Did you stay up for the drama — for the exultations and lamentations?
The approval of the bill in the House and Senate came over the strenuous objections of Democrats, who have accused Republicans of giving a gift to corporations and the wealthy and driving up the federal debt in the process.What a turnabout from 8 years ago, when the Senate voted on Obamacare:
As the final vote approached in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, gave his closing argument against the bill and scolded his Republican colleagues for talking during his remarks on the floor.
“This is serious stuff,” Mr. Schumer said. “We believe you’re messing up America. You could pay attention for a couple of minutes.”
With the supermajority... the Senate moved rather quickly to pass the ACA – or ObamaCare – on Christmas Eve 2009 in a 60 – 39 vote.... Everyone assumed that the Christmas Eve 2009 Senate bill would be tweaked considerably to conform more with the House bill passed two months previously. But now that strategy wouldn’t work, because [after the Republican Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts] the Democrats no longer had the 60th vote in the Senate to end debate. What to do? They decided to have the House take up the identical bill that the Senate passed on Christmas Eve. It passed on March 21, 2010, by a 219 – 212 vote. This time, no Republicans came on board, and 34 Democrats voted against. President Obama signed the ACA legislation two days later on March 23.And now the Republicans have their big achievement, too important and overdue to delay or compromise.
The rancor has not abated since, as we all know. Republicans invoked Thomas Jefferson’s observation that “great innovations should not be forced on a slender majority – or enacted without broad support.” They cited broad legislative innovations like Social Security and Medicare, both of which enjoyed bipartisan support. They complained that one fewer vote in the Senate or a change of four votes in the House would have been enough to defeat ObamaCare. Democrats responded just as vociferously and passionately that this healthcare reform package was too important and overdue to delay or compromise.
The NYT ends its story with a quote from — of all people — Bob Packwood:
Bob Packwood, the former Republican senator from Oregon who helped lead the 1986 tax effort, said that this year’s bill was at least as sweeping as the one that Ronald Reagan signed into law 31 years ago, even though the bills had different goals.Dredging up Bob Packwood feels like a desperate/poignant effort to make the GOP look bad. Packwood was driven from the Senate in 1995. He was the face of sexual harassment in the crucial interval between the unsuccessful effort to keep Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court and the unsuccessful effort to oust Bill Clinton from the presidency.
“They have achieved things that I was unable to achieve,” Mr. Packwood said.
From Packwood's Wikipedia page:
[In] 1992... a Washington Post story detailed claims of sexual abuse and assault from ten women, chiefly former staffers and lobbyists.... [Packwood] divulge[d] 5,000 pages [of his diary] to the Senate Ethics Committee but balked when a further 3,200 pages were demanded by the committee. It was discovered that he had edited the diary, removing what were allegedly references to sexual encounters and the sexual abuse allegations made against him. Packwood then made what some of his colleagues interpreted as a threat to expose wrongdoing by other members of Congress. ...
Despite pressure for open hearings from the public and from female Senators, especially Barbara Boxer from California, the Senate ultimately decided against them. The Ethics Committee's indictment, running to ten-volumes and 10,145 pages, much of it from Packwood's own writings, according to a report in The New York Times, detailed the sexual misconduct, obstruction of justice, and ethics charges being made against him. The chairman of the Ethics Committee, Republican senator Mitch McConnell, referred to Packwood's "habitual pattern of aggressive, blatantly sexual advances, mostly directed at members of his own staff or others whose livelihoods were connected in some way to his power and authority as a Senator" and said Packwood's behaviour included "deliberately altering and destroying relevant portions of his diary" which Packwood himself had written in the diary were "very incriminating information."...Packwood resigned, and a Democrat won the special election to replace him. McConnell said that they knew the seat — the state was Oregon — would be taken by a Democrat but the choice came down to "retain the Senate seat or retain our honor."
It's interesting to see Packwood poke up in the NYT article this morning. But, in fact, he was important in getting the Reagan era tax bill passed. He was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He was also key to the defeat of the Clinton Era health care bill — HillaryCare — in 1993.
And yet, who thinks of him now, except as a sexual harassment villain? Looking back on his story, I see one powerful man who fell. The focus became limited to one individual, and he was pushed into resigning, and the institution continued, preening that it had preserved its "honor."
But the institution protected itself. Who were the other colleagues Packwood threatened to expose? How much more sexual harassment took place in the Senate over the next quarter century? We the people were led to think that the Packwood resignation meant that sexual harassment would now be taken seriously — now that the Republicans were taking it seriously.
But it was not long before Democrats were hooting down anyone who wanted to listen to what Paula Jones had to say about Bill Clinton. It's just sex. Americans are so puritannical. What's the matter don't you like blow jobs?
Since the NYT had Bob Packwood on the phone, they should have asked him what do you think about how long it's taken Congress to get serious over sexual harassment and whether your resignation was worth it, and who were those other members of Congress you were threatening to expose back then, and were you not part of a great silencing?
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172 comments:
Thrilled I will be keeping more of MY money....but I watched Geno Auriemma win his 1000th game (UConn Women Basketball)....
The US had the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world. This is going to bring capital that has been hiding overseas out of reach of that confiscatory rate, back home. That’s why the Europeans and Chinese are pissed about it. Hint to liberals, they are concerned about their own economies, not ours. They have been free riding on our capital being parked overseas. Between cheap North American energy, and a normalized corporate tax rate, it should be “Katy, bar the door!” on economic growth.
Corporations don’t actually pay the taxes, by the way, they aren’t really “people”, shareholders pay the taxes, and when corporate tax rates are exceptionally high, labor pays the taxes in lost jobs.
“This is serious stuff,” Mr. Schumer said.
"This is a big f-ing deal" VP Biden said.
That was one spectacular change of anti-Trump GOP Senate votes we just witnessed. Since the Saudis flipped Kings last month, the GOP Senators on the take from Alaweed, et al. suddenly decided to vote anyway Trump wants, anywhere Trump wants and anytime Trump wants.
DOW Futures are within 150 of 25000 this morning. Have you checked your 401K lately? Blue collar wages going up. The big problem now with the economy is concentration of power in Google and Amazon.
“We believe you’re messing up America. You could pay attention for a couple of minutes.”
Is Crying Chuck talking about the President? Hey, Chuck. Donald is cleaning your clock. And stop lying and saying this bill is deeply unpopular.
The thing that is so politically brilliant about it is that it will put tremendous pressure on local politicians in states like NY, NJ, IL, CA and WI. Say, for example, a couple is paying $17,000 in real estate taxes on a house in Madison. Or very high income taxes in NYC. Or a combination of both in suburban NJ. Those people put pressure on local politicians to reduce taxes or they simply move to s low income taxes.
The best part was when Nancy Pelosi’s head spun completely around!
By the way, the idea that this is going to work out the same as the massively unpopular, even at the time, Obamacare is “cargo-cult” politics. The reason MASSAFUCKINGCHUSETTS elected a Republican Senator was to defeat it.
You know what a “cargo cult” is? It was when Pacific Islanders saw American soldiers in WWII set up operations and supplies fell from the sky on parachutes, they dressed up like soldiers and created rituals that copied their actions to get supplies to fall from the sky. That’s what Democrats are doing with the politics of this tax bill. There are similarities, so the votes are going to fall from the sky, same as they did for Republicans. The opposition to this tax bill has been whipped up by the Democrats and their allies in the press (viz: Wikileaks) The opposition to Obamacare was organic, and only slightly abated when the Democrats made support for it a litmus test for support for Obama, who is still all but worshipped by the rank and file.
