The following article by Paul Buchheit was posted on the AlterNet website November 20, 2017:
Credit: Economist Magazine, August, 2015
Inequality, like a malignant tumor, is growing out of control, and the only response from Congress is to make it even worse. Those at the richest end of the nation seem to have lost all capacity for understanding the meaning and values of an interdependent society. They’ve convinced themselves that they deserve their passively accumulated windfalls, and that poorer people have only themselves to blame for their own misfortunes.
The following article by Nancy Altman and Linda Benesch was posted on the AlterNet website November 20, 2017:
Credit: www.speaker.gov/blog
Do you trust Paul Ryan to protect your Medicare benefits? How about White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, a former member of the House Freedom Caucus, and like Ryan, a longstanding foe of Medicare?
If the just-passed House tax bill, its Senate counterpart or some compromise of the two is signed into law, the enactment will put Medicare’s future in the hands of Ryan and Mulvaney.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the GOP tax bill will instantly trigger $400 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare in the next 10 years, including $25 billion in the first year after enactment alone.
The following article by Alan Cohen and Sam Berger was posted on the Center for American Progress website November 21, 2017:
The U.S. flag flies in front of the Capitol Dome, May 2017. Credit: AP/Susan Walsh.
The Senate is rushing forward with a tax bill that would primarily benefit corporations and the wealthy. Recent changes to the bill will result in middle-class tax increases; virtually everyone will see an increase in their individual income taxes in 2027. But these are not the only negative effects of the bill. Thanks to a little-known law, the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Act, the Senate tax bill would automatically result in the complete elimination of many important programs.
Republicans are seeking to roll back a tax credit for drugs that treat rare diseases, alarming patient groups who fear the move would slow the development of new treatments.
The so-called orphan drug tax credit would be repealed in the tax-reform bill that passed the House last week. Patient groups are lobbying to preserve the credit, as are some drug companies.
The credit, first enacted in 1983, is intended to spur the development of treatments for rare, or “orphan,” diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people. Patient groups fear that without the tax credit for 50 percent of the costs of research and testing, drug companies will cut back on developing drugs for rare diseases and focus on more common ailments.
“The Orphan Drug Tax Credit gives hope to the nearly 95 percent of individuals with rare diseases without a treatment that one day they too will have a treatment, or even cure,” more than 200 patient groups wrote in a letter to congressional leadership this month. “We cannot afford to move backwards.”
If the credit is rolled back, “we think we’re going to see a slowdown in the number of approved therapies,” said Peter Saltonstall, president of the National Organization for Rare Disorders, which is leading the charge to keep the tax credit.
The group points to a study it commissioned from Ernst and Young in 2015 that found that without the credit, 33 percent fewer orphan drugs would have been developed over the last 30 years.
Eliminating the tax credit would save the government a projected $54 billion over the next decade. Congressional Republicans are using that revenue to help pay for tax cuts.
A spokesperson for Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee argued that the corporate tax cuts in the legislation would allow drug companies to invest more in research.
“The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act recognizes the importance of medical innovation and competition in helping more Americans access lifesaving treatments,” the spokesperson said. “The bill preserves the R&D credit and lowers the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent — so pharmaceutical manufacturers can invest more of what they earn in new solutions for patients.”
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, noted that the Senate’s tax-reform bill does not completely eliminate the orphan drug credit. Instead, it reduces it from 50 percent to 27.5 percent.
“We’re talking about drugs for cancer kids,” Roberts said at a Finance Committee session on Thursday. “The House completely repealed the orphan drug credit. We took care of a limitation and then restored at least a 27.5 percent credit.”
Still, patient groups are concerned with the Senate bill, saying it would still be a significant cut. Advocates have also noted that Sen. Orrin Hatch(R-Utah), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was one of the primary sponsors of the Orphan Drug Act in 1983.
“Chairman Hatch has been a strong advocate of this initiative, which is why the mark does not repeal the orphan drug tax credit, but rather makes modifications to it,” said a spokesperson for Senate Finance Committee Republicans. “However, as with any major reform, tough choices have to be made.”
The spokesperson said Hatch would continue working with lawmakers on the bill.
While some drug companies are pushing to restore the credit, the full lobbying weight of the industry has not been deployed on the issue. A pharmaceutical lobbyist said the tax credit is more of an issue for some smaller companies represented by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), rather than the large companies that tend to be in the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).
In a statement, BIO largely held its fire on the issue, praising the Senate for partially retaining the credit in its bill.
“We are pleased that the Senate retained the Orphan Drug Tax Credit and plan to continue working with both Chambers to preserve the credit,” a BIO spokesman said.
A PhRMA spokesperson said the group “encourage[s] policymakers to maintain incentivizes for the research and development of therapies to treat rare diseases in this process.”
The orphan drug tax credit is not universally beloved. Some on the left argue that drug companies abuse the credit by finding loopholes to claim it for drugs that are not really new treatments for rare diseases.
