Looking at our "Tax Break"
#1
From the New Yorker: An excerpt. 

If it gives us nothing else positive, the Republican tax plan—and, in its Senate form, the health-care repeal—at least provides clarity. There is no debate. The middle class will, in the long run, pay more in taxes than under current law, and the rich will pay less. For a brief moment last week, there did seem to be space for discussion, in the form of a disagreement between the centrist and highly regarded Tax Policy Center and the Tax Foundation, a pro-business group that is generally seen as more biased. Even if poorly matched, having two groups with similar, boring names set the stage for the appearance of a two-handed tax debate. One side says it helps the rich, hurts everyone else, and will lead to a bigger deficit; the other side says the opposite. Our media and political system has long viewed economic policy—and, especially, taxation—as the equivalent of “American Idol.” There is a group of judges, loudly disagreeing, and the home audience can pick whichever side they like, based on whatever criteria they have. In past tax-news cycles (2001, 1993, 1990, 1986 . . . ), there were enough serious, respected economists on both sides to make it seem like there was a real, substantive fight over the impact of taxes on jobs and economic growth. (While each individual economist appears to know everything with certainty, as a group, they are surprisingly unsure of the impact of taxes on a nation’s well-being. However, most surveys of economists suggest that virtually none accept the simplistic notion that raising taxes on the rich will cripple an economy.)
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#2
What I don't understand is IF I believe what the right says about this tax plan.
It will mean the upper class and the middle class will pay less taxes. And we already know the lower class doesn't pay much anyway.
So the whole plan of the GOP is to bring in LESS money? Pretty sure all I heard for 8 years was the right crying about Obama spending too much.
So what kind of genius plan has the government getting less revenue?
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#3
They don't need to taxes us at all. They have unlimited credit.
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#4
trump assured me that he's so rich, like I've never seen before. He shouldn't mind paying few dollars more in taxes.
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#5
(11-22-2017, 07:08 PM)Cuzz Wrote: trump assured me that he's so rich, like I've never seen before. He shouldn't mind paying few dollars more in taxes.


A few dollars, that probably triples his current tax.
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#6
Serious now!
The Senate is going to vote on this disaster in a few days. 
Remember when the GOP faithful were screaming their asses off telling us how it important it was to reduce our national debt.
The CBO has estimated that if this tax plan is enacted with anywhere near the language the GOP leadership has suggested, it will add over a TRILLION dollars to our debt. 

If ever you thought it important to contact your government representatives, this might be the time.

If you favor this plan, can I come live with you? Because I'd bet you have a 8,000 sq.ft. house, a private plane, condo's in NY, London, Hawaii, and Cave Junction, and a dog with a diamond collar.
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#7
(11-30-2017, 05:03 PM)Wonky3 Wrote: Serious now!
The Senate is going to vote on this disaster in a few days. 
Remember when the GOP faithful were screaming their asses off telling us how it important it was to reduce our national debt.
The CBO has estimated that if this tax plan is enacted with anywhere near the language the GOP leadership has suggested, it will add over a TRILLION dollars to our debt. 

If ever you thought it important to contact your government representatives, this might be the time.

If you favor this plan, can I come live with you? Because I'd bet you have a 8,000 sq.ft. house, a private plane, condo's in NY, London, Hawaii, and Cave Junction, and a dog with a diamond collar.

You really need to balance where you get your news/information from.  Koolaid drinker.
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#8
(11-30-2017, 05:41 PM)Hugo Wrote:
(11-30-2017, 05:03 PM)Wonky3 Wrote: Serious now!
The Senate is going to vote on this disaster in a few days. 
Remember when the GOP faithful were screaming their asses off telling us how it important it was to reduce our national debt.
The CBO has estimated that if this tax plan is enacted with anywhere near the language the GOP leadership has suggested, it will add over a TRILLION dollars to our debt. 

If ever you thought it important to contact your government representatives, this might be the time.

If you favor this plan, can I come live with you? Because I'd bet you have a 8,000 sq.ft. house, a private plane, condo's in NY, London, Hawaii, and Cave Junction, and a dog with a diamond collar.

