Tag: GOP trickle down economics

Trump touts benefits of tax cuts for ‘the people that like me best’

The following article by John Wagner was posted on the Washington Post website November 29, 2017:

During a speech touting the GOP tax plan in St. Charles, Mo., on Nov. 29, President Trump said his “focus” is to help “the people that like me best.” (The Washington Post)

ST. CHARLES, Mo. — With a critical Senate vote looming, President Trump on Wednesday pitched the Republican tax plan as a boon to his working-class supporters, even as independent analyses have indicated that the wealthy and corporations would be the biggest beneficiaries.

“Our focus is on helping the folks who work in the mail rooms and the machine shops of America, the plumbers, the carpenters, the cops, the teachers, the truck drivers …. the people that like me best,” Trump said in remarks to an enthusiastic, invitation-only crowd of about 1,000 at a convention center in a state that he carried comfortably in last year’s election.

“Really, the people that like me best are those people, the workers,” Trump said. “They’re the people I understand the best. … They came out to vote for me. They came out to vote for us.”

A report released Sunday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the GOP Senate plan would give substantial tax cuts and benefits to Americans earning more than $100,000 a year while the nation’s poorest could be worse off.

By 2027, most people earning less than $75,000 a year would be net losers under the plan, the CBO found. Meanwhile, millionaires and those earning between $100,000 and $500,000 would be big beneficiaries, according to the CBO’s calculations.

Senate Republican leaders have questioned the analysis, which takes into account the projected effects of a provision in the bill that eliminates the requirement that almost all Americans buy health insurance or else pay a penalty. The CBO has calculated that health insurance premiums would rise as a result, leading 13 million to lose insurance by 2027.

Trump appeared upbeat as he addressed the crowd from a stage lined with Christmas trees, urging the Senate to pass the bill in coming days.

“The big day will be either tomorrow or the next day,” Trump said. “I would say, ‘Do it now.’ ”

If the bill passes, the Senate will have to work out differences with the House, which has passed its own version of a tax-cut bill. Trump referred to the process as “a mixer” and said he hopes to have compromise legislation on his desk by Christmas.

“Together we will give the American people a big, beautiful Christmas present,” Trump told the crowd. “You’re going to have something I predict is going to be really, really special.”

Republicans are forging ahead with their promise to overhaul the tax code, even with very little public support for their proposal. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Several recent polls show that more Americans oppose than support the Trump and GOP tax plans. A Quinnipiac poll this month found about twice as many disapproving as approving (52 percent vs. 25 percent), with nearly a quarter offering no opinion.

Polls have also found a widespread perception that the Trump tax plan is geared toward the wealthy. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month, 60 percent said his tax proposal favors the rich, while 13 percent thought it favors the middle class, 2 percent said it favors the poor, and 17 percent said it treats all equally. Continue reading “Trump touts benefits of tax cuts for ‘the people that like me best’”

Listen: Booming economy may not yield results GOP is hoping for

The following article by Alexis Simendinger was posted on the Hill website November 30, 2017:

Encouraging economic data and booming financial markets may not produce the political dividends President Trump and Republicans once envisioned.

The Hill’s Reid Wilson explains what voters say they’re most concerned about. 

View the post here.

Trump Wanted a Bigger Tax Cut for the Rich, Ivanka Went Elsewhere

The following article by Jim Tankersley was posted on the New York Times website November 29, 2017:

From left, Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida spoke at a news conference on expanding the child tax credit last month. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump urged senators this month to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most Americans have health insurance and use the proceeds to slash the top tax rate paid by the richest Americans, a suggestion that pitted his priorities against his daughter and Republican senators intent on helping the middle class.

In the end, the president accepted only a partial victory. He got the repeal of the health law’s individual mandate, but gave up on an income tax rate cut that would have directly benefited him personally. Instead, Ivanka Trump and her allies in the Senate prevailed in their push to include an expanded child tax credit.

“This was certainly an uphill battle, especially given that it is not an issue that is as widely understood,” said Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and a leading advocate of the expanded child tax credit. “We didn’t necessarily have the sense that the president was opposed to it. I still don’t have that sense. I think if he had been, things would have worked out differently than they did.” Continue reading “Trump Wanted a Bigger Tax Cut for the Rich, Ivanka Went Elsewhere”

Minnesotans, don’t forget about the tax bill

The following commentary by Lori Sturdevant was posted on the StarTribune website November 17, 2017:

Franken news is just one of the big things going on.

There’s never a good time, I suppose, to learn that one’s U.S. senator groped a sleeping woman while mugging for a camera. Still, it was particularly irritating to be interrupted with the news about U.S. Sen. Al Franken on Thursday just as the U.S. House was passing a mammoth tax bill that’s skewed against Minnesota and other high-tax/high-services states.