Steven Knievel, an access to medicines advocate at the advocacy group Public Citizen, argued that the orphan drug tax credit is a way for drug companies to “get goodies from the government without really doing what the intent of the law was.”
But instead of abolishing the tax credit, Knievel argued for exploring alternative ways to spur drug development, such as increased public funding of research at the National Institutes of Health.
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, though, said the credit is a priority and that there are many variations of cancer that are classified as rare diseases.
“The overwhelming majority of the individual cancers themselves are classified as rare diseases,” said Mark Fleury, policy principal at the cancer society. “For us it hits really close to home.”
The following article by Andrew Siddons was posted on the Roll Call website November 21, 2017:
Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio leaves the Republican Senate policy lunch in the Capitol on Nov. 14. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Deaths linked to alcohol are significantly more common than drug overdose deaths, but lawmakers may promote more drinking through a two-year tax break for producers of beer, wine and spirits as part of the Senate’s tax code overhaul.
The tax break, for 2018 and 2019, would save alcohol producers $4.2 billion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The provisions in the Senate Finance Committee’s tax plan were requested by Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, but are based on a bill from Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the committee’s top Democrat.
Supporters of the tax break emphasize its benefits for small brewers, whom they tout as job creators. But public health experts who study the link between taxes and alcohol consumption think the economic impacts are overstated, especially since the underlying idea is for people to buy more alcohol. Continue reading “Lawmakers Push Alcohol Tax Cut Despite Rising Drinking Rates”
The following article by Sandhya Raman was posted on the RollCall website November 20, 2017:
Credit: ccmackay at morguefile.com
About two months after federal funding lapsed for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, state officials still don’t know exactly when they’ll run out of money or when Congress will renew funding — leaving families that depend on the program increasingly anxious about their benefits.
At least a few states say that they could exhaust funds as soon as next month. States are growing more concerned about the program with just a few days left on the congressional calendar until December and no signs that lawmakers plan in the immediate future to renew funding. Continue reading “States Face Children’s Health Coverage Uncertainty”
The following article by Melanie Schmitz was posted on the ThinkProgress website November 20, 2017:
Kellyanne Conway on “Fox & Friends”, Monday, November 20, 2017. (Credit: Fox & Friends)
During an interview with Fox & Friends on Monday morning, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway urged Alabamans to vote for Republican Roy Moore, who is facing multiple allegations of child sex abuse, in the upcoming special election. Her reasoning: congressional GOP members needed a win on tax reform.
“Doug Jones in Alabama, folks, don’t be fooled,” she said. “He will be a vote against tax cuts. He is weak on crime. Weak on borders. He’s strong on raising your taxes. He is terrible for property owners. And Doug Jones is a doctrinaire liberal, which is why he’s not saying anything and why the media are trying to boost him.”Continue reading “The White House has finally acknowledged its position on Roy Moore and it’s repulsive”
The following article by David Cay Johnston was posted on the DCReport.org website November 17, 2017:
The House tax bill is an all-out attack on the future prosperity of America, not that any of the major news organizations are telling you that in plain English. Lost in the dense bureaucratic language of modern news reports is the simple fact that the House bill takes from striving students so that the already rich and major corporations can have more.
This bill is a long-term disaster in terms of what economists call opportunity costs. That term refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action. This tax bill gives up the future wealth from investing in brainpower in favor of permanent tax cuts for the already rich and corporations. Continue reading “Why This House Tax Scheme Is For IDIOTS”
The following article by Sarah Kaplan and Sean Sullivan was posted on the Washington Post website November 19, 2017:
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) says harassment allegations against President Trump concern her and were one reason she did not vote for him in 2016. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) went further Sunday than most of her Republican colleagues in expressing worry about the sexual assault allegations against President Trump, saying they were one of the reasons she did not vote for him.
“Those allegations remain very disturbing,” Collins said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” She noted that she did not support Trump in the 2016 campaign in part because of news reports about women accusing him of unwanted touching or kissing. Trump has denied those allegations, which include 12 women detailing incidents that occurred over many years. Continue reading “Collins airs concern about harassment charges against the president”
The following article by Prof. Steven Pressman of the Economics Department at Colorado State University was posted on the Conversation website November 17, 2017:
Many children have played hot potato, a game in which they pass a spud to other children quickly so they don’t get stuck with it when the music stops.
Taxes are like that potato. No one likes paying them; everyone tries to pass them to others. The game of hot potato sheds some light on the debate over Republican tax cutting plans, particularly when it comes to companies.
The House just passed its tax cut bill. It would give about two-thirds of roughly US$1.5 trillion in net tax cuts over the next decade to businesses, mainly by lowering the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. That puts a lot of money on the table. About $100 billion in U.S. corporate profits would be retained by companies rather than paid to the government each year. Continue reading “‘Hot potato’ shows why workers won’t benefit from Trump’s corporate tax cut”