You really need to balance where you get your news/information from.  Koolaid drinker.
Well, my comments were not from one source.
But I'm willing to take instruction. I only know what I read and hear about this and I don't want to be a "Koolaid drinker" so please help me find the truth of this tax plan.
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#9
(11-30-2017, 05:48 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(11-30-2017, 05:41 PM)Hugo Wrote:
(11-30-2017, 05:03 PM)Wonky3 Wrote: Serious now!
The Senate is going to vote on this disaster in a few days. 
Remember when the GOP faithful were screaming their asses off telling us how it important it was to reduce our national debt.
The CBO has estimated that if this tax plan is enacted with anywhere near the language the GOP leadership has suggested, it will add over a TRILLION dollars to our debt. 

If ever you thought it important to contact your government representatives, this might be the time.

If you favor this plan, can I come live with you? Because I'd bet you have a 8,000 sq.ft. house, a private plane, condo's in NY, London, Hawaii, and Cave Junction, and a dog with a diamond collar.

You really need to balance where you get your news/information from.  Koolaid drinker.
Well, my comments were not from one source.
But I'm willing to take instruction. I only know what I read and hear about this and I don't want to be a "Koolaid drinker" so please help me find the truth of this tax plan.

The only solution is to become a billionaire and pay no taxes.
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#10
What's wrong with Kool-aid and what's Larry got against it? He prolly has stock in carbonated Elk Juice he lernt about From Alex Jones .

It's always amazing to hear the far right call others kool-aid drinkers. When they are who is in lock step with guys like Rush, Hannity, Savage, Lavine and Jim Jones ,Ann Coulter ERr I mean Alex Jones.

And I might add Donald Trump because he makes it clear he listens too and believes all of those idiots.

Hell he even posted fake video trying to slur all Muslims just like the Ugly of the ugliest.
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#11
(11-30-2017, 06:47 PM)tvguy Wrote: What's wrong with Kool-aid and what's Larry got against it? He prolly has stock in carbonated Elk Juice he lernt about From Alex Jones .

It's always amazing to hear the far right call others kool-aid drinkers. When they are who is in lock step with guys like Rush, Hannity, Savage, Lavine and Jim Jones ,Ann Coulter ERr I mean Alex Jones.

And I might add Donald Trump because he makes it clear he listens too and believes all of those idiots.

Hell he even posted fake video trying to slur all Muslims just like the Ugly of the ugliest.

Larry May have been making the "Koolaid" remark only about the proposed tax plan. I'm hoping he will return to help me understand what I'm getting wrong about it. Important stuff!
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#12
Does anyone know if the insurance mandate repeal is still part of the tax plan?
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#13
(11-30-2017, 07:23 PM)GPnative Wrote: Does anyone know if the insurance mandate repeal is still part of the tax plan?

I think it is: I heard a radio news update this afternoon saying the GOP leadership is insisting on it being part of the bill. Sen. McCain has said he will vote in favor of passing. Still some Republicans on the fence, but the "conventional wisdom" is that the bill will squeak through.
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#14
(11-30-2017, 05:41 PM)Hugo Wrote:
(11-30-2017, 05:03 PM)Wonky3 Wrote: Serious now!
The Senate is going to vote on this disaster in a few days. 
Remember when the GOP faithful were screaming their asses off telling us how it important it was to reduce our national debt.
The CBO has estimated that if this tax plan is enacted with anywhere near the language the GOP leadership has suggested, it will add over a TRILLION dollars to our debt. 

If ever you thought it important to contact your government representatives, this might be the time.

If you favor this plan, can I come live with you? Because I'd bet you have a 8,000 sq.ft. house, a private plane, condo's in NY, London, Hawaii, and Cave Junction, and a dog with a diamond collar.

You really need to balance where you get your news/information from.  Koolaid drinker.
Larry, you are no doubt busy, but when you have time I hope you will help me understand this. I'm still wondering what I'm missing that makes me so unaware as to be that "Koolaid drinker" you suggest I am. God knows there is a lot about tax policy I don't understand, but I think it's important and would like to be as informed as possible.

I found this site if it's of any help:
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax...pay-2017-9

And I watched 6 hours of The Senate Debate on CPAN. Still don't know a thing, each side telling a whole different story. 


Later:
While I wait for Larry's response, this from todays (12/1) MT. Curious that Mr. Barone fails to address the one issue many feel is all important: The very possible increase of a trillion (plus) dollars added to our national debt if this tax plan passes. I read Mr. Barone from time to time and in the past this has been one of his criticisms of our "entitlement programs"...that it will ruin our economy by swelling our national debt. But...maybe I'm missing something or need to learn the facts.