The approval of the bill in the House and Senate came over the strenuous objections of Democrats, who have accused Republicans of giving a gift to corporations and the wealthy and driving up the federal debt in the process -- Schumer
I don't believe that Schumer or any other Democrat were upset about Obama just about doubling the debt.
Republicans invoked Thomas Jefferson’s observation that “great innovations should not be forced on a slender majority – or enacted without broad support.”
Tax cuts are not a great innovation. This has been done before with success.
Government control of health care in the US was a radical change.
In other Road Runner v Coyote news MSM missed reporting on was the female power move made by Nikki Haley telling the UN that President Trump wants her to tell him the names of U.S. allies who vote to condemn the USA for deciding where it wants to locate its Embassy in Israel.
Are we tired of winning yet?
What is funny about watching Bloomberg is that they analyze the motives of Republicans (which is great) but they just relay Democratic talking points without critical examination. Yesterday Donna Brazille is on talking about a “blue tidal wave” in 2018, and nobody critically examines her statements at all. They discuss the current polling problems with the tax bill by relaying more Democratic talking points. You would think that a network that claims, as its brand, critical analysis of the events of the day, and how they will impact economics, that they would critically examine Democratic motives as well.
Weird that they don’t.
Dem Senators in WV, ND, MO and others are defeated in 2018.
NY, NJ, IL and CA will never change. So what? The Dems can have them. But they will suffer as companies move to lower tax states. I could see ConAgra returning to Omaha from Chicago.
Tax cuts can be easily reversed. Obamacare destroyed the economic underpinnings of health insurance, and there is no going back. I still think that the whole edifice is headed to inevitable collapse. Maybe that is not the end of the world, I have serous reservations about single-payer, but likewise, market based solutions are not perfect either. One day, Democrats will realize that the only way to pay for single-payer is broad based and regressive taxation, you know, the way Canada does it.
Familia Ante Omnia
Family over everything.
This is what our politics has come down to. How ideologically pure the two parties have become with NO cross overs.
I wonder how many Dem senators might lose their seats over their votes?
"The US had the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world."
But no American corporations pay that high rate. The whole thing is a shell game, which everyone knows. To pretend that American corporations pay more corporate taxes than any others in the world is either deception or delusion.
Just imagine that phoney Joe Manchin getting called out by a coal worker pointing out that his tax withholding went down. The Dems are against coal and for higher taxes.
But Joe can always get a job lobbying for the Epipen company run by his daughter.
People will believe their own lyin’ pocketbooks over Schumer and Pelosi.
I bet Putin is ecstatic that ANWR has been opened for drilling, because anything that increases the supply of oil and drives down the price, is good for Russia, the “gas station with an army.”
At some point these low energy prices, that Democrats adamantly oppose, are going to really eat away at their military, unless they go all North Korea.
Packwood should have hung up on the NYT. Didn’t he realize how he was being used?
And, Ann, the NYT will never change. For the Times, party and tribe comes first.
". . . Democrats, who have accused Republicans of giving a gift to corporations and the wealthy and driving up the federal debt in the process."
Yeah, the sincerity of Ds just oozes out. They've always cared so much about minimizing the federal debt load.
“We believe you’re messing up America. You could pay attention for a couple of minutes.”
Let me guess... that's quoting some Republican during 2009-2016?
It would be interesting to figure out what most drove the parties to (relative) ideological purity. I blame Reagan, or rather, his success with the economy and geopolitics, but there's a good argument for LBJ setting things in motion. I can't think of a single event, but Impeachment is a source for much of the recent rancor. GHWB complained about "bickering," not fist-fighting.
Cook, the important thing is what rate they pay on each additional dollar they make, not the total after the loopholes and fudges they paid for.
"anything that increases the supply of oil and drives down the price, is good for Russia"
Oil and petroleum products are ~ 50% of Russia's exports. Competitors driving down the price of your main product doesn't sound very good to me. Is there some subtlety here that I am missing?
Well Robert, that’s because they keep hundreds of billions, or even trillions, overseas.
Some companies don’t pay that rate, and those companies are not participating in the stock rally to the same extent as most of them. But you go on and believe what you have to believe. On the one hand, you have the motivated reasoning of lefties pushing their beliefs that eventually socialism will bring a utopia, and on the other, you have people risking their own money, doing the actual math. They seem to think that lots of companies are paying those high rates. Federal Express says that this will lead to something like $4 a share in increased earnings. Are they lying? Or were they actually paying that highest in the world tax rate?
BTW, when the stockholders in Fed Ex collect those profits, they will pay taxes on that income. Corporate taxation is like net neutrality, it forces costs onto people who don’t share as much in the benefits. If you are making 100K and have stocks that pay a corporate rate, and another guy is making 10 million a year and owns those same stocks, why should the first guy pay the same corporate tax rate as the other? When you cut the corporate rate, and those profits go to the individual shareholders, the 100 million dollar guy pays a higher rate than the 100K guy on those profits, as it should be.
I don’t know why lefties oppose progressive taxation.
Is there some subtlety here that I am missing?
My sarcastic tone, I presume.
From the FORBES article I linked to above, and again right here:
"The implications of a corporate tax rate cut
"What will happen with a drop in the top corporate rate? Even though the effective corporate rate is about the 15% the Trump administration advocates, that includes the power of tax credits, deductions, and such major loopholes as artificially holding intellectual property overseas in a wholly-owned subsidy and then 'paying' the subsidy fees to use the property, significantly lowering domestic taxes.
"If a 35% top rate, modified by all the tax reduction methods available, results in a rate that already hovers around or even dips below 15%, what happens if the top rate is dropped to 15%? Probably a sharp drop in income and an increase in the deficit (barring additional taxes on individuals) that the Trump administration apparently finds acceptable.
"Even more of the burden will fall on individuals, and as Congress seems to ready tax cuts for the wealthiest, everyone else will be hit with supporting the system.
"There is that argument about increasing investment and spurring on the economy, but history suggests that to be ludicrous. This isn't the 1980s with higher corporate and individual tax rates. Companies continue to have, on average, record amounts of cash on hand after years of incredibly low interest rates for borrowed funds. Investment hasn't gone to increased production and hiring. It has gone to stock buybacks to improve stock prices (and, with them, the compensation to top management). When the boat is already floating free at the dock, playing out more rope does nothing but give the rope a bath.
"To put it differently, this is likely to be a massive tax giveaway that could be on a scale the country has never before seen. Higher profits will go to shareholders (with favorable tax treatment). Most people will continue to struggle along, income inequality, already high, will grow to unparalleled levels, and the underpinnings of long-term financial stability for the country as a whole will erode even further."
Everyone here is always crying about 'forced redistribution of wealth' in America, and there is that: but it's being redistributed from the poor and the (shrinking) middle class to the wealthy classes. This is more of the same.
And now the Republicans have their big achievement, too important and overdue to delay or compromise.
Of course there was no compromise on tax cuts. To Democrats, "compromise" means giving in to everything they demand. Fuck them.
"too important and overdue to delay or compromise."
That's tongue-in-cheek, right? (BTW, can we still use that phrase?) The Democrats' compromise would be a bill that they wrote.
It will be interesting to see what happens now regarding Obamacare, as the mandate tax was thought (at least in 2012) essential to its survival. Has this made single-payer inevitable?
Weren't there lots of compromise with Rubio and others? What did Democrat leaders offer to give up for what? Paul Ryan and others offered detailed compromises for the ACA including asking to have it split up into smaller bills so the good parts weren't married to poison pills. Republicans literally were locked out of the room during drafting. Schumer and Pelosi can't even attend meetings with the president. These are in no way analogous.
