This is class warfare, this is ethnic cleansing, this is an all-out declaration of war on the working people. It's up to us to decide whether or not we shall fight back.

Hmm, obviously there's a lot I need to learn about this. I'm not sure what twitter stream you're referring to - link?

Also, how far does this go? Is it just graduate school or is it any tuition waiver? Like, they're not going to kill NCAA athletics by making all scholarships taxable, right?

[Edit after some googling]

Ok, seems restricted to graduate students only. And, based on a twitter thread by Claus Wilke (who I don't know anything about), it does seem to hit tuition wavers in such a way that will be difficult to avoid for at least some schools.

So I'm going to make the bold prediction that this is so obviously terrible that nothing like it is going to be in the final bill. It's just beyond defense.

I will say, though, that the twitter thread suggests a change that I do think is appropriate, even though I'll suffer:

Right now, many schools give tuition credit to dependents of faculty (and probably staff). And in some cases, this can be insanely generous. For example, I think my current school would give my kids a 50% tuition credit if they were to attend this school. (I'm not certain because my kids aren't close to college age, so I've never looked into the details.) But I know other schools that have something like a tuition credit up to your school's tuition, applicable at any school you want to go to. So if you work at school X and the tuition is $40k a year, your kid gets up to a $40k tuition waver even if they go to some other school.

That's a really big benefit and, if it's not currently taxed, I think it's appropriate that it would be. (Which, again, would punish me.) So, if that's part of the GOP tax plan, that's something positive that I'll say about it.

It's already been decided that we're not.

This wasn't an oversight though. It's part of a half dozen or so things specifically targeting universities. You do realize how much #MAGAtts and despots hate universities, right? It's an intentional, giant **** you.

right. the war is over. we already know which side won. we are now at the stage where the confiscated booty is being disbursed to the winners and the losers are being traded as slaves.

calm, understated analysis, as always

Payroll taxes make up 34% of the federal tax revenue. This is contributed broadly by everyone that works and earns a paycheck. But we never here anything about tax reform on this side of the ledger only that we need to "reform entitlements"

https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/f...5-17tax-f1.png

was walking by the tv a minute ago and george stephonopouls was asking some republican about how taxes will actually go up in 5 years for people making between 20 and 40k.

lolololol at ppl who think this isnt class warefare.

Calm and understated analysis was the option chosen. Why go nuts? No one is really going to mess with our IRAs.

This isn't close to complying with the Senate rules that say you can't expand deficits outside of 10 years. So even with all of the terrible current provisions of the proposed bill, they still need more net tax revenue. So either sunsetting the corporate tax rate reduction (which they certainly won't do) or doing some other major change is going to be required.

I, someone who has mis-predicted virtually everything in the past 2 years, now believe there will not be a tax bill passed by the House and Senate in 2018. The stuff that's already in there is too starkly bad for too many people, to the point where I think it's going to be broadly obvious exactly who this benefits and who this hurts.

I suppose it depends on how you define "class warfare". It is certainly bad for the poor and the middle class and good for the rich, no question. But it hasn't passed yet and we will see what kind of opposition materializes to the bill. I suspect that this will happen:
But if you think that it will pass, it's certainly valid to specualate as to the likely consequences of the bill passi-

Uhhhhhhhhh

I honestly don't get the corporate tax cut. They are already taking care of the donor class with the passthrough bull****. The corporate rate is easily avoided by large corporations, and to the extent publicly traded corporations actually pay taxes it doesn't have much of an effect on actual people. I get it, at the margin it helps cash flow, but that ultimately funds like a a penny higher dividend or a bunch of stock buybacks (why companies buy back their stock only when it is expensive is, uh, puzzling). I guess my point is that basically nobody actually cares that much and it is unpopular; why go so hard to the paint for it?

Echoing Yglesias, Paul Ryan is actually being incredibly brave, standing up for these uber-upper-class-targeted tax cuts despite the fact that virtually no one supports them.

The one thing that I'm surprised about is how much they seem to be willing to target the upper middle class or upper class (depending on where you define it). For example, lowering the pass-through rate, but not for accounting and law partners, is a ****-you to the upper/upper-middle class that I wasn't expecting.

the guy on stephonopolous show obv ignored the question about the 5 year expiration and subsequent tax in crease for portions of the middle and lower class.

but he certainly addressed this point. well, you see, hes a numbers guy. he just told us that. and by his calculation this bill would increase gdp by 3.5-3.6 %. it would be great for the economy and thus wages would increase.

so there ya go, see it will be great for the little manln

Actually it isn't. Companies buy back shares with excess cash flow, excess cash flow increases as revenue/earnings increase, earnings/revenue increases drive stock prices higher.

Govt revenue from corporations is about 9% of total government revenue. Economic growth leads to higher government revenues, business investment leads to higher economic growth. Federal govt tax policy that eliminates as many depreciation schedules as possible I.E. being much more liberal about incurring the entire business cost/investment in the year the expenses occur would be a significant boost to the economy.

Yeah, I'm aware of nonsense GOP talking points. Thanks.

The point is that if these CEOs and boards actually had a fiduciary perspective, they would want a low share price so they could buy their oh so awesome business for cheap. Instead these clowns will, in the same speech, brag about their high share price while announcing another round of buybacks.

It might be different at different schools, but my tuition was never waived, it was paid for by somebody. I think my first year it was through the University itself through a teaching grant, then later through my advisers research grants which ultimately came from the NSF or DoD etc. The former seems like it could be waived, in that its just money from one pocket to another. But the latter is actually tax payer money coming to the university, which I imagine they won't be so keen to turn down.

If the increased corporate cashflow from lower govt taxes mostly goes towards stock buyback and dividend increases then no business investment has actually occurred. Its simply a move to prop up stock prices or as guys like Carl Icahn would euphemistically put it "unlock stock value".

In today's edition of How The GOP Wants To Pay For Rich People's Tax Cuts:

- Axing a medical expenses deduction for people with serious medical costs (it required the expenses to be >10% of income; 8.8 million returns claimed it last year)
- Teachers lose a $250 deduction for what they spend on school supplies
- A new tax on investment income specifically targets Ivy League endowment funds (gotta attack the librul indoctrination camps obv)

There was a great planet money podcast on economic growth and the 3% number


The conclusion was it would take TWO industry booms at the same time (like the tech boom of years back) to get to 3%


It’s not going to happen.

Taxing college endowment income seems good tbh. They're currently not taxed at all, and the proposed 1.4% tax on investment income would still tax less endowments less than the a charitable foundation's investment income. The separate Republican proposal to require big endowments to spend 1/4 of their income on financial aid also seems fine.

I'm fine with taxing university endowments. Not crazy about hedge fund jerkoffs getting a deduction for their self fellating 100 million dollar plus "gift" to Harvard, simultaneously avoiding capital gains tax, then letting Harvard invest the money tax free forever.

College endowments hasnt exactly resulted in lower tuition so initially I am ok with the proposal though I am not sure how poorer colleges will deal with potential budget shortfalls.

As a side benefit we would quickly see how charitable these guys are without the tax break. Just get rid of the charitable deduction all together, IMO.

Sure, but we all know the real reason this is in the bill.