Yet another edit: As of this morning (Sat 12/2) the GOP members have passed "A" tax bill. Now back to the House for Mark-Up, God only knows what it will look like when actually made into law. 

So, Larry, you can explain why those of us who thought this was a bad bill (Trillion dollar debt) are "drinking the Koolaid". The devil will be in the details---God help us. 

ANOTHER VIEW
‘Hurtling’ GOP tax bill is serious 
‘The Republican tax bill hurtling through Congress is increasingly tilting the United States tax code to benefit wealthy Americans.” That’s the beginning of a 37-word first sentence in a stage-setting front-page story in The New York Times on the tax bill under consideration in the Senate this week.
It’s a nice illustration of creatively phrased advocacy journalism. “Hurtling” suggests irrational, uncontrolled, threatening movement; “tilting” suggests abandoning upstanding fairness; spelling out “the United States tax code” suggests an ominous attack on a respected national institution. And all this “to benefit wealthy Americans.”
This is less reportage than it is advocacy journalism, written to advance the argument, with which many people agree, that Republican tax bills are harmful because they make federal taxation less progressive. But it’s also an argument against any tax cut at any time. After all, if you start off with a progressive system that imposes higher rates on high earners and doesn’t tax low earners at all — as is the case with the current federal income tax — then every tax cut takes that shape.
Missing from the arguments of Republicans’ critics is acknowledgment that we already have what is, by most measures, the most progressive national tax system in the world. Other advanced countries tend to rely more heavily on regressive sales (value-added) taxes, and many have less steeply graduated income taxes.
Currently, the top 1 percent of earners account for about 40 percent of federal income tax revenue; the next 9 percent provide about 30 percent more. You could make the system more progressive with more progressive income tax rates or by raising the amount of income subject to the payroll tax, but at the risk of redirecting high earners’ attention from productivity to tax avoidance. Such changes tend to reduce economic growth, just as tax cuts tend to increase it.
In fact, this year, Republican tax writers have devoted much less attention to cutting income tax rates for high earners than their predecessors did in 1981 and 2003 or their presidential nominees in 2008 and 2012. Instead, they want to increase the child tax credit and double the standard deduction. That would reduce taxes for many modest earners and get the government out of the business of encouraging some behaviors and therefore discouraging others. This could reduce the scope of lobbyists larding up the tax code with special exemptions and favors.
The Republican plan attacks two of the three largest “tax expenditures” by limiting or eliminating the deductions for home mortgage interest and state and local taxes. The monetary benefits of this would largely come from “wealthy Americans,” especially in high-tax, high-housing-cost states, where they vote heavily Democratic. These progressive changes could only be made by Republicans, who have few House members and zero senators from such constituencies.
Sophisticated critics of the Republicans’ plan, such as former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, avoid arguing against any tax cut ever but say that with low unemployment and increasing growth, this is the wrong time — that economic policy should depend on the economic, not the political, calendar.
The problem with this argument is that the biggest cuts in the Republican plan would be to the corporate income tax rate — from 35 percent to 20 percent. Today’s corporate rate is the highest of any advanced nation. It encourages multinational firms to park billions of dollars abroad rather than invest them here or to be merged into foreign-based rivals.
Moreover, economists of just about every stripe agree that the economic burden of the corporate tax falls on not just stock owners but also employees and consumers. The only disagreement is on who bears how much.
So there’s a widespread consensus for a corporate rate cut. Barack Obama proposed one in February 2012 but never got around to negotiating seriously with congressional Republicans. Republicans today are only acting responsibly, at the political risk of demagogic charges that rate cuts for corporations and unincorporated businesses paying as individuals would aid “wealthy Americans.”
Some critics focus on provisions fashioned to take advantage of budget procedures and Congressional Budget Office scoring rules mostly set in the 1970s. Both parties are guilty of gaming this increasingly dysfunctional system, especially the CBO’s wildly oscillating cost estimates of the Obamacare mandate.
As this is written, it’s not clear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can round up the needed 50 votes or, if he does, whether a conference committee will hammer out a version that can pass in the House, too. In any case, the Republican tax plan is something more serious and responsible than “hurtling” missiles “tilting” the tax code toward the “wealthy.” — Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
[Image: Image_2.jpg]MICHAEL BARONE
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