”Even more of the burden will fall on individuals, and as Congress seems to ready tax cuts for the wealthiest, everyone else will be hit with supporting the system.
What does this even mean. For one thing, the tax cuts are not targeted to the wealthy, and on the other, when the burden is shifted to the “individual” that basically means that the taxes will be paid at individual rates per what is probably still the most progressive tax code in the developed world.
Basically, you believe in socialism, and discussions of the basic fairness of taxation are only of use to you in terms of how they can be used to increase taxation on the economy. I think it is better if the “poor” in America are richer in absolute terms than they were before, rather than keeping them just as poor, or making them poorer by bringing in cheap foreign labor and suppressing the economy, but decreasing “inequality” by making everybody else poorer.
I don’t think that you have much interaction at all on any kind of serious personal level with working people on the bottom end of the income scale. They don’t care about what other people have, they care about whether they can make ends meet. This obsession with relative wealth is a fetish of the white left.
"My sarcastic tone, I presume."
Ah. Yes. Coffee has not yet kicked in.
Why did the Packwood case end the way it did? The Senate and Congress closing ranks, pretending Packwood was an outlier, nothing to see here. Both parties have an interest in protecting the Washington swamp. I tend to favour the rule that politicians can hire and fire whomever they want, whenever they want. Credentials of job applicants can provide useful information, but there has to be a very personal fit. Does this allow for more personal abuse/harassment? Are some workplaces worse for women than others--politics, show business being particularly bad? Maybe MeToo will help us understand what actually goes on. We all hope it is a minority of men causing a majority of incidents. But if women put up with crap virtually every day, what does this say about the number of men involved?
Revenue to the federal government has never declined after a tax cut.
If no one was paying that rate anyway it seems best to simplify and lower the rate so everyone is on the same field and destroy one of many unfair barriers to entry.
The only thing today’s Democrat party has is ipse dixit and identity/tribal politics. That’s it. And the facts back ME up.
"Everyone here is always crying about 'forced redistribution of wealth' in America, and there is that: but it's being redistributed from the poor and the (shrinking) middle class to the wealthy classes. This is more of the same."
I love how Cookie thinks that me keeping more OF MY OWN MONEY means that somehow I'm getting it from the poor! They also think scaling back an increase from 5% to 4% is a CUT!
That's why they end up eating fucking dogs and dirt sandwiches to survive.
Where was all this compassion for the poor when the left criminalized inability to afford insurance?
market based solutions are not perfect either
That’s an odd statement. Nothing on Earth is “perfect” ever, but free markets are always prefabs me to the overregulated, micromanaged, employer-based system with medicare socialism stuffed on top. Transactions in which a third party pays a second party for work done on behalf the first party is not in any way a free market and the distortions caused by this stupid arrangement (with hideous waste fraud And abuse sucking at least 40% of costs with no clear benefit) is not anywhere near a market-based solution.
The worst kind of tax for producing tax revenue is one that is easily avoidable but confiscatory if paid. That would be the US corporate tax prior to this bill, as Robert Cook's Forbes article observes.
The best kind of tax for producing tax revenue is one that is hard to avoid but employs relatively low tax rates. This type of tax does not kill incentives to do more of the taxable activity, thereby increasing tax revenue.
This tax bill just passed tends to make the US tax system a little more like the best kind of tax.
Listening to Chuck Schumer makes me feel icky all over.
Limiting the property tax deduction to $10000 must sting for someone paying $17000, eh ?
Matthew nails it. How can doubling the child tax credit, which PAYS poor people actually TAKE from them Cookie? That’s an asinine talking point. The USA has the richest and fattest “poor” the World has ever known.
Matthew Sablan: If no one was paying that rate anyway it seems best to simplify and lower the rate so everyone is on the same field and destroy one of many unfair barriers to entry.
One might gently suggest that to Cookie, as a possible explanation for why Forbes is wringing its hands over "struggling people" and income inequality.
I have no idea how this will affect me personally. It's been my experience that I get screwed no matter what they do with taxes. However, I do remember well the passage of Obamacare and the HITECH act, both of which have made it harder for me to survive as a solo independent physician. 2017 has been the worse year of my career, and that includes when I first launched my own practice. Very few of my colleagues are left standing. They have either retired or joined huge conglomerates. Corporate medicine rules. You all may not have felt it yet, but thanks to the Democrats how your doctor treats you is now determined by population metrics rather than individualizing your care to your specific needs. It will take some major shift to change that dynamic now.
Packwood should have hung up on the NYT. Didn’t he realize how he was being used?
You're asking a Politician to avoid a limelight, to avoid giving an opinion.
Will never happen.
Interesting that the republicans are banking on the real world results of this Bill, while democrats historically bank on the passing of a Bill, and view that as the end result;problem fixed.
There is no "compromise" against a hard "no."
I watched C-Span to catch some of the "drama", but there really wasn't any.
Although I am biased, my take-home observation was how fundamentally dishonest the Dem party is, starting with Nancy Pelosi.
For example, the corp tax rate drops from 35% to 21%. She didn't mention this or tell us what rate she thinks it should be. Would she prefer a smaller drop to, say, 30%? Would she prefer an increase to 40%? Does she think 35% is perfect where it is? You can't tell, because all you get is ad hominem rhetoric, on 23 different angles on why she really, really hates the bill and why the GOP is evil.
Another example: the highest income rate and bracket for married couples is dropping from 39.6% rate at $480K to 37% at $600K. Again, Pelosi never tells you this or what in her view the rate and bracket should be.
There are several small cuts at every earning bracket, which in my mind is a modest step towards more economic Liberty. Instead, Pelosi yammers on about Armageddon, and how the Dems are gonna wipe out the GOP in 2018.
The bottom line is there was no drama, but a lot of dishonest verbal rhetoric from highly emotional Democrats.
The left fears this bill will be successful. They are rational fears.
"GOP Senators on the take from Alaweed" Traditionalguy at 6:19am.
Any details on this?
A tax cut will not restructure 20 percent of the economy and an entire industry which is irreversable.
Blogger Tim at large said...
What does this even mean. For one thing, the tax cuts are not targeted to the wealthy
Tim, Tim, Tim...
How many times do I need to repeat it.
IN THE US WE DO NOT TAX WEALTH!!!
(with a few exceptions like the death tax, property taxes)
Since we do not tax wealth, and the wealthy do not pay taxes, of course tax cuts are not targeted to the "wealthy".
Too many people conflate wealth and income. One can have a high income, atheletes, celebrities are some visible examples and little or no or even negative wealth.
Conversely, one can have a low income, like a farmer that makes 50-75m/yr, or Jeff Bezos who makes $3-5mm/yr and have a lot of wealth. A couple of million in land and equipment of $100bn in Amazon stock.
I really do wish people would stop saying "rich" or "wealthy" when they mean high income. It is impossible to have a sensible conversation when people won't even use the right terms.
I know, from previous discussions, that you know the difference between wealth and income, Tim. I don't really mean to go off on you but I wish you would use them correctly. There are some here who I suspect are so economically illiterate that they do not know the difference. Those of us who know better need to set an example.
John Henry
Using the Googles for "GOP Senators on the take from Alaweed" gives one return, and that is tradguy on this blog.
Well said, Browndog.
