people. Now if you have a D by your name, you are fed to the lions.
23
When the crash comes most of these scam artist politicians will be working on K Street and will coast along easily on million $ salaries. Middle class folks will lose homes and jobs as China, India and Asia thrives since we have left the stage. Trump will be on the porch of Mar A Lago telling stories of super human accomplishments by him in his blonde weave off to one side.
12
Republicans Can't Govern.
10
Neither can Democrats. They have been in power half my life.
1
By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion MORE in taxes, while those earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut, per the Joint Committee and the Congressional Budget Office.
“When you put all these pieces together, what you’re left with is we are squandering a giant sum of money,” said Edward Kleinbard, a former chief of staff at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “It’s not aimed at growth. It is not aimed at the middle class. It is at every turn carefully engineered to deliver a kiss to the donor class.”
“This tax bill is a grand deception,” said Arnold Hiatt, the former CEO of Stride Rite. “It hurts the most vulnerable, and hurts health care and education, which are essential for a healthy economy.”
"What they have here is a big tax cut for the rich paid for with random increases in taxes for various constituencies,” economist Bruce Bartlett said. “It’s ridiculous. And it’s telling that they are ramming this through without any debate. All of the empirical evidence goes against the tax cut.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/business/republican-tax-cut.html?hp&a...®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
They may not show this Republican highway robbery on the Fake News channel or on Rush Limbaugh's hate radio station, but this grand larceny is one of the sicker crimes against humanity in American history.
Grand Old Pickpockets 2017
518
I find laughable the GOP claim that workers will receive a wage increase from dramatic tax cuts. So do my fellow Americans by a 2-1 margin according to the Quinnipiac poll.
CEOs have been pretty clear in various forums as well that they aren't expecting to make significant additional investments with their tax savings. But if they did, it would most likely be in job killing automation and robotics.
But they will be paying out larger dividends and buying back stock, disproportionately benefiting higher income households.
The cynical calculation by the GOP is that stimulating an already hot economy (aka adding another spiked punch bowl when the party is getting going) will in the short term maintain their control of the Congress, even at the expense of future deficits, higher inflation and increased health care costs.
But if you are a college grad student, a household with high medical bills, a resident of a state or city raising revenue to pay for infrastructure, education, health care or public safety, you are a loser in this political juggernaut.
110
Yes, but the whole thing is crafted to benefit red states over blue, and the consequences of middle and lower income tax deduction fraud are designed so they won't show up for several years. By then our brilliant electorate won't remember whose fault it was.
57
If the American people fail to reclaim our election process by doing what other democracies do - count the ballots at polling places with observers present - it will only embolden the Republicans to become more extreme. That's what happens when votes are counted in secret.
Mark Crispin Miller: Can U.S. Elections Really Be Stolen? Yes. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NxXKr2hKCz0
"Election theft in the United States today involves an enormous one/two punch. Step one, and this is permissible to talk about, involves shrinking the pool of eligible voters. The second step, the crucial step in a way, the very precise step, the one we're not allowed to talk about is computerized election fraud. So once you have limited the pool of eligible voters then you are able through computerized voting machines to fiddle with the numbers from precinct to precinct. The system is both computerized and privatized. Private companies tell us what the vote is. And we have no way to check it, we have no way to tell if it's honest, that's the real danger here."
There is a vast amount of statistical and pattern evidence from exit polls that indicates vote counts are being shifted to the right. Is it a coincidence that the corporations that count our votes have ties to the far right?
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin
(cont'd below)
36
(2 of 2)
Why would computerized election fraud be out of the realm of possibility when we have overt manipulation: voter suppression, gerrymandering, big money, and a stolen Supreme Court seat?
A must read on the history of computerized voting: https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/
"Election Day is now dominated by a handful of secretive corporations with interlocking ownership, strong partisan ties to the far right, and executives who revolve among them like beans in a shell game.
"One would think (or hope) that a private industry entrusted with America’s votes would require the highest degree of personal integrity from its employees. As it happens, many of the key staffers behind our major voting-machine companies have been accused or convicted of a dizzying array of white-collar crimes, including conspiracy, bribery, bid rigging, computer fraud, tax fraud, stock fraud, mail fraud, extortion, and drug trafficking.
"This leads us to a crazy-making realization. Although many felons (and prior felons) can’t cast a ballot in America—an estimated 6 million citizens will be disenfranchised in 2012 due to felony convictions—these particular felons are apparently free to design and manage our entire elections industry."
For analysis from Jonathan Simon who was a pollster early in his career, follow his interviews at http://codered2014.com/. He is the author of "Code Red: Computerized Election Theft and the New American Century."
