Financial News

[StrangeSox]

At the very least I'm glad some of the dumber pay-fors were removed.

 

They'll use the billions they're giving away to billionaires as an excuse to cut social programs, health care programs, education, etc. anyway. They've been very explicit about this already.

[Dick Allen]

They'll use the billions they're giving away to billionaires as an excuse to cut social programs, health care programs, education, etc. anyway. They've been very explicit about this already.

Yes. It's one reason they are so gung ho about it adding to the deficit. Now they will have to do something about that, and the things you mentioned will be the target. Sorry, but we have to. You know, tax cuts, merry Christmas, you get almost 2% more. Everyone is rich. The economy is humming, all Trump. Have you checked your 401K? Despite the fact most people don't have a 401K, It's sickening.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Dick Allen

[Balta1701]

For the next time we hear how we should be able to reshape the entire economy in a short bill, this one is 1100 pages (still holding a grudge over people thinking that was a useful point about anything).

[StrangeSox]

Two minor provisions (using 529's to pay for homeschooling, a really specific college endowment thing that only seemed to apply to a single christian school in Kentucky) got taken out by the Byrd rule in the Senate, so the House will actually have to vote again. It'll just be a formality, but it does eat up more time while they're also trying to avoid a government shutdown and should maybe do something about CHIP expiring and leaving millions of kids without health care.

 

The Reagan-era tax bill took two years to craft. This bill took two months, and we've already seen unintended provisions causing problems in passing the thing.

[bmags]

They'll use the billions they're giving away to billionaires as an excuse to cut social programs, health care programs, education, etc. anyway. They've been very explicit about this already.

 

They have been able to accomplish absolutely zero of the "hard things" like this. I know this will still require a lot of effort on people to stop it, but their whole love of cutting back costs was just to give it to rich people. But when push comes to shove the giving money to rich people is goal number one. They can go home now having "accomplished" health care (what everyone hated was that it taxed rich people right?" and solved entitlements (the tax cuts will bring in so much revenue no entitlements will be needed so we are good)

[StrangeSox]

They're throwing 13M people off of insurance tomorrow and crippling the individual markets nationwide. They've let CHIP expire and appear to be in absolutely no hurry to do anything about that.

[Balta1701]

They're throwing 13M people off of insurance tomorrow and crippling the individual markets nationwide. They've let CHIP expire and appear to be in absolutely no hurry to do anything about that.

Well, I think it would be fair to add an "estimated" to the 13 million because frankly we don't know what it will be like to have the ACA enacted where you can freeload but no individual mandate. It could well be a lot smaller and wind up turning out that this provision saves far less money because people want to be insured when given the choice. (That would blow a much more massive budgetary hole I believe)

[StrangeSox]

Sure, okay. It still undermines a key part of the ACA.

 

 

Meanwhile, it looks like Corker was straight up bribed to move to a "yes" on this bill.

GOP Provision Could Give 10 Times More Tax Relief To Corker And Trump Than Senate Bill

[StrangeSox]

hahaha the title of the bill got taken out in the Byrd Bath

 

looks like Trump was right again, shoulda been the Cut Cut Cut Act!

[bmags]

They're throwing 13M people off of insurance tomorrow and crippling the individual markets nationwide. They've let CHIP expire and appear to be in absolutely no hurry to do anything about that.

 

Yes, what balta said, and yeah literally all they were able to do was remove a tax in the bill that they spent 6 years talking about how they would throw it out, and they were only able to do it in the reference of a tax bill.

 

Letting CHIP go on, sure, but it's not the same thing. The idea that they will be able to cobble up the votes to cut medicare and medicaid in a way that seriously restructures program is laughable.

 

The GOP came to power with a majority in house, senate and presidency and passed a deficit busting give away to corporations and the rich is the most likely scenario ever. They did it without a single dem vote and needing the bare minimum in the house. The idea that they will now be able to do entitlement reform now? Come on.

[StrangeSox]

They were a single vote in the Senate away from turning Medicaid into a block grant program. If not for the HFC rebelling, they'd have gotten substantial entitlement program cuts back under Obama's "Grand Bargain" BS. And this tax plan passed the House with a fairly comfortable margin.

[Dick Allen]

If, because of Trump, the economy is so great, everyone is making a ton, check your 401ks, why do corporations and the wealthy need a tax cut? I'll sit down and listen for my answer.

[Heads22]

They're throwing 13M people off of insurance tomorrow and crippling the individual markets nationwide. They've let CHIP expire and appear to be in absolutely no hurry to do anything about that.

 

I guess those people should be less poor.

[caulfield12]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-as...-090000067.html

 

Trump (always) asks, "How's your 401K"?

[Big Hurtin]

WATCH: @SenSherrodBrown just exposed Mitch McConnell and the Republicans by showing where the lobbyists influenced the tax bill.

 

Literally.

 

https://twitter.com/amplifirenews_/status/943314125647519746

 

*sigh*

[StrangeSox]

Buried in the GOP's tax cuts for the wealthy is a tax hike on Puerto Rico.

 

ASHINGTON ― The hits just keep coming for Puerto Rico.

 

As the U.S. island struggles to climb out of a $70 billion debt crisis and recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria, House Republicans voted Tuesday to impose a 12.5 percent tax on intellectual property income made by U.S. companies operating on the island and a minimum 10 percent tax on their profits in Puerto Rico. The Senate passed the measure early Wednesday.