Another example of a the worst kind of tax is the US estate tax. The tax rate quickly gets to 40% after a personal exemption of $5.7 million (about to go to $11.4 million), but charitable bequests (very broadly interpreted) are exempt. That is a tax that will raise nothing from the billions of Buffett, Gates, and (probably) Koch, which are going to charitable foundations that their heirs and ultimately professional staffs will control (See Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, etc.)
A better tax would impose a tax rate of 10% to 20% after the personal exemption with no deductions. Buffett could leave 80% of his billions to charity, with 20% going to the US Treasury. He could put his money where his mouth has been. The US treasury would get billions. Charity would get billions.
I have never understood why Buffett and Gates don't lobby for this kind of estate tax structure. I wonder why they don't? Could it be that the current system lets them do exactly what they want at the expense of the Treasury? The current system certainly does not raise much estate tax revenue.
Robert Cook
The forbes article (written by a playwright by the way) rightly notes that our corporations end up paying less than the stated rate. What it does not say is that the rate of other nations is not paid by the corporations of those nations. The playwright assumes those nations tax codes have no incentives to lower taxes. Or he knows but does not highlight that obvious fact.
Michael K,
Obamacare IS reversible and we have been seeing it in the past few years. A bit slow but it is there:
Concierge clinics where for a flat monthly fee you get access to doctors
Walk-in cash clinics pay for what you eat
More doctors working on a cash only basis
Co-op health care plans (Not sure if "co-op" is the right word here) organized by churches and other groups
CVS buying Aetna
Amazon toying with offering health care
Walmart was toying with offering health insurance but I've not heard much in the past year or two.
Obamacare is not forever. Obamacare is not forever even it it is not repealed. There are workarounds.
We need to untie healthcare and employment. Either make employer paid healthcare taxable as income, same as any other benefit. Or make individual paid healthcare tax deductible.
My choice is the first, though I am OK with the second. The second would likely be more politically feasible.
John Henry
First of all there is no Alaweed. There is a Saudi prince and investor who is incarcerated in SA at the moment. His name is Alwaleed.
There are some here who I suspect are so economically illiterate that they do not know the difference. Those of us who know better need to set an example.
Some of the folks I have in mind are those wanting to see Donald Trump's INCOME tax returns because they think they will tell us something about his WEALTH.
John Henry
I can see why Pelosi would go ape; the reform can't be good for San Francisco real estate.
"You all may not have felt it yet, but thanks to the Democrats how your doctor treats you is now determined by population metrics rather than individualizing your care to your specific needs. It will take some major shift to change that dynamic now."
I've felt it, Sydney. Also, my lovely dr explained to me why she had to check ridiculous boxes and spend my appt time doing so. It's such a waste of talent and expertise. And money.
Yesterday Donna Brazille is on talking about a “blue tidal wave” in 2018
That one must have been on the journoist email chain. I saw that talking point other places, too. As if it was inevitable. More like Hillary inevitable.
Corporations don't pay tax. They just collect it for the government from their customers.
Last time I looked, millions of people work for corporations & pay tax on what the corporations pay them.
Of course, NBC is touting a poll that says that 63% of people think the bill benefits the wealthy.
Of course they do when there is 24/7/365 bashing of "tax cuts for the rich" & an open mic to any Democrat media-whore (Chuck, I'm talking to you)
First of all there is no Alaweed.
What's the second of all?
I am supposed to listen to FORBES on this issue? Seriously?
The people who write for Forbes (and read Forbes, for that matter) are for the most part Blue State upper crust guys in finance who
1) Own very expensive mansions who are now seeing their mortgage deduction slashed
2) Live in Blue States who have very luxurious social programs that they will now be forced to pay for instead of deducting it off their federal taxes
3) and face a number of loopholes closed which now make them hiding their wealth a good bit less easy.
Yet Robert Cook, because he hates this tax for entirely other reasons wants us to believe that the Wealthy People at Forbes are writing an objective essay on how bad this is for the good of the county instead of naked self interest.
John Henry: We need to untie healthcare and employment. Either make employer paid healthcare taxable as income, same as any other benefit. Or make individual paid healthcare tax deductible.
My choice is the first, though I am OK with the second. The second would likely be more politically feasible.
Perhaps untying healthcare and employment would cut the Gordian knot. (What would the health care landscape look like now if employers had never been able to offer medical insurance as a benefit?) Why do you think your first scenario would work better than the second? Because it could be implemented with without much re-jiggering of the system, or other reasons?
I can see why Pelosi would go ape; the reform can't be good for San Francisco real estate.
Think of all those political contributions going to (gasp sob) the Federal Government instead of the DNC! Oh the Humanity!
Democrats pretending to give a crap about the debt is the funniest thing ever.
Democrats like it when US business moves offshore.
Democrats like punitive tax rates and tax hikes and waste.
Democrats don't give a crap about non-democrats, ordinary Americans or anyone in a small business.
Democrats care about leftwing celebrities.
Democrats like it when US business move offshore.
Democrats like punitive tax rates and tax hikes and waste.
Democrats don't give a crap about non-democrats, ordinary Americans or anyone in a small business.
Democrats care about leftwing celebrities and lying all the time.
"But no American corporations pay that high rate. The whole thing is a shell game, which everyone knows. To pretend that American corporations pay more corporate taxes than any others in the world is either deception or delusion."
Complete BS. Only works for companies big enough to show up on their (Forbes) radar. Our marginal rate last decade or so has been 39% AND we are forced to depreciate assets with 5-10 year lifetimes over almost 30 years. Stuff that we turnover enough that we should be able to expense up front. So much for not being GM, which can get tailor made tax exemptions and deductions.
"Cook, the important thing is what rate they pay on each additional dollar they make, not the total after the loopholes and fudges they paid for."
What no one seems to mention is that the tax rate may average 35%, but for small and medium sized business, it can be higher. From $100k to $335k of income a year, the marginal rate is 39%. Another bump up to 38% from $15m to $18.333m. The idea was to provide an average rate (35%) for corporations by recapturing very low rates for the first dollars earned (tax on first $50k is 15%). Which is, of course, brain dead as an incentive. Tax writers didn't want GM or Apple paying a penny less than 35% (on what they couldn't hide, expense, ship overseas, or otherwise make disappear) on their billions of income, so in order to give small corporations that 15% rate, they hit slightly larger corps with a marginal rate of 39%, until the rate averages out to 35%. Like I said, brain dead. No one should be paying a marginal rate of 39%, when you also have to factor in state Corp taxes, and individual federal and state taxes. You can find yourself well above a 50% aggregate marginal tax rate. Heck, with the current tax system, you can easily break the 50% marginal tax rate barrier with just federal taxes alone, when you combine corporate and individual income taxes. State taxes just rub salt into the wound.
Queastor
The second of all should be obvious. There is no linkage between Prince Alwaleed, or even an imaginary prince, with members of the U.S. senate of either party.
The corrupt D-hack press are tying to make the GOP look bad? no way! They would never do that.
There will be a big, important election before the voters file their taxes for 2018. So of course the Democrats will hyperventilate and doomsay. There is enough uncertainty that they have wiggle room to say almost anything to gain political advantage.
Sydney, one of the reasons I quit teaching medical students was that I feel so sorry for them. They are all going to school on student loans and will be paying the equivalent of a mortgage until they are 60. I used to ask if any had considered the military, which will pay tuition. None had.
The leftwing machine run the same tired worn-out untrue meaningless arguments. It's like the left is a collective hivemind or something.
Everyone here is always crying about 'forced redistribution of wealth' in America, and there is that: but it's being redistributed from the poor and the (shrinking) middle class to the wealthy classes. This is more of the same.