How’s an editorial writer supposed to summon readers to think high-minded tax policy thoughts when the day’s news is about other body parts?

That’s not a plea for pity — not entirely, anyway. It’s also a lament on behalf of the 250 people who crammed into the Minnetonka City Council chamber Wednesday night to hear from three DFLers who want to replace one of the architects of the House’s tax bill, five-term Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen of Minnesota’s Third Congressional District. Continue reading “Minnesotans, don’t forget about the tax bill”

Deeply unpopular Congress aims to pass deeply unpopular bill for deeply unpopular president to sign

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website November 29, 2017:

Republicans are forging ahead with their promise to overhaul the tax code, even with very little public support for their proposal. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Something odd is happening on Capitol Hill.

It’s not odd that Republicans are pushing for a tax bill that’s tilted toward business and the wealthy. It’s a return to the argument that benefits at the top trickle down to workers in the form of more jobs and better pay. (Whether this would actually happen is a question of its own.) Republicans control the House, they control the Senate, they control the White House. This tax bill is the Republican agenda, and advancing political priorities when you have the majority is how representative democracy works. Continue reading “Deeply unpopular Congress aims to pass deeply unpopular bill for deeply unpopular president to sign”

Senate Officially Begins Debate on Tax Overhaul Bill

The following article by the Roll Call staff was posted on their website November 29, 2017:

Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The Senate voted Wednesday to officially begin debating the GOP tax overhaul bill, moving one step closer to a drastic rewrite of the nation’s tax code.

The Senate adopted the motion to proceed to the House-passed tax overhaul bill, 52-48.

The procedural vote had been delayed as senators worked through language that would open a part of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

The chamber will now debate the measure for 20 hours before proceeding to a marathon “vote-a-rama” session, where nearly unlimited amendments can be offered by either party. Continue reading “Senate Officially Begins Debate on Tax Overhaul Bill”

What Republicans say when asked why their tax bill benefits the rich most of all

The following article by Jeff Stein was posted on the Washington Post website November 29, 2017:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) holds a news conference to talk about the Republican tax plan. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

A number of studies have made clear that the tax bill Senate Republicans are trying to pass this week offers some of its biggest rewards to wealthy Americans. The GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would cut taxes on wealthy Americans, while raising taxes on those earning between $10,000 and $75,000 over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official scorekeeper. The Tax Policy Center found that everyone outside the top 5 percent of income earners would see a significantly smaller tax cut in both the short term and the long term.

At a time of high inequality, when many of the economy’s rewards have already flowed to the wealthy, critics of the plan say this is an unnecessary gift. The plan “provide large benefits to the wealthy but little or nothing to everyone else,” says the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-of-center think tank, citing its large corporate tax cut and reduction of the estate tax. An NBC/Wall Street Journal pollfrom September found that 62 percent of Americans think taxes on the wealthy should go up. Twelve percent think they should go down. Continue reading “What Republicans say when asked why their tax bill benefits the rich most of all”

The Tax Bill’s Automatic Spending Cuts

NOTE:  The New York Time’s article has a great interactive graphic at it’s top that we aren’t able to import.

The following article by Margot Sanger-Katz was posted on the New York Times website November 29, 2017:

If Congress passes its tax bill and then takes no other action, the funding for dozens of federal spending programs could be cut — in many cases to nothing — beginning next year.

The cuts would be automatic, the consequence of a 2010 law that Congress passed to keep itself from increasing the deficit too much. Continue reading “The Tax Bill’s Automatic Spending Cuts”

Taxpayers want more fairness. GOP plan to ‘reform’ the tax code doesn’t deliver

The following article by Stephanie Leiser, Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Michigan, was posted on the Conversation website November 29, 2017:

Credit Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Republicans seem to be operating under the assumption that if the details of their tax “reform” plan are aired for too long, the whole thing might fall apart.

The House passed its version of the most sweeping overhaul of the tax code in a generation on Nov. 16, barely seven weeks since Republicans disclosed their “unified framework.” The last major rewrite, passed in 1986, took two years. Continue reading “Taxpayers want more fairness. GOP plan to ‘reform’ the tax code doesn’t deliver”

“Time is not our friend here”: GOP senator suggests tax bill is in trouble if voters learn about it

The following article by Will Drabold was posted on the mic.com website November 28, 2017:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) holds a news conference to talk about the Republican tax plan. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Amid protest on Capitol Hill, a Republican senator Tuesday afternoon said that the GOP needs to pass its tax bill soon to avoid it being killed by mounting opposition.

“Time is not our friend here,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told a gaggle of reporters on his way to a Senate committee meeting to vote on advancing the GOP tax bill.

“It will only get worse,” Kennedy added, as he pointed at the protesters who briefly shut down the hearing as they chanted about the tax bill’s implications on health care. Continue reading ““Time is not our friend here”: GOP senator suggests tax bill is in trouble if voters learn about it”