Financial News

[StrangeSox]

Allowing for a moment your posit that fewer people going to grad school is a good thing... what these changes will do is specifically remove people who are not rich - not a random slice of the population. Making grad school more of a domain for those from wealthy families. I don't see how that's a good approach, even if you want to achieve what you suggest.

 

It's just a weird argument because this tax change specifically harms people who aren't racking up debt because they're in a funded program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CBO says the House plan requires an immediate $25B yearly cut to Medicaid

https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/930496420406231040

[bmags]

I'm glad they are at least admitting that their healthcare bill was actually just a tax bill.

[StrangeSox]

Senate Finance Committee will be adding in repealing the individual mandate as well, further complicating their efforts. This will lead to more money for tax cuts but 13M fewer people with health insurance and death spirals in markets across the country.

[StrangeSox]

Per the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Republican bill will result in a tax hike for 20m households under $200k and no change for another 50m households.

 

[Balta1701]

Per the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Republican bill will result in a tax hike for 20m households under $200k and no change for another 50m households.

Dude, which bill? There are now officially 2 versions

[StrangeSox]

Dude, which bill? There are now officially 2 versions

House, the Senate bill is slightly less awful

[caulfield12]

House, the Senate bill is slightly less awful

 

Probably because the Senate bill has to balance out from a budget standpoint (instead of using dynamic scoring?)...isn't that the version that pushes the corporate tax (35% to 20%) phase-in back?

 

Trump's not going to like that particular change.

Edited November 15, 2017 by caulfield12

[Balta1701]

Probably because the Senate bill has to balance out from a budget standpoint (instead of using dynamic scoring?)...isn't that the version that pushes the corporate tax (35% to 20%) phase-in back?

 

Trump's not going to like that particular change.

The Senate bill is the one that has to follow the "no more than $1.5 trillion in new deficit spending" rule, the House does not.

[caulfield12]

The Senate bill is the one that has to follow the "no more than $1.5 trillion in new deficit spending" rule, the House does not.

 

Right, and the ObamaCare mandate being eliminated would save $300-400 billion.

[StrangeSox]

Senate tax bill summary: over the long term, raises individual income taxes on 100% of middle-class families and repeals coverage for 13 million to pay for permanent corporate tax cuts.

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) November 15, 2017

 

[Dam8610]

Senate tax bill summary: over the long term, raises individual income taxes on 100% of middle-class families and repeals coverage for 13 million to pay for permanent corporate tax cuts.

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) November 15, 2017

 

Don't forget repealing the AMT. Wouldn't want the wealthy paying their fair share.

[caulfield12]

Or the estate tax...is that still on the table in either bill?

[Balta1701]

Or the estate tax...is that still on the table in either bill?

Yes.

 

Face it folks, no one cares about this. Literally no one cares about the Deficit. You can see that here - the Republicans who were screaming in 2008 that $800 billion would utterly bankrupt us and would drive inflation wild haven't made a single post. They don't care about the deficit as long as it's not being created by Democrats cause then it's evil. No one cares about fairness or people paying their fair share. I don't care if there's a tax increase on the middle class. I'd push for one anyway, I can afford it. The Republicans know that won't cost them their jobs as long as they can afford to spend more money on ads next year.

 

They are trying to do this because their entire philosophy is literally at this point "The finger thing means the taxes". They've bought so completely into the notion that taxes are always the biggest thing on everyone's mind when making decisions that they can't do anything else. You can tell that right here - the person out to sell this, saying this will create tons of job growth, totally mystified when no one is ready to say they'll create a huge amount of new jobs.

President Trump's top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, looked out from the stage at a sea of CEOs and top executives in the audience Tuesday for the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council meeting. As Cohn sat comfortably onstage, a Journal editor asked the crowd to raise their hands if their company plans to invest more if the tax reform bill passes.

 

Very few hands went up.

 

Cohn looked surprised. “Why aren't the other hands up?” he said.

[StrangeSox]

Completely eliminated in the House bill, doubling the cap to $11M per person in the Senate bill. Massive giveaway to idle wealth.

 

Oh the Senate bill preserves tax cuts for golf club owners, too. Gotta take care of the boss!

[StrangeSox]

Yes.

 

Face it folks, no one cares about this. Literally no one cares about the Deficit. You can see that here - the Republicans who were screaming in 2008 that $800 billion would utterly bankrupt us and would drive inflation wild haven't made a single post. They don't care about the deficit as long as it's not being created by Democrats cause then it's evil. No one cares about fairness or people paying their fair share. I don't care if there's a tax increase on the middle class. I'd push for one anyway, I can afford it. The Republicans know that won't cost them their jobs as long as they can afford to spend more money on ads next year.