12/20/17, 7:06 AM
The proof will be in the paychecks. If average person sees less withholding, while Dems claim sky is falling (again) going to be hard to argue.
Dems will continue to lie through the media in order to sway 2018 elections. Expect Dems to lie and promise even better tax system if they are elected.
John Henry, the free market in healthcare will work for doctors with low debt. The reason I feel for medical students is that they will be indentured servants to the medical industry as they will have big student loan payments to make. I know docs going to free market practices but they are older or had the military pay for medical school and served their payback time and are now debt free.
Quoting Cook quoting Forbes:
"Companies continue to have, on average, record amounts of cash on hand after years of incredibly low interest rates for borrowed funds. Investment hasn't gone to increased production and hiring. It has gone to stock buybacks to improve stock prices (and, with them, the compensation to top management)."
Right, it will take new tariffs on imports to shift manufacturing back to the U.S.. A wage-price equalization tax, or something like it, is needed to level the playing field on which American factory workers are expected to compete.
Blogger Angel-Dyne said...
Why do you think your first scenario would work better than the second? Because it could be implemented with without much re-jiggering of the system, or other reasons?
I am not sure one would "work better" than the other, though that would depend on what we mean by working.
In my opinion, all employee benefits should be treated, at fair market value, as income to the employee. Right now the only exception is health care and a limited amount of life insurance.
When employees can see what they are paying for health care, they will start demanding ways to make it less expensive.
On the other hand, most employees would rightly see having to pay income tax on the value of their health care as having something taken from them. Even if phased in gradually, say 20% or even 10% per year, it would make their taxes go up and they would make their unhappiness known to politicians.
That is why I think the second option is more politically feasible. A relatively few people get something and a whole lot of people do not lose something.
The biggest problem I see right now is a fairness issue. For those who get it at work, it is after tax. For those purchasing individually, it is pre-tax. It should be one or the other for all.
Which one works better, from the standpoint of better healthcare, is another discussion.
Even if counted and taxed as income, employers still have a lot of reasons to offer healthcare: employee lock-in, healthier employees, ability to purchase wholesale instead of retail and more.
John Henry
F Bernie Leftwing Sanders who is a hypocrite and a disgrace.
Shut up and buy another house.
Blogger Michael K said...
John Henry, the free market in healthcare will work for doctors with low debt. The reason I feel for medical students is that they will be indentured servants to the medical industry as they will have big student loan payments to make.
Not just medical students but many others as well. I read about a guy who got a Masters degree in puppetry and owes $100,000 or so in student loans.
Student loans are a huge scam.
We really need to rethink our whole education system. But that is another discussion.
Read Clarence Thomas autobiography. Read it for a lot of reasons, but one is his explanation of his student loans. He was STILL paying off after he had been elevated to the Supreme Court.
Thank God I was able to pay for my kids without them needing to get sucked into that trap. My daughter's company paid for her Masters (engineering management) degree. This is a fairly common benefit, especially in larger companies and I am amazed at how few people take advantage or even know about it.
It is not all THAT hard to work one's way through school. I was working full time in the Navy when I did my undergrad. I was working 50-60 hours a week in a pharma plant and had to drive 100 miles to do my MBA. Navy paid most of my undergrad and VA the rest plus my MBA.
I paid full freight for my MSBE and did that while working full time, traveling and teaching 1 night a week. It was an education degree so it was not like there was any real work involved. I did have to show up for class, though.
OTOH, it did snow every day and I had to walk to class, uphill both ways. So there is that.
John Henry
When employees can see what they are paying for health care, they will start demanding ways to make it less expensive.
This is why the Democrats and their media allies get away with lying about the impact of Obamacare. The majority of people in this country don't know how much their insurance really costs because they get it from employers. Those who have to purchase their own policies and aren't poor enough for subsidies have seen their premiums and deductibles skyrocket since the passage of the "Affordable" Care Act. But they are in a minority so their voices go unheard. Even though they outnumber those who were helped by the Affordable Care Act, they are fewer than the sum of those helped and those who get insurance through employers.
Bruce Hayden said"
"Complete BS. Only works for companies big enough to show up on their (Forbes) radar. Our marginal rate last decade or so has been 39% AND we are forced to depreciate assets with 5-10 year lifetimes over almost 30 years. Stuff that we turnover enough that we should be able to expense up front. So much for not being GM, which can get tailor made tax exemptions and deductions."
But that's part of the point: small businesses don't count any more than do individual tax payers: it is only the giant corporate entities, those who "show up on Forbes' radar," that count. Small businesses are expected to pay the bills for the country just as working Americans are. We have to pay all the taxes that are not paid by the huge corporate entities sitting on piles of cash, crying how "burdensome" their tax liabilities are, how it "hurts" their ability to innovate and hire.
Complete BS, indeed.
You guys cheering the new tax bill are drinking Kool-aid made with water from da Nile.
To keep this on the tax bill, did I read that it will start taxing employer paid education? Right now it is deductible if it is job related. A computer programmer studying biology would not be deductible but a pharmaceutical plant engineer might be able to.
Ditto personally paid education. My MSBE degree cost was tax deductible because 1) I am an adjunct instructor so this helps my professional development. 2) My business is industrial training so this was business related. Had I studied music, it would not have been deductible.
Did this change in the new bill?
BTW: I do not feel in the least sorry for the puppet guy. That is his stupidity plus he was a Bernie supporter, thinking Bernie would cancel his debt.
It is an incredibly stupid system that will lend a person $100m to pursue puppetry.
It is an incredibly stupid system person that will borrow that money to pursue a masters in puppetry.
It is an incredibly evil system that allows this to happen.
Make student debt dischargable in bankruptcy and/or make the schools co-sign.
The only reason schools can charge $50m/yr for worthless degrees is this evil system. It only helps university employees such as faculty but especially all the worthless hangers one.
Especially faculty in such useless degrees as XXX Studies. Make students pay for their degrees, give them some career guidance and watch these programs disappear.
John Henry
Mike, I used to feel that way until our cleaning lady of many years, who did not have insurance, clearly began to be sick, after years of robust and energetic good health. By the time she went to a real doctor, it was too late. She died within six months. The market is not the optimal solution to every single problem.
I am glad roads are public, but they are built with equipment manufactured privately, by private contractors. It's a compromise with free market absolutism. Socialist absolutism would have the government building the bulldozers, and history tells us where that leads.
According to Schumer and Sanders and the rest, we're all going to die! Though they told I was already murdered by Trump's election so maybe this'll just keep me dead?
-sw
"We have to pay all the taxes that are not paid by the huge corporate entities sitting on piles of cash"
You forgot to say "parked overseas due to punitive US corporate tax rates."
For Cookie, punishment is the point of taxation.
John Henry.
Medical students end up with $500,000 in debt. That is big mortgage to pay off.
The French medical schools are free and do not require college. If we are going to go to some sort of single payer that will have to be part of it. We could have a program that forgives debt for service in free clinics for the poor, for example. We need some innovation.
I'm just sitting over enjoying learning from those commenters who know far more than I do, and thinking that I cannot freaking WAIT to file my taxes in 2019 since the phase-out for the child tax credit has been raised so we can actually take it :D :D :D :D
The Republicans are saying that the tax cuts will lead to more jobs. The Democrats never even try to explain how Democrats will bring good manufacturing jobs back or create favorable conditions here for jobs. Instead Democrats try to divide the workers in this country into 1. white workers ="uneducated" and "deplorable" while 2. black workers and women are "wokers." By "wokers" The Democrats mean that the group that doesn't ask the Democrats for a job, just a handout from a program which employs a lot of college educated Democrats in well-paying jobs with health care and a pension (the wankers).