15
Yeah, right. Where was the Times when Nancy Pelosi said about the Affordable Care Act, "But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what's in it....”?
8
they were right there publishing that comment. however, they published it in context. Pelosi was referring to the competing bills coming out of committee and were going to end up being the final bill before debate.
there were multiple committees and multiple debates and overall took almost a year to pass the legislation.
this bill is going to not be debated and it will be voted on in one week.
SHAME!!!!!
15
Herje51
"Final passage of [ACA] came with on a 7 a.m. vote Christmas Eve morning. All told, from the Friday night, Dec. 18, when Nelson and Boxer agreed to abortion language, to the Thursday morning/Christmas Eve of final passage, there were about five days of consideration for the final bill in the Senate."
That's from WaPo's fact checker, Glenn Kessler, "History Lesson: How the Democrats pushed Obamacare through the Senate," June 22, 2017.
5 days. No rush?
1
From the same WP article: "Republicans have skipped the lengthy, open process of hearings and markups of legislation that characterized the Democrats’ march to passage of the ACA. Instead, they moved directly to floor votes. Moreover, Democrats at first tried to enlist some Republican support, while Republicans have not reached out to Democrats.
But recalling the second-longest Senate session obscures the fact that the floor debate was mostly for show, an exercise designed to allow the closed-door negotiations that shaped the final bill to take place. Once the deal was struck, Reid pushed the final draft forward with as much speed as possible. That’s what McConnell is doing now, having skipped the preliminaries."
So, not the same as the Democrats and much faster.
1
This is crazy! The rich get more and everybody else gets less! Insane!
15
The rich get richer and the poor gets babies.
1
Listen...when Washington says your hardwork belongs to the poor, or the Vatican says your handwork belongs to God, or China says your hardwork belongs everyone: that is slavery. Get rid of all the taxes. They are no longer necessary. Be free.
1
I make use of the handiwork of others in everything I do.
4
Ok! Great idea! No more police, firemen, ambulances, roads, schools, army, navy, Air Force, coast guard... no more NASA, parks, food safety standards, embassies, national forests...
and those awful public libraries! Thank goodness, get rid of those useless repositories of books and knowledge, available to all...
Good riddance, I say.
2
That's what makes for a civilized society, the common good, the commonweal,something republicans and pilots never heard or read about
1
"On January 30, the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act of 2017 (S. 236) was introduced in the Senate by Sen. RON WYDEN (D-OR), the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee."
It would have shown a little fairness on your part that a Democrat introduced this bill, not some big bad Republican. Because that was the implication.
5
The Republican Party/GOP has gotten steadily more corrupt, and now (with help from Tsar Putin) it barely pretends to have the interests of voters in mind.
21
This GOP Congress stinks to high heavens. I will do everything in my power to ensure that every one of these plutocratic shills is soundly defeated in upcoming elections.
50
The fact that you set aside a major part of your editorial for o a $4.2 billion tax cut on booze over 10 years, without discussing the growth in sales, employment, income taxes and other taxes it will generate, proves that you have no understanding of an undeniable truth - some, all, or more than all tax cuts can be made up through economic growth.
All you have to is look at New York. Cuomo slashed fees and taxes, and the spirits industry boomed. Nothing else caused the boom.
1
The Soviet Union brewed vodka for the people to pay them to work.
8
"History will remember them for what they are: smaller scams aimed at winning support for a much bigger one." Are you talking about the tax bill or the Republican party in general?
18
During the election Trump promised the rust belt states he was going to bring jobs back to America. Videos of unemployed ex factory workers, staring vacantly at empty lots where they used to work, were a staple of the evening news. Now assuming the Pres is right and these jobs actually do come back due to his tax breaks why do rustbelters think they are going to relocate to those long ago vacated lots? Spoiler alert.....they're not.
16
You forgot the provision in the legislation to open up (read: destroy) the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the truly last untrammeled and wild places on Earth. Unbelievable and disgraceful that we would hand this over, this treasure that belongs to the heritage of all of us on this planet, simply for corporate greed.
212
How do you think they bought Lisa Murkowsi's vote ?
Even more sickening: the ANWR drilling provision is what bought Murkowski's vote on this horrendous criminal bill.
You fail to mention the mandatory cuts in Medicare, social security and other similar programs that will be savagely cut when the (faslely) anticipated revenue does not materialize. This is the Kansas Brownback heist on a national scale.
437
And it failed in Kansas.
14
Brownback didn`t write this tune, he`s just the maestro of a very small audience. This piece is a collaboration and we need to name the collaborators on the front page of every newspaper and as the lead story on every newscast. Truth? Never happen.