 

That means that businesses with operations in Puerto Rico will pay higher taxes than their counterparts on the U.S. mainland, which puts industries and jobs on the island at risk.

 

The provision, tucked into the GOP’s tax reform bill, was intended to stop American companies from dodging federal taxes by shifting their profits overseas. But because the U.S. tax code treats Puerto Rico as a foreign territory, business operations on the island will get hit.

 

Puerto Rico leaders had urged Republican lawmakers to exempt the island from the provision given its fragile economy. Three months after the hurricane hit, more than 1 million Americans there still don’t have power, more than 250,000 Americans don’t have clean water, and more than 1,000 Americans have died amid the insufficient federal response.

 

 

[RockRaines]

Just as I was about to buy bitcoin cash they froze it. Insider trading.

[Jenksismyhero]

Just as I was about to buy bitcoin cash they froze it. Insider trading.

 

So obvious. I'm sure Coinbase told its employees not to buy any, so every Coinbase employee told 10 family members/friends to buy instead.

[bmags]

If, because of Trump, the economy is so great, everyone is making a ton, check your 401ks, why do corporations and the wealthy need a tax cut? I'll sit down and listen for my answer.

 

 

I would qualify this. If it was a different situation and the economy was so great that revenue was shooting up and we had a surplus, I think there is a more understandable case to make a tax cut.

 

But, if the economy is so great and everyone is making a ton, why do corporations and the wealthy need a deficit-funded tax cut?

[Balta1701]

I would qualify this. If it was a different situation and the economy was so great that revenue was shooting up and we had a surplus, I think there is a more understandable case to make a tax cut.

 

But, if the economy is so great and everyone is making a ton, why do corporations and the wealthy need a deficit-funded tax cut?

I think what you just outlined is backwards, actually. Revenue actually is sort of shooting upwards - the deficit has dropped dramatically since the 2009 near collapse. It has not yet balanced expenses, in part because some of the 2001/2003 tax cuts were kept on the books during the Obama administration.

 

When revenue is shooting up and the economy is healthy is the time that monetary policy is becoming more strict - the federal reserve is raising interest rates already to slow down the economic expansion. Ideally speaking, you'd want fiscal policy by the government to do the same thing as monetary policy - when the fed tries to keep things under control by raising rates, they are going to fight against any effort to expand the economy done via fiscal policy. When the fed is dropping rates to prop up the economy - that's the time you want expansionary fiscal policy also, that's the time you want to be adding to the debt to do things.

 

Right now, a handful of industries will get their tax cuts and spend money, and a handful more will invest in bitcoin or stock buybacks. But as that money makes its way out into the economy, the Fed will raise rates more rapidly to keep it from turning into inflation - thus hurting other industries.

[bmags]

I think what you just outlined is backwards, actually. Revenue actually is sort of shooting upwards - the deficit has dropped dramatically since the 2009 near collapse. It has not yet balanced expenses, in part because some of the 2001/2003 tax cuts were kept on the books during the Obama administration.

 

When revenue is shooting up and the economy is healthy is the time that monetary policy is becoming more strict - the federal reserve is raising interest rates already to slow down the economic expansion. Ideally speaking, you'd want fiscal policy by the government to do the same thing as monetary policy - when the fed tries to keep things under control by raising rates, they are going to fight against any effort to expand the economy done via fiscal policy. When the fed is dropping rates to prop up the economy - that's the time you want expansionary fiscal policy also, that's the time you want to be adding to the debt to do things.

 

Right now, a handful of industries will get their tax cuts and spend money, and a handful more will invest in bitcoin or stock buybacks. But as that money makes its way out into the economy, the Fed will raise rates more rapidly to keep it from turning into inflation - thus hurting other industries.

 

Yes, I am more in favor of keynesian model, but the George W. Bush explanation of giving back surplus back to tax payers is a more understandable argument than a deficit tax cut when unemployment is at 4%.

 

The key to to your response is the bolded however. We aren't in a surplus, and they aren't giving the "surplus" amount back. They are doing a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit cut.

[Balta1701]

Yes, I am more in favor of keynesian model, but the George W. Bush explanation of giving back surplus back to tax payers is a more understandable argument than a deficit tax cut when unemployment is at 4%.

 

The key to to your response is the bolded however. We aren't in a surplus, and they aren't giving the "surplus" amount back. They are doing a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit cut.

Even when we got to a "Surplus" in 2000 we still had a large outstanding debt that could have been partially paid down and large expenses for retirees on the horizon.

[Big Hurtin]

CORPORATIONS SAY PUBLICLY THEY’LL POCKET THE TAX CUT, BUT REPUBLICANS AREN’T LISTENING

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/static.theinte...republican.html

[RockRaines]

So obvious. I'm sure Coinbase told its employees not to buy any, so every Coinbase employee told 10 family members/friends to buy instead.

The price keeps going up even though buying is frozen...

[pettie4sox]

CORPORATIONS SAY PUBLICLY THEY’LL POCKET THE TAX CUT, BUT REPUBLICANS AREN’T LISTENING

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/static.theinte...republican.html

 

The provision that the democrats introduced that made employers raise the wages with the corporate tax reduction that the republicans killed pretty much summed up their motives.