The real irony is that Packwood was a liberal Republican who today would probably be a Democrat. He was pro-Gun Control and tried to legalize abortion before Roe V Wade. He voted against both Judge Bork and Justice Thomas. He voted against two of Nixon's Supreme Court nominees and was hostile to defense spending.
He was given an award by Planned Parenthood for Christ's sake.
We have to pay all the taxes that are not paid by the huge corporate entities sitting on piles of cash, crying how "burdensome" their tax liabilities are, how it "hurts" their ability to innovate and hire.
US corporate taxes were among the highest in the world and were a disincentive to investment and returning overseas profits to the U.S.. I predict that next year, if not this year, the government will receive more income from corporations than it did last year.
Evidently there were some female protesters in the gallery bearing their breast during the House tax cut vote. It's rumored Al Franken invited them to the Senate vote.
The Democrats never even try to explain how Democrats will bring good manufacturing jobs back or create favorable conditions here for jobs.
But nobody ever explains where the workers for those jobs will come from. Giddings and Lewis in Fond du Lac makes high end machine tools and rejects 80% of applicants for failing to pass the drug test. They can't find people.
A dairy food client in WI is scared shitless of Foxconn. They already spend far too much time finding employees. They worry what Foxconn sucking up 13,000 more will do to them.
A machine builder in the Chicago area has openings for 10 mechanics/techs at 40m to start, going to $60-80 in 2-3 years if they work out. They've had 10 openings for at least 10 years. The owner tells me he could use 20-30 more but that is too pie in the sky.
Even warm breathing bodies who will show up on time to do unskilled work are pretty thin on the ground in most of the US.
Anyone else here in manufacturing? How are you doing finding employees? (If you can share and I am not too nosy)
Pretty much everyone I talk to in manufacturing, all over the country, tells me that finding employees, at all levels, is one of their top problems.
How do we address that?
One way is improving efficiencies. Improve efficiency from 60 to 62% and you gain 40 hours of additional production time. Or, reduce downtime by 10 minutes per day and gain a week of manufacturing output. That's single shift. Multiple shifts multiply those numbers. (Sorry, Ann, for the shameless plug)
John Henry
John Henry @8:54:
Thanks for the response.
When employees can see what they are paying for health care, they will start demanding ways to make it less expensive.
That's the crux of the biscuit. Though I think even people with employer-paid insurance are getting "woke" on this point lately - it's kind of hard not to notice whopping increases in deductible and OOP max rates, which in turn force even employer-covered people to pay attention to cost (and to realize what an insane racket this has all become).
It's just a tax bill. Another Congress can change it. It isn't creating a new entitlement that will be extraordinarily difficult to roll back.
In other words, I don't think it makes any sense to act like this is as momentous as the health care bill passage.
Other changes:
529 plans can now be used for private schooling, not just colleges -I think that was a sop to blue staters.
They changed something with stock price base and inheritances it's all FIFO now.
They loathe 401ks because we have too much money they can't get their greedy hands on. I read that back in the early 90s and those idiots haven't changed.
You can now have contributions to charity go directly from your 401k up to $100k/yr.
I know W wanted to revamp and tighten charitable giving laws but he couldn't get it done, they squealed like stuck piggies.
I hope Trump has that as a goal for next year. More charitable giving, it needs to be raised from the 5% and it should not include deducting office rent as part of the distribution.
Cook: But that's part of the point: small businesses don't count any more than do individual tax payers: it is only the giant corporate entities, those who "show up on Forbes' radar," that count.[...]
Complete BS, indeed.
You completely missed BH's point.
I don’t have a problem with US growth being limited by a tight labor market. Sorry. I just don’t. I hear what you are saying, John Henry. My brother is a retired plant manager, and he talked about being unable to find people who wanted steady jobs with benefits. My response to him was the same as my response to you. Labor has too much bargaining power and you are going to have to pay more to attract them? Too bad, so sad. It really cost the grand-daughters of the venture capitalists who were “flipping” his company a lot of ponies and sailboats, I am sure.
And Robert Cook, who inveighs against massively profitable corporations sitting on huge piles of cash, (cough, Google, cough) yet he takes Google’s side in “net neutrality” when it is the Verizons of the world that are paying non-college educated guys to dig ditches, lay cables, drive trucks around and install and repair equipment, many of them unionized, BTW.
How the fuck does Google get people to overlook the fundamental economics and the varying interests of the parties involved in that dispute to favor the people with vast wealth that they concentrate further daily?
Probably because the same newspapers that used to have to pay delivery boys, maintain fleets of trucks, printing plants, buy trainloads of newsprint and tanker cars of ink now free-ride on the Verizons of the world, and are scared shit of losing the privilege, so we only ever hear one side of the argument.
How do we address that?
Get your asses back into the high schools. We will help you pay for trade school, you'll be making $80 grand by the time you're 25.
And you will have very little debt which will be paid off quick.
Win win
Looks like a windfall for my Bernie voting children. Ha ha ha ha!
On the other hand, trust attorneys just might have taken a hit.
And whether or not you repatriate, you're going to pay 15% on cash? And8% on hard assets, I think.
Tim, you can have some real fun with that! I would. Of course, they don't want it and will donate it to charity.
Seeing Red: They loathe 401ks because we have too much money they can't get their greedy hands on. I read that back in the early 90s and those idiots haven't changed.
Few things make me want to reach for a weapon more than reading those useful-idiot economists' articles on why private retirement accounts need to be confiscated, er, rolled-in to SS. To "protect" you, you see. And "fairness". Of course.
"529 plans can now be used for private schooling, not just colleges -I think that was a sop to blue staters."
Also, homeschooling.
They could leave $50 tips on a $20 bill, that kind of thing.
Time to spread the wealth!
Mike, I used to feel that way until our cleaning lady of many years, who did not have insurance, clearly began to be sick, after years of robust and energetic good health. By the time she went to a real doctor, it was too late. She died within six months. The market is not the optimal solution to every single problem.
Why wasn't she on Medicaid?
Did you pay her cash?
Tim at large: How the fuck does Google get people to overlook the fundamental economics and the varying interests of the parties involved in that dispute to favor the people with vast wealth that they concentrate further daily?
I've yet to see a coherent response to this, unless you consider "but I don't want any corporation potentially being able to control my access to content" a coherent response. ("Potential" is apparently way worse than "actual", so giving more power to existing content-censors is OK.)
So you favor a wealth tax, seeing red?
Or are you confusef about the difference between wealth and income?
John Henry
Why wasn't she on Medicaid?
Did you pay her cash?
She worked for me a couple hours a week, so yeah, I paid her cash. Just like I pay cash to the guy who details my car. People are going to make choices in those circumstances, and I am assuming her choice was to not pay taxes on what she did make.
People are going to fall through the cracks of any system you set up. The best we can hope for is some kind of optimization of the system, and I don’t think that whatever is optimal is obvious. Nor do I think that the free market can solve every problem, just as the government can’t solve every problem. Both approaches create some problems, while solving others. I wish I knew what the best balance was.
Eighteen months ago did anyone think President Trump would be signing historic tax legislation and Hillary Clinton would be guest editing Teen Vogue? MAGA baby!
The Congress has been acting more like a parliamentary system in the last 10 years. This is a major change.
Now it's passing major legislation with 51 Senate votes. Expect more of the same to occur in the future, on both sides. I imagine both parties will creatively test what can be passed under reconciliation.