1
Well lillies this heist has it`s foot in the door in Iowa.
Thieves in Suits. I've used that term to describe some of our titans of the financial industry. I can now add Republican politicians to that category of morally bankrupt humans...
20
NYT
Your argument would be more credible, if you took time to reason why you think the bill stinks.
You claim this bill picks the pockets of middle class, because more low and middle income families will be forced to pay more taxes.
What you do not explain is, this is because you know that the wages will increase, and incomes will increase because of lower taxes. This will push the families to a higher tax bracket and that is why they will end up paying a higher tax.
And the bill stinks because of goodies for corporations and breaks for booze makers? That's your argument? You're clutching at the straws of your credibility.
3
Even in a time when corporate profits are at record highs, wages have remained flat. Additional income in the form of tax benefits will not altruistically go into the pockets of the workers, it will be used for stock buybacks and go into the pockets of shareholders...and CEOs.
6
@Kat,
Fair point. But let’s take your argument all the way through. What’ll the shareholders and CEOs do with that money?
They must either spend or reinvest.
The question then becomes, how do we entice them to invest back in our country? This tax plan appears to exactly that by making our tax structure competitive to other countries where these rich have been going to, instead of spending it here.
And of course the media is NOT helping when the headlines are more about the latest sexual harassment charge, or Trump's latest outrageous tweet, rather than the biggest tax reform con job in recent American history.
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yes, heaven forbid we focus on more than one issue at a time
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Doesn’t this make you wonder if this is part of the Russians playing with our system? The media seem to have been fed a sex story a day. And why are people calling for Al Franken’s ouster and no mention of our president?
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And David you've only got the liberal media to thank for that!
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It takes little imagination to conjure up the number one image for what the Republicans used to call "trickle down"....
This proposed tax legislation suggests something rather more drastic.
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"This time it’s not about true reform but about speed and bowling over the opposition in hopes of claiming a partisan victory. The country ought to be dismayed by the way senators like Bob Corker, Susan Collins and Ron Johnson appear to be backing away from their principled objections".
This will make it easy to vote straight Democrat in 2018.
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For decades to come, every election, City Hall, Governor, Congress, Presidency, I swear: Democrat.
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I have found it very easy to do since 1979.
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No, don't be deluded. They've laid the groundwork for this coup for decades by buying out lower level government in city, county, and state elections. The districts are rigged for their candidates. We are in trouble.
By latest TPC count for 2019, the bottom 60% of taxpayers get about 20% of the benefit of these cuts. In contrast, the top 10% get about 50% of the benefit. However, this is potentially only half the picture.
An under-reported aspect of this is how a $1.5 trillion deficit increase will trigger offsetting spending cuts under the 2010 PAYGO rule. If I understand this correctly, waiving it requires 60 Senate votes, which means Dems would have to agree to waive the rule. Otherwise, we'd see about $150 billion per year in cuts over the next 10 years, making the tax cut deficit neutral. Most of this spending is on behalf of the middle- and working-classes.
Dems have to decide if they will enforce the rule and let the cuts happen, blaming Republicans for doing so. At least in that case the deficit doesn't go up, but a lot more people needlessly suffer on behalf of giving the 1% tax cuts.
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David Doney, you're confused. Dems alone can't waive the rule without Republicans, unless they take a super-majoring in the Senate. The Republicans will be happy to have automatic cuts in entitlements and any other domestic spending they haven't been able to abolish. Ultimately it means lower taxes for their masters, which (have you noticed?) is all their party really cares about.
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If the Republicans decide to enforce the rule and let the cuts happen, there is nothing Democrats can do. However, if the Republicans want to waive the rule they'll need Democrat support. They are unlikely to allow Medicare cuts to happen; the outcry would be too great. So it will be up to the Dems to make the call.
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I disagree with your optimistic picture of what the GOP will want to happen. They’ve been trying to cut/privatise Medicare for over a decade now. They’ll be happy to let it happen through this horrid bill.
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If I had to increase the federal deficit, I would rather use that money on infrastructure projects which would create real jobs for the American people and also improve corporate earnings. What ever happened to the infrastructure initiative?
The current tax proposal is a windfall for the rich with a marginal benefit to the low and middle class. I feel like congress and Senate are just trying to keep up with past promises and not focused on improving the lives of the American family in need.
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"If I had to increase the federal deficit, I would rather use that money on infrastructure projects which would create real jobs for the American people"....Yes, but you are clearly too intelligent to be a Senator.
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I wish more people like you were in Congress.
