Discussion: JCT Report: No, The GOP Tax Bill Does Not Pay For Itself

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Now they will use the trigger to end Obamacare, Medicare, SS, or insert your own idea.

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Yep Here’s Rubio

“I analyze this very differently than most,” Rubio told the crowd. “Many argue that you can’t cut taxes because it will drive up the deficit. But we have to do two things. We have to generate economic growth which generates revenue, while reducing spending. That will mean instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future,” the senator said. […]

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duh, clearly my grandchildren will be paying for Eric Trump’s tax break for decades, and the Kochs, and the Mercer’s and Meghan McCain’s…

republicons clearly think that the wealthy aren’t rich enough to pay their own taxes, only the middle class and poor have enough money for that

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Anyone know if they actually closed all the corporate loopholes so Apple, Google and GE will have to pay a 20% tax instead of zilch ?

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Tax cuts can only boost the economy if done so in a revenue neutral way. This one cuts taxes at great expense. The great expense will drag down any gain made from the cut.

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and when they redirect payroll taxes from funding programs that we have been paying into all of our adult lives, that will be a tax increase, coupled with reduced benefits - resulting in an epic screwing that John Holmes would be proud to be filmed giving

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The bill creates giant new loopholes for tax accountants to exploit. Tax expert Dan Shaviro has taken to calling the Republican legislation the “Tax Arbitrage Act of 2018,” and it’s easy to see why. The bill is thick with obvious loopholes that will do little for the economy but will act as a full-employment program for tax lawyers.

Among the largest is the tax cut for so-called “pass-through” entities — essentially, businesses that files taxes under the individual tax code. Under the legislation, these entities pay less than either corporate or individual taxpayers, creating a massive incentive for both individuals and corporations to try to structure themselves as pass-throughs. I have not found one tax expert, including among Republicans who support the bill, who thinks this is a good idea.

“I haven’t heard an argument for it,” says Cowen. “It doesn’t seem to make sense. Ideally we should have fewer companies using pass-through.”

It’s worth noting here that Republicans are currently tweaking the pass-through language — in ways that seem designed to personally benefit President Trump.

Other loopholes abound. There’s a giant shortcut for businesses that make less than $100 million and want to shelter their profits overseas. There’s a bizarre allowance for businesses to deduct both their expenses and the interest on the debt they take on, leading to potentially negative tax rates on new investments. A list like this could go on: This New York Times report identifies some other apparent loopholes, and remember that there are many we don’t know about yet because tax lawyers haven’t found them yet. But they will.

The irony is there are few government agencies Republicans trust less than the IRS, but for this legislation to work, the IRS would have to be inhumanly omnicompetent at detecting tax fraud.

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" the words of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), “an array of unicorn magic growth fairy analyses.”

Anyone get the feeling the race is in hours, not days or weeks and so on?

There is a desperation in all of this. Makes me wonder. A lot.

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Yup and behold John Cornyn.

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Maybe, I hope so but I sure don’t see it

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When did bombshell become a synonym for “fucking obvious?”

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A howler monkey throwing shit at the crowd would have made just as much sense as Rubio did with that statement.

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I am going to stay optimistic.Gravity is still in effect as a force of nature.

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…super genius!

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I just finished listening to the first of three episodes of a podcast explaining blockchain/bitcoin. It’s dense but very clear and approaches it all as very much a political/organizational movement. I hadn’t realized that’s what it was. Anyway if you’ve been wondering what’s going on and have some clear attention you can spare to listen and learn, the link below is the best I’ve found.

I kept thinking how the movement ties into Trumpism and the mindset that brought him to power. It also sounds like part of the movement that will likely leave him far far behind. Fascinating stuff.

http://investorfieldguide.com/hashpower/

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I also read that if interest rates jumped by five percent, our national debt would balloon to about 95 trillion in twenty years. I don’t think I’d short treasury bonds.

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This is a rhetorical question, right?

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It’s the Senate version of Ryan’s magic asterisks. You take the dollar value of the tax cuts, compute the growth rate required to balance out, and voila, the trickle down magic made real.

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Phase 1: Collect underpants.

Phase 2: ???

Phase 3: Budget Surplus!

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