I’ve yet to see a coherent response to this
Like I said, the New York Times used to have an expensive infrastructure to print and deliver newspapers. Now they free-ride on an internet infrastructure that they didn’t build, and it seems lately that they woke up to the fact that they didn’t control it, so they came up with “net neutrality.”
Think of the Google, Facebook, and Amazon boards all realizing that they have built their once unimaginable fortunes on an infrastructure they don’t own or control. Think of them waking up at night in a cold sweat thinking what they would do to a competitor if they had that much power over the other guy.
What’s the best thing for them, get the government, which they do control, to take over their competitors. Not to nationalize them, more to take the fascist approach of using the state to force carriers to operate in, not the best interests of their own customers, and therefore themselves, but the best interests of this new class of digital robber barons.
What could you call Bezos but a “robber baron” when you look at what he has done to main street retail coast to coast?
I imagine both parties will creatively test what can be passed under reconciliation.
I wonder how that camel’s nose got under the tent? It’s lost in the fog of history....
The whole matter of the woefully inadequate press analysis of situations like this makes me wonder if there is some small collection of journals, written in highly coded language or dense jargon, where obvious truths and motivations and their implications are discussed.
I sort of hope there is. It’s sort of frightening to think that the only access to news and its analysis that our “leaders” have is what they read in the newspapers.
Would it be wrong to say, we dont mind the Democrats joining us, they can come along for the ride, but they have to sit in the back?
What could you call Bezos but a “robber baron” when you look at what he has done to main street retail coast to coast?
No no no silly. Bezos is Leftwing and Progressive. He's a good guy. He would never do that.
That's the fault of the Waltons and Walmart. They're Conservative and evil.
There is no group the Democratic party hates more than small business. In California (wholly run by Democrats) there is what amounts to a blood-lust against them.
You will get pious denials from various spokesmen, but private threats from enforcers of all kinds.
The extermination of small-medium business is a long term political strategy, especially those who deal in physical processes, manufacturing, building, transport, agriculture, etc. This is the inescapable conclusion as to the motives of the system that is so well organized against them. Such perfection of malevolence is no accident.
The apocalypse the lefties on the floor are describing right now sounds pretty scary. They should probably kill themselves...
On a bright note it sure sounds like Republicans will have plenty of bipartisan support when they start rightsizing the budget next year.
Hair on fire comments from D leadership on this bill only proves that the more time you spend in DC the dumber you become. We can save these folks from this hypoxia by demanding term limits. I think the President actually ran on that idea too.
Problem with manufacturing workers is uneven regional supply.
There are a lot of good workers underemployed in Northern CA for instance. Or for that matter SoCal. But they can't move.
Then there are large numbers of excellent people wasting their time in higher ed, or looking for unproductive white-collar work. These are out of that physical job market in spite of better incomes.
I keep hearing talking heads say that taxpayers in high tax states will pay more as a result of SALT, but online calculators I've played with still show modest increases in after tax incomes for nearly all income levels.
Yes, our news sources are failing. Sad.
Wealth tax on what?
I wasn’t clear. I understand the US corps with overseas presence will pay 15% on cash and 8% on hard asset tax even if they don’t repatriate.
If you’re talking charities, just makes them file more specific tax returns, and give more. Foundations should also have a sunset provision.
There are a lot of good workers underemployed in Northern CA for instance. Or for that matter SoCal. But they can't move.
How bad does it have to get before they say screw it?
I get it, we’re at the point in our lives where we want to move out but can’t. So we count off the years.
They have a trade. We’d have to sell out, and my husband would be like a traveling salesman, gone most of the time because he’d have to be here.
"robber baron"? Really?
Could you elaborate please? Who is he robbing and how?
John Henry
Schumer talks and all I hear is "blah blah blah, tax breaks for the rich, blah blah blah, millions will die, blah blah blah"
F-ing broken record.
Craig Newmark, back in the 90s tried to sell Craig's List to the SF Chronicle for something like $50,000.
Naah..., they said. It will kill our cash cow, classifieds. Some huge proportion of newspaper revenue, more than half IIRC, used to come from classifieds. Now? Bupkis.
Anyone remember Blockbuster? They had a chance, early on, to buy Netflix. Naaah..., they said. It will kill our stores.
Anyone remember Ben Franklin stores? Sam Walton had worked his way up to owning 5 stores. He had this great idea for a store. Naaah... they said. It will kill our Ben Franklin stores.
If Borders, or Barnes & Noble or B. Dalton had decided to sell books on line in the 90s, we would have no Amazon today. They didn't and we have no Borders or B. Dalton and barely have B&N.
There is a cliche that I run across all the time "If you don't cannibalize your own business, someone else will." Everyone knows this and pays it lip service but nobody does it.
Another cliche that everyone in retail knows: "Retail is about buying, not about selling." Everyone says they live by that. Yet until Sam Walton came along, nobody did more than pay lip service, they were all about selling. Walton was all about buying. Find out what the customer wants, where and when they want it and what they are willing to pay and you'll need armed guards to keep them out of the store. He knew that and built Walmart on that.
Read about Walmart's buying process sometime. They view it as their core competency and treat it that way. Then read about K-Mart. They didn't even do their own buying but used an independent contractor to buy for them. And K-Mart went bankrupt.
Question for the group: When was the last time you visited a bookstore to buy a book? How was the experience compared to buying a physical book through Amazon? I've been averaging 2 books a week for 60 years now. I can't remember the last time I visited a bookstore. Kindle makes it even better. It's been years since I've read a paper book and I have found it painful when I try.
John Henry
Seeing Red,
I thought you were advocating taxing the wealthy with your "spread the wealth around." statement.
Others here, including some that I know know better, keep talking about taxes on the "rich" or the "wealthy".
Perhaps I misread you. If so, apologies.
OT: For those keeping score at home, today makes 3 months.
John Henry
Schumer and all the rest of the left have no new insults. It is always stealing money from kids, old folks and the republicans are like Scrooge McDuck. People have tuned out. Everyone on the right is "literally Hitler". No one listens to them anymore. That is why they are more shrill every day.
@John Henry: I bought a book in a bookstore this month. It's a small Mystery bookstore on Monroe Street, here in Madison. I didn't know what I wanted, just went in, browsed, found something interesting (paperback), and bought it.
I have never bought a book online, I don't think. I don't own an e-reader.
Well, never might be too strong. I'm recalling buying Pearls Before Swine collections as they came out, back when the son got them for Christmas.
Haven't bought online in 5 years, though.
Darkisland asked:
"Did this [tax free employer tuition payments] change in the new bill?"
Answer: No.
About the cleaning lady story.
When I was in practice I did a mastectomy on a woman who cleanedhouses. I had her clean my house once week for 6 months, I think.
My partner did the same for an artist in Laguna. She did a beautiful painting for him.
However, those were the days of doctors as small businessmen. Now they are all employees and the corporation is not interested in charity.
Companies continue to have, on average, record amounts of cash on hand after years of incredibly low interest rates for borrowed funds. Investment hasn't gone to increased production and hiring. It has gone to stock buybacks to improve stock prices (and, with them, the compensation to top management).
Investments aren't made because companies "have, on average, record amounts of cash on hand", they're made because the investors expect the returns to be worth the risk. The returns to a corporation are higher when it can keep 79% of its return than when it can keep 65% of its return.
Another view for Mr. Cook and his friends at Forbes.
@320Busdriver, the Democrats are employing a thoroughly cynical strategy. They know that the elections will occur in November 2018 but the taxpayers will not do their 2018 taxes for another three months. So they are telling anyone dumb enough to listen that their taxes will go up, when in fact thanks to the Republicans the taxpayers will -- except for limousine liberals living in high tax states and localities -- see their taxes go down. It may work.
