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Senate Passes Tax-Cut Bill In Milestone Move Toward Overhaul

TedTed
edited December 2017 in Off-Topic
FYI: Senate Republicans narrowly approved the most sweeping rewrite of the U.S. tax code in three decades, slashing the corporate tax rate and providing temporary tax-rate cuts for most Americans.

The 51-49 vote -- achieved just before 2 a.m. Saturday in Washington and only after closed-door deal-making with dissident senators -- brings the GOP close to delivering a much-needed policy win for their party and President Donald Trump. After the vote, Trump said on Twitter that he looks forward to signing a final bill before Christmas.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-02/senate-passes-tax-cut-bill-in-milestone-move-toward-overhaul

How Many People In Your Income Group Would Get a Tax Cut?:

The Senate tax bill has been marketed by Republicans as a tax cut for the middle class. But the latest estimates of its effects show that at least some people in nearly every income group would receive a tax increase, and that share would grow significantly over time.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/30/us/politics/tax-cuts-increases-for-your-income.html
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Comments

  • I can't fart loud enough to express my feelings about this.
  • That about sums it up Crash. What a shameful demonstration.
  • That's good because the stench of this bill is overwhelming all on it's own.
  • I don't even trust what I think I know about what is in this bill with all it's vaporizing tax cuts and deficit delays.
  • Partially rewritten by hand, some of it illegible ...
  • @AndyJ &MFO Members: Sen. Tester stop whining, you got at least two hours to take a speed reading course. You should be able to handle that.
    Regards,
    Ted:)
  • Spoken like a true 'have' Ted. Please tell all of us here at MFO what is good about this bill because it really escapes my lame brain. But then again I'm no senator.
  • edited December 2017
    DAMocracy?
  • Ted said:

    @AndyJ &MFO Members: Sen. Tester stop whining, you got at least two hours to take a speed reading course. You should be able to handle that.
    Regards,
    Ted:)

    I might, except that because of that handwriting, there's no searchable version of the bill. Just an image pdf. Simply clicking through that many pages to find each highlight takes more than a couple of hours. (Slow fingers:-) )

    The infamous marked up page is 257, though pages 70-73 are x'd out. Can't help but think of Fermat.
    https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4320642/SenateTaxBillDec1.pdf




  • I've Got Mine
    Glenn Frey

    (Most of last 7 lines not included in this performance)



    Someone's sleeping on the sidewalk, As the winter sun goes down
    Someone's drinking cold champagne, In another part of town
    And the only thing he thinks about, As he sips his glass of wine
    It sure feels good sitting here tonight,

    Now that I've got mine
    I've got mine, I've got mine
    This isn't such a bitter world
    'Cause I've got mine

    Someone's wandering the streets tonight, No way to warm his hands
    Someone's turning up their fireplace, Making travel plans
    His mind is on some sandy beach, Where the sun is gonna shine
    He thinks "I don't have to hang around,

    Now that I've got mine"

    You see them in their limousines, You see the way they stare
    They don't see us looking back, Because they don't really care (they say)
    I've got mine, I've got mine, The world is as it's meant to be
    'Cause I've got mine

    So I make a small donation, What more can I do
    You know I didn't make this world, I'm in it just like you
    I've worked all my life on this house of cards, To keep it all in line
    I can't take care of everyone, Now that I've got mine

    There's another kind of poverty, That only rich men know
    A moral malnutrition, That starves their very souls
    And they can't be saved with money, They're all running out of time
    And all the while they're thinking, "It's ok 'Cause I've got mine"

    I've got mine, I've got mine
    I don't want a thing to change
    'Cause I've got mine, I've got mine