When the Republicans aren't being ridiculously dysfunctional, they're cruelly destructive.
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Re: "What ever happened to the infrastructure initiative?"
I think it died with Roosevelt and Eisenhower. The only infrastructure we're likely to see is vomitoria (OED, sense 2) for the beneficiaries of this tax bill.
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Yes, "something is rotten" on the Potomac and its not just the swamp gas, but the putrid, toxic tax legislation brewing in the actual swamp (aka the Republican-controlled Congress) that is as fiscally irresponsible as it is completely unfair. Rather than given permanent cuts to those in the lower- and middle-class, it removes important deductions and makes the few benefits temporary. Instead, the permanent cuts go to corporations already enjoying record stock prices and profits, and the very wealthy individuals who will get relief with a lower tax bracket, removal of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) along with the estate (aka "death") tax that allows their wealth to transfer tax-free to their heirs. The result for those not in the top 1 percent will be a few transitory gains; many with immediate significant increases in their taxes; a loss of discretionary spending to pay for taxes, health care, medical expenses and student and other loan debt; an increased cost of money as interest rates rise due to the huge $1.5 trillion in debt; and a depreciating dollar making imports more expensive. The most likely result: a Great Recession II as consumers stop spending, students default on their loans, and many in high tax states see the value of their homes plummet and some default on their mortgages. This is the perfect storm resulting when greed and the desperate need for a legislative "win" overcome commonsense.
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The closed deliberations and quick vote by GOP indicates an amazing con job!
I am struck by how the GOP wants to ram through this bill without open hearings and analysis. They have no interest other than to show a "win" to their donors so they can continue to get funds for their re-elections.
I never thought our democracy could fall apart so rapidly.
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Sorry, but I am black, you see. Can you explain the term "our democracy?" I am not familiar with it.
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One element of Australian governance would have prevented Trump's election, and the mess your country is currently in: Compulsory voting. It works to ensure that no one is disenfranchised, even by choice or apathy. Americans, I know, would never stand for it but imagine a 2016 election in which all African Americans and Latinos had voted: Clinton would have won, despite Putin and gerrymandering. Whatever reservations individuals may have about her, her years in office in various capacities have not shown her to be racist, Twitter-mad, infantile, and psychopathic..
As an ex-CEO, I am not surprised at the turn of Trumpism. CEOs do not run democracies. As for the GOP, they have always been known for party loyalty. It is sad that the few doubters lack the gumption to stand by principle, but who knows what pork belly bills they are promised for their own electorates in return?
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Amen, Sylvie! I’m an American/Australian dual citizen, living in Brisbane. I LOVE compulsory voting. If the US had it, the results of almost all recent elections would be very different. That’s why the GOP is so focussed on its opposite — voter suppression. That’s the only way they win, in many electorates, and they know it.
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But there is a provision to remove a deduction used by people who invest in stock equities you haven't mentioned.
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I guess the tax cut on alcohol is necessary. In the current environment, the Republicans need to keep the Homer Simpsons of America suitably anesthetized.
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I don't even get it anymore. How much richer do the rich in this country have to get to be satisfied? Will it ever be enough? And why can't voters in this country see through the scam? I don't recognize this country anymore. This won't end well.
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"And why can't voters in this country see through the scam?"
I think a majority will know what's going on by midterms, and it seems Republicans don't care if they lose in 2020. Much will have to be undone by the next administration (as Kansas is working to fix damage done by Brownback), but the 'rich' and corporations will have a couple years of windfall - especially corporations being able to repatriate $2.5 TRILLION of overseas profit (I'm not sure if this will be taxed at 20% or 0%). By the time the next presidential election comes around, we'll have solid numbers of what this does "for" or "to" our economy.
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It is not "How much richer do the rich in this country have to get to be satisfied?" It is about how much economic/political power over other lives do the powerful have to get to be satisfied? The answer is "no amount of power is enough". Piles of money is only what is most visible. Earlier in human history, they would have used clubs to beat down the expendable physically weaker.
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Lets take a lesson from nature. Parasites can only suck the life out of their hosts. That is their place in life. When they go too far, the numbers of hosts crash and the parasites die also. Then the cycle starts over again. This is what is happening to us. In terms of history, it explains why no empire, or country, stays on top for more than a few centuries. The parasites consume it from within.
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Trickle down at its best. Reduce taxes on alcohol and the fermentation facilities will make a killing...and there will certainly be a lot of trickling [long pause] but it won't be money. Seriously, you have to laugh at Congress and the Administration at how blatant they are in funneling your money up the economic ladder to themselves, their friends, and big business. This is what "we" voted for.
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