Minor correction: most taxpayers won't do their taxes for another five months.
You're a year off, Mike.
Maybe our resident leftists could provide us the tax plan Obama proposed and passed. You know. So we could make comparisons.
Wage earners will see reduced witholding in a few weeks time. So much feeble analysis and disinformation from the usual suspects. National Review has a good piece on the nexus between AMT and those in the high tax states here.
The tax bill, unlike Clintons reversal of the Reagan tax cuts, will not take effect until the 2018 tax year and the effect will not be seen until after the election next year.
Are there no Democrats that can read or do math? I have not heard ONE single factual reason to oppose this tax bill. Every single argument against it is all about the feelz!
Additionally, I wish someone would explain to Democrats that corporations do NOT pay taxes, the consumers of their products do. The actual corporate tax rate should be zero.
Take a damn eCon101 class for the Lord's sake!
Blogger Michael K said...
The tax bill, unlike Clintons reversal of the Reagan tax cuts, will not take effect until the 2018 tax year and the effect will not be seen until after the election next year
True but witholding from paychecks will be adjusted in the coming weeks leaving more net in paychecks. R's need to keep selling this all year long.
will not take effect until the 2018 tax year and the effect will not be seen until after the election next year
The effects start in late January when paychecks with less withholding are distributed. Anyone who pays taxes quarterly will see the impact quickly...
Trump just reported AT&T will be paying four figure bonuses to employees and will be making larger capital investments as a result of the tax bill. AT&T will not be alone in this.
@Todd
The Democrats know all about the math, and understand economics. Their objection to the bill is purely political, i.e.; it passing and succeeding in achieving its stated goals enhances the future electoral situation for Republicans. They deploy the "Feelz" defense with the expectation that the electorate is too stupid to understand math and economics (or too lazy to do a little due diligence).
All of which says to me that they should be tossed out of office in any case.
-sw
Tim at large to me: "I’ve yet to see a coherent response to this"
Like I said, the New York Times used to have an expensive infrastructure to print and deliver newspapers. Now they free-ride on an internet infrastructure that they didn’t build, and it seems lately that they woke up to the fact that they didn’t control it, so they came up with “net neutrality.”
I know. I meant I've yet to see a coherent response from the "net neutrality" fans you were criticizing. I thought that would be clear from the remainder of my comment but I guess it wasn't.
But thanks for the response anyway. Maybe some of the net neutrality fans parroting Google lobbyists' press releases might read it and get a clue.
"Trump just reported AT&T will be paying four figure bonuses to employees and will be making larger capital investments as a result of the tax bill. AT&T will not be alone in this."
And just so we're clear. AT&T is an evil corporation. I know because Cook and others have told me that corporations are evil and bad for the country. So those four figure bonuses are being awarded to employees of AT&T? And the capital investment is going to be where? Exactly.
I know because Cook and others have told me that corporations are evil and bad for the country. So those four figure bonuses are being awarded to employees of AT&T? And the capital investment is going to be where? Exactly.
Fifth Third Bank is raising its minimum wage and also paying four figure bonuses. I suspect Cookie finds this doubly evil coming from a corporation that's also a bank
"Liberal" Democrats disapprove. Ho-hum. It's difficult to imagine a significant lowering of taxes the usual gang of State-f*ckers would approve of. If the Congress and the president followed the Milton Friedman plan of lowering everyone's tax rate to a flat fifteen per cent, no deductions, so that the Dems couldn't spew their usual BS about the "inequity" of it, "liberals" would squawk because it would threaten the plunderbund.
"I know because Cook and others have told me that corporations are evil and bad for the country. "
And yet the State--for all its history of rapine and murder--ah, the State! THAT they love.
Liberals could quite accurately scream that a flat tax would be far far more "regressive", i.e., failing to raise rates for higher incomes, than what we have now. But that would completely contradict the current and all previous narratives that the existing system isn't already ridiculously "progressive" by their own absurd standards.
I, for one, have enough faith in liberals' selective amnesia and talent for tolerating cognitive dissonance that they can make that 180 degree flip without breaking a sweat. They actually seem to enjoy that sort of thing, not sure if they just enjoy gaslighting the population or if they're convinced that believing things that make no sense or contradict their own premises is a sign of nuancy and clever thinking.
know. I meant I've yet to see a coherent response from the "net neutrality" fans you were criticizing. I thought that would be clear from the remainder of my comment but I guess it wasn’t.
It was clear, I just feel like nobody is really making these arguments, so I get a little repetitious, hoping that if I explain it clearly enough, it will sink in to a certain class of people. I don’t know if anybody is making the arguments I have been making. I haven’t read them anywhere.
The effects start in late January when paychecks with less withholding are distributed. Anyone who pays taxes quarterly will see the impact quickly...
Good point.
Trump just reported AT&T
AT&T is attempting a merger, and this is also payback for Trump supporting Net "Neutrality". According to my Facebook feed. Because Corporations can never do things that are nice for their employees.
In the middle of Sen Schumer's robber baron corporations will do nothing for worker and the tax legislation will only help the rich, At&T announces $1,000 Christmas bonuses and $1 billion in investments, Boeing makes similar announcement and Wells Fargo announces a raise to $15 / hour for entry level positions.
Those raises are only for the rich though. /s
"In the middle of Sen Schumer's robber baron corporations will do nothing for worker and the tax legislation will only help the rich, At&T announces $1,000 Christmas bonuses and $1 billion in investments, Boeing makes similar announcement and Wells Fargo announces a raise to $15 / hour for entry level positions."
LLRs and unknowns hardest hit.
I have a substantial foe my age and income retirement account. I will get very argumentative if people start trying to take it away from me. Every responsible money decision I've made bad been punished by the government. Didn't buy a house and go into unsustainable debt or further education for the same to instead produce value in the economy. And the people who made poor choices want my sacrifice to underwrite their bad choices. Sorry. There are real charity cases who deserve my charity if choice rather than the government picking my pocket to bail other people out. If we want a fiscal policy that does bail them out the money needs to come from some other source than my retirement fund. There's a few government agencies that could use a hair cut.
Also. The state deduction to federal rates should have been phased out long ago. Just because your city taxes you on plastic bags doesn't mean you should pay less for the common defense or upkeep of national parks.
My God. That butchery of typing is why I hate posting from my phone.
I get you, Matthew. I put as much of my money into a 401K as I could while paying for my sons' education. I drove my cars until they were falling apart and we did without. If anyone like Cookie or Toothless want me to share what I skimped and saved for in order to bail out people who were a lot less prudent, they will have a fight on their hands.
Tip O'Neill, who Chris Matthews worked for, knew that politics was the art of the possible. He cooperated with Reagan on the economy while fools like Boland fought him on foreign policy and tried to install communist regimes in Central America.
Now, the Democrats seem to be insane. They are betting the farm on the tax bill not helping the economy, which is almost in the shape left by Carter except for inflation. When Schumer was in the House, he seemed to be fairly sensible about economics and the economy.
It may be the base and the identity politics that has created this. Jay Cost wrote about it in "Spoiled Rotten" , his book about Democrats.
It's several years old but still quite good.
"I can see why Pelosi would go ape"
tcrosse, you deplorable racist!
John Henry,
It's not just the education system that needs to be overhauled; we also have to dispose of "college degree as proxy for employer testing", and wouldn't overturning Griggs v. Duke Power be a good start on that?
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