  • edited December 2017
    Trump 2024 !!!! Lol
  • @openice - Ouch! 1992 and still relevant.
  • Observation without interpretation: When I was ordering my annual T-shirt selection (this year from "Catalog Favorites"), the only one on back order (more promised soon) was "Elect a clown - Expect a circus", so I settled for the more obscure "Not my monkeys - Not my circus."
    I also bought my favorite:"I'm allergic to stupidity - I break out in sarcasm," which I can wear more safely.
  • @openice: great song, apropos.
  • edited December 2017
    I've never heard that song before from the late-great Glenn Frey. Thanks @openice, it really makes you think. Well, makes me think anyway. Not sure about everybody.
  • @davidmoran, another opinion piece you might like to read:
    ...although there are some constructive aspects of the tax reforms under consideration, the proposed changes do much more to redistribute the burdens of a civilized society than to improve our responses to such burdens. Stated differently, and consistent with the title of this posting, the character of the tax reform proposals passed by both houses reflect a responsiveness to particular stakeholder interests (such as large companies and high income households) rather than to a set of shared values.
    tax reform based on shared principles "trumps" one based on competing interests
  • tnx, nicely reasoned and written
  • edited December 2017
    And why does all this deeply matter to a crowd like us?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/business/economy/tax-plan-standard-of-living.html

    Students of the history of economic thought learn early on that taking money from the poor and the middle class to give to the rich tends to reduce overall welfare for the simple reason that an extra dollar provides much more to those who have few of them than to those already rolling in money.
    ... What understanding of national welfare justifies the upward redistribution [Republicans] are proposing? Using growth as a justification seems like a ruse. ... [Future] Politics won’t be pretty in a world in which policy has little power to improve average living standards and must content itself with slicing and reslicing the economic pie. This is a world of near-zero-sum games, where somebody’s gain means somebody else’s loss. Politics, in this world, is defined by class warfare.


    I mean, duh.
  • edited December 2017

    "This is a world of near-zero-sum games, where somebody’s gain means somebody else’s loss. Politics, in this world, is defined by class warfare."

    The very face of class warfare:
    image

    “I think having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

    Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, describing the virtues of cutting the inheritance tax
  • beebee
    edited December 2017
    @Old_Joe...sounds almost envious to me...let's think about a farmers, who saved their whole life for that rainy day.

    In a sense, the "salt of the earth" (have the Iowa farmers become big business...maybe?) and have they joined non-farm Corporate America with regard to the estate tax. I can't blame them for feeling that their savings... which are taxed yearly... are additionally taxed as those savings plow the fields/industries of future generation of family farmers and business owners. Maybe naive on my part...maybe not.

    Many seem to assume these changes to the tax code will foster and further fund (tax free) the "un-productiveness" of trust fund babies. Maybe it will, but like any wealthy family, there will be the crazy relative who burns through all their inheritance. Most of America does this on a smaller scale...we are encourage to extend our credit and consume vs save and produce.

    I am more optimistic about wealth creation and the social obligation that many of those blessed with wealth have historically exhibited to the less fortunate and to the advancement of society.

    You live in SF (I believe)...A city that embraces its odd fellows and its less fortunate...I was one for a few summers in college.

    If I am right, this type of tax reform will energize individuals and their communities, that made them wealthy in the first place, to continue and expand that good work.

    IMHO...The government does a lousy, inefficient job of this (redistribution of wealth.. if that is the goal of tax reform which the article's author assumes).
  • edited December 2017
    "as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have"

    @bee- We read story after story of people who are just trying to get through life, paying the rent, buying food, raising their kids. Senator Grassley's comments suggesting "booze or women or movies" notwithstanding, many of these stories show folks working their tails off, with "every darn penny they have" being spent on basic necessities, until some stroke of ill-fortune cuts out the very ground from under their lives.

    The estate tax affects a very small and very wealthy number of Americans, with only the estates of about 2 out of every 1,000 Americans who die facing the tax. (per AP)

    I find the suggestions in Senator Grassley's comments to be completely callous and disgusting- the very face of evil.
  • edited December 2017
    @bee,

    Completely flabbergasted to read your comments about both trickling and noblesse oblige, but I think what that chiefly must mean is that I have not been reading you carefully enough before now.