 

They are trying to do this because their entire philosophy is literally at this point "The finger thing means the taxes". They've bought so completely into the notion that taxes are always the biggest thing on everyone's mind when making decisions that they can't do anything else. You can tell that right here - the person out to sell this, saying this will create tons of job growth, totally mystified when no one is ready to say they'll create a huge amount of new jobs.

 

Businesses have been making record profits and hording cash for years. Nobody is struggling for money to invest. Giving them big tax breaks won't change the job market or turbocharge the economy, but it will continue to widen the wealth and income gaps.

 

 

And you know, that bolded is a pretty important point. We had an intentionally hamstrung recovery stimulus package at the peak of the worst economic crisis the world had seen in 80 years, but now we can deficit-fund a tax cut for the wealthy that's more than twice as large and not a single Republican seems to care. This country could really use $1.5T in spending on something actually worthwhile like infrastructure.

Edited November 15, 2017 by StrangeSox

[Soxbadger]

Sounds like Johnson from Wisconsin is a no as the bill stands.

 

Maybe people are starting to see how terrible all of this is.

[Balta1701]

Sounds like Johnson from Wisconsin is a no as the bill stands.

 

Maybe people are starting to see how terrible all of this is.

I hate playing this game with my health care backup plan.

[caulfield12]

Businesses have been making record profits and hording cash for years. Nobody is struggling for money to invest. Giving them big tax breaks won't change the job market or turbocharge the economy, but it will continue to widen the wealth and income gaps.

 

 

And you know, that bolded is a pretty important point. We had an intentionally hamstrung recovery stimulus package at the peak of the worst economic crisis the world had seen in 80 years, but now we can deficit-fund a tax cut for the wealthy that's more than twice as large and not a single Republican seems to care. This country could really use $1.5T in spending on something actually worthwhile like infrastructure.

 

And yet Obama is ALWAYS the one primarily blamed for the $20 trillion deficit.

 

Not Bush.

 

No mention of the US government successfully bailing out the automobile industry (turned a profit on those loans), and how cataclysmic things could have been had we followed GOP/Romney orthodoxy of letting them all fail. (Of course, the GOP was perfectly unwilling to let more than a couple of the smaller banks fail, but that's another story.)

 

Does it really matter now, anyway, since the level of concern about that $20 trillion debt from the majority of GOPers is probably about a 2 or 3 on a 10 scale, except for a few of the most outspoken House Freedom Caucus members?

 

There doesn't seem to be much concern about adding billions and billions of dollars to the defense budget, either (even though we're supposedly "isolating" ourselves from being the policeman of the world, instead preferring to respect national sovereignty and even putting it out there that Japan and South Korea should have their own nukes).

 

Meanwhile, there's not even a hint of a $1 trillion GOP infrastructure or job training/retraining bill.

 

 

It seems that those representatives and Senators simply are being forced into a box where they feel they HAVE to do SOMETHING that will be perceived positively by at least 50% of the country (Yay! TAX CUTS!)...and maybe sneaking in the ObamaCare mandate repeal can be buffered/mitigated by the bigger story of the tax cuts.

 

One thing is certain...they're certainly not doing any favors (to local pols) by lowering that mortgage interest deduction to $500K. It will have a disproportionate impact on blue and purple states (mostly NE), along with CA.

Edited November 16, 2017 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

https://twitter.com/darinself/status/930880...eet-of-money%2F

 

One of the best tweets of the year...

[StrangeSox]

Government analysis shows House tax bill would increase the cost of college by $71 billion over a decade

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-p...m=.7db7942c20bc

 

[StrangeSox]

Meanwhile,

 

Republican Tax Bill Gives Private Jet Owners a Tax Break

 

[StrangeSox]

Murkowski demanding that Alexander-Murray, the bipartisan ACA fix legislation, become law before she could consider voting for repealing the individual mandate. That's two "No's" in the Senate on the tax cut bill.

[Dick Allen]

Meanwhile,

 

Republican Tax Bill Gives Private Jet Owners a Tax Break

“Our framework includes our explicit commitment that tax reform will protect low-income and middle-income households,” Trump said. “Not the wealthy and well-connected. They can call me all they want; I’m doing the right thing.”

 

He then added: “And it’s not good for me, believe me.”

[caulfield12]

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/16/opinions...il_topeditorial

GOP tax plan a disaster for Asian Americans

[Dam8610]

By my count, 3 Republican Senators have come out as opposing the tax reform bill (Johnson, Murkowski, Collins). Hopefully this works out like ACA repeal.