The GOP Has Done the Impossible: Make Tax Cuts Unpopular

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...unpopular.html

"A novel misery," too good. I don't always agree with him, but the boy Chait does have a way with words.

namedropping Bezos just triggered me

400 millionaires and billionaires write Congress asking them not to cut their taxes

At least there are some sensible rich folks out there that get it. We could make a minor (and revenue neutral) reform to the tax code that would narrow the wealth gap: raise the personal exemption significantly (say, triple it) and add an additional 43% bracket for income over 1 million.

The amount of income that is exempt from income tax should be enough to cover food, housing, transportation, etc. Corporations get to subtract EVERY expense they have before paying income tax. Individuals should at least be able to subtract enough to cover the basic items needed for living and working.

David: Just out of curiosity, do you vote? I'm guessing the answer is no, but wouldn't be surprised either way.

Senate to add Obamacare mandate rollback to their version of the tax bill

I predict this will be met with great success

Nice, that's nice.

I don't get it. Why add another terribly unpopular and emotionally charged aspect to the bill? Are they that confident it will pass?

edit to add: I guess the idea is the mandate portion of Obamacare isn't popular? That seems like too fine a distinction to expect people to make.

I know they need the money to offset the tax cuts. Maybe there's not much else they can cut

Maybe they expect someone like McCain who supports tax cuts to vote for it despite the repeal?

From what I read this bill is a solid dog to pass even without this, so I dunno.

Yeah, I mean, we know that they couldn't possibly consider things like making the pass through rate 26% instead of 25%. That would be draconian, so they have to do what they can to get this through. I do think they hope they can get McCain aboard when the bill is a tax cut that is hiding an Obamacare-mangling disaster rather than when the bill is an Obamacare-mangling disaster that is hiding a tax cut.

Like, how has Susan Collins traditionally voted on stuff like this? Her state just voted to expand medicaid a week ago, is she supposed to go vote for a mandate repeal now?

The grad school tuition thing is just nuts. Same with the medical deduction. They have to know even Democrats are smart enough to find sympathetic victims and plaster them on tv next to pharma bro or whatever.

When what you have is a huge bag of **** tossing in a few more turds can't hurt.

I think the overwhelming majority of people don't really understand the mechanics of Obamacare, and for those that do, I'm guessing the mandate ("buy health insurance or pay a penalty") isn't particularly popular with a lot of them.

What I don't understand is I believe that the mandate (in theory) should be a revenue raiser, because it's basically saying "buy health insurance or pay a penalty." Not sure how getting rid of that helps the Republican cause.

But overall, I still don't think this bill is really going to go anywhere, so it's all academic at this point.

I think there was an analysis that said repealing the mandate would lead to more people opting to go uninsured, and the subsidies that would've been paid out for their insurance was more than the revenue they would take in through the tax penalty.

Where are you reading that this is a dog to pass? I'm in legit panic mode about my families finances next year, I live in NY, own a home, and have a child. The doubling of the standard deduction does nothing because they eliminated personal exemptions so with a family of 3 they very nearly cancel each other out, but with the elimination of SALT and the possible elimination of local taxes aspect of it too (in the senate version) I think I am going go have to go standard deduction and see a huge multi-thousand dollar tax increase next year. I worry about this every day now and would love some good news... Edit: Also elimination of Student Loan Interest deduction is icing on the ****ing cake.

jman220, sounds like you were pretty much surgically targeted here. Thing is, the GOP is growing weaker in the suburbs, and this is a direct strike on suburban types. This is tax reform as self-immolation.

Blue states would just insta reimpose the mandate and take the revenue from the penalty right?

It was mostly a general idea I got from reading on here + reddit. Don't think I saw any legit sources claiming it though. Sorry if I was misleading.

Idea I got was since the bill raises taxes bigly on lots of cities with high mortgages prices that contain many house rep republicans.

This article says they need a total of 25 republicans to vote no in the house to sink the bill, and they currently have 9 saying no. Which still leaves a ton of house reps in area's where this is going to raise taxes bigly.

https://www.npr.org/2017/11/07/56264...e-by-next-week

Just feels like the bill is such a disaster for so many house (R) they'd be committing political suicide to pass it and increase taxes on their own constituents. But I guess that can't really be counted on as a reason for them not to vote for it.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for the good info.

I agree. The people that will really get f*cked here are upper middle class wage earners, who tend to vote Republican. There are lots of Republican congressman from places like California and New York who have constituents who will get killed by this bill, I just don't see it in its current incarnation.

Just curious, every time the minimum wage debate comes up, the GOP flips out about inflation. Has anyone mentioned inflation when we're thinking about showering the rich with even more money than they already have?

Also, right when we learn that the wealthiest 1% in the world control 50% of all world-wide wealth, is that the time to be focused on shoveling more money at the rich?