    Here's a once and future wannabe farmer:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/11/kristi-noem-poster-child-estate-tax-repeal-but-sad-tale-doesnt-add-up-chuck-collins-column/930472001/
  • @bee The current estate tax only applies to estates over $11 million, and if you've got a halfway decent tax lawyer, you can probably shelter double that easily. So yes, the only Iowa farmers it currently applies to are big business owners.
  • edited December 2017
    Aside from the minuscule amount of people the estate tax affects, there is a philosophical question as to whether a child who has done nothing to earn a massive amount of wealth should inherit a massive amount of wealth. Consider that we as a society do not allow children to inherit the negative consequences of their parents actions from a legal standpoint,i.e., a child whose father committed murder isn't also held liable for his father's crimes. Similarly, children cannot inherit debt from their parents unless they choose to accept the estate's liabilities. So if the sins of the father aren't inherited by the child, why should the blessings? In both cases the child has done nothing to deserve the blessings or the curses. It is particularly ironic that Republicans trot out the "personal responsibility" canard as an explanation for inequalities of wealth in the estate tax's case because trust fund kids don't need to show any personal responsibility--work hard, save, etc.--at all to inherit massive sums of wealth.
  • beebee
    edited December 2017
    @davidmoran, I'll take that as a small unintentional achievement. I don't wish to fit into some box you choose to put me in...oops, there I go again.

    @Old_Joe, I fully support "Wine, Women and Song", but Grassley is being hypocritical if he also doesn't acknowledge that he (as part of government) is responsible for creating some of those colorful outcomes (most politician's support entitlements to get re-elected). Jerk statement by a Jerk.

    Maybe it's just me, but "$100 hammers" and "Bridges to Nowhere" make me less confident that government and its politicians can offer services efficiently. The Estate Tax always seemed like a easy target for the aspiring politician...take the dead guy's money. Now that these politicians and their donors are the wealthy, well, these rules need to change in favor of the dead guy's family. I see the hazard in this.

    But maybe...just maybe, that dead guy has run his affairs in a way that I wish this country operated more like. Over taxing success so that the government can buy more hammers and build more bridges seems like moral hazard to me. If taxation were instead donation...would you donate? We all should overwhelmingly say, "yes" as we did during the War years (US Saving Bonds...90% income tax rate). Sadly, we have lost trust, pride, and confidence in our financial support of this non-profit organization we call home.

    Since both @LewisBraham and @Old_Joe both referenced that this estate tax proposal impacts a small number of dead taxpayers. Lets weigh the moral hazard (the philosophical question) for these few individuals and their families. Lewis seems convinced that after you raise your children and influence your grandchildren...maybe even impress your great grand children with lifesavers that they will some how squandered all their inheritance on "Beemers, Beach Houses and Babes". I don't know how to get around family entitlements much like I don't know how we get around government entitlements.

    I'm just not convinced that the government is anymore entitled.

    Here's a recent Q&A on C-SPAN with author John Cogan and his book, "The High Cost of Good Intentions: A History of Government Entitlement Programs". (Requires Flash to be Enabled)

    https://c-span.org/video/?436709-2/qa-john-cogan

    @expatsp, sadly, loophole lawyers aren't going away anytime soon. By the way, how does this tax reform impact expats?
  • I'm of the opinion that money that has been taxed once (bigly assuming that it has been) shouldn't be taxed again. However I am also of the opinion that one shouldn't be able to hide money in offshore accounts and in all the nooks and crannies current tax loopholes allow. I know, too simple.
  • edited December 2017
    I’m sure this has already been said. But it appears we live in two alternative universes.

    1) When the White House is occupied by a Democrat we hear a constraint refrain from Republicans that “We’re going broke. Ain’t got no money. We’ll need to cut Social Security, Medicare, funding for education, etc. And we’re doing all of this to unburden our children.”

    2) But when a Republican occupies the White House the chorus changes to “Let’s give everybody a big tax cut.”

    It’s kinda like shaking your finger at someone and telling them “never take a drink” while at the same time pouring yourself a double.
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