Tag: GOP trickle down economics

‘Hot potato’ shows why workers won’t benefit from Trump’s corporate tax cut

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”

Mnuchin: ‘I don’t know’ if individual tax cuts will extend

The following article by Brett Samuels was posted on the Hill website November 19, 2017:

Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Sunday that permanent corporate tax cuts are necessary to spur economic growth before making individual tax cuts permanent.

Host Chris Wallace challenged Mnuchin, saying he doesn’t know what factors will be at play in 2025 or whether Congress would extend the tax cuts at that point.

“I don’t know that. Maybe I’ll be working for President Pence at the time, but I don’t know that,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’ll know by then whether this creates growth or not. If it does, we’ll have an incredible economy… if it doesn’t, Congress will deal with it at the time.” Continue reading “Mnuchin: ‘I don’t know’ if individual tax cuts will extend”

The Government Just Stomped on Science—Right When We Needed It Most

The following article by Tanya Basu was posted on the Daily Beast website November 19, 2017:

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ELIZABETH BROCKWAY/THE DAILY BEAST

Emily Slonecker is a second year PhD student student at the University of California, Irvine studying developmental cognitive research. She currently earns about $19,000 per year after taxes. The new tax plan, however, would drop her income from her work at the lab to about $16,000 a year in one of the most expensive places to live in America, or about $1300 a month. With her fixed monthly expenses ringing in at $1680, however, Slonecker is nowhere close to making the money she needs to live—and that doesn’t even begin to cover the loans she’s accumulated from her undergraduate years. “But that’s a whole other can of worms,” she brushed off. “If this thing passes and the school is unable to find a loophole, I will have to walk away from the path I have dreamed about my entire life, as will many students. I don’t know anyone who can survive on a negative net income for six years.”

Slonecker’s dire situation worries of her living costs might be the classic story of the poor graduate student: making ends meet with a patchwork of teaching jobs, grants, and, most importantly, scholarships waiving tuition that make spending long hours in the lab a fair tradeoff. Continue reading “The Government Just Stomped on Science—Right When We Needed It Most”

In towns and cities nationwide, fears of trickle-down effects of federal tax legislation

The following article by Renae Merle and Peter Jamison was posted on the Washington Post website November 17, 2017:

The Trump administration says its tax plan will help ordinary Americans, but some GOP figures have acknowledged big business and political donors will benefit. (Taylor Turner/The Washington Post)

It took the city of Pataskala, Ohio, nine ballot measures before its 15,000 residents agreed to a new 1 percent tax to pay for repairs to its crumbling roads and to buy new police cruisers. The mostly rural community was finally won over by a century-old hallmark of the tax code: The $5 million local levy could be deducted from their federal taxes.

“There is a severe sensitivity to more taxes here,” said James M. Nicholson, the city’s finance director. “At the end of the day, you get a tax break was the thing that convinced people.” Continue reading “In towns and cities nationwide, fears of trickle-down effects of federal tax legislation”

Who Really Gets a Tax Increase if the Individual Mandate Goes Away?

The following article by Margaret Sanger-Katz was posted on the New York Times website November 17, 2017:

Senator Orrin Hatch on Tuesday at the meeting of the Senate Finance Committee to address the tax overhaul.CreditTom Brenner/The New York Times

If Obamacare’s requirement to have health insurance is revoked by Congress, some people will choose to go without it, and the government will save money because it won’t have to pay to subsidize their plans.

Almost everyone agrees on that. But precisely how much the individual mandate matters, and who would really be worse off without it, are trickier questions.

New estimates show that the mandate’s repeal would give low-income Americans a big tax increase. But Republicans say that’s not true. And they have a point. Meanwhile, left out of the tax tables is the fact that some higher earners, who look as if they are getting more of a tax cut, will get hit with higher insurance premiums if the mandate is repealed. Continue reading “Who Really Gets a Tax Increase if the Individual Mandate Goes Away?”

Tax Reform: This is the one big problem with the Republican tax “postcard” plan

The following article by Emily C. Singer was posted on the mic.com website November 16, 2017:

House Republicans love to tout the idea that their tax reform plan will make filing your taxes so easy you can do it all on what they call a “Simple, Fair ‘postcard’” — the same postcard President Donald Trump can be seen kissing in a video from Nov. 2.

“You can file your taxes, I’m going to bring a couple props out, literally on a postcard,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said this week at a town hall, showing off the small piece of paper he says 90% of Americans will be able to use to file their taxes if Republicans have their way. Continue reading “Tax Reform: This is the one big problem with the Republican tax “postcard” plan”

House Tax Bill: 5 key ways the newly passed plan would affect your money

The following article by James Dennin was posted on the mic.com website November 16, 2017:

The House of Representatives passed its version of a tax overhaul on Thursday by a 227-205 vote. The passage represents a major hurdle cleared for the GOP, but it’s still not clear whether the bill can survive a vote in the Senate — expected soon, following approval by the Senate Finance Committee Thursday night — and become law.

The bill, rolled out two weeks ago, has been criticized for purporting to help average Americans, while eliminating many middle-class benefits. Indeed, the biggest beneficiaries of reform seem instead to be corporations, said Jacob Leibenluft, a senior adviser for the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Continue reading “House Tax Bill: 5 key ways the newly passed plan would affect your money”

House Republicans Vote to Raise Taxes on 36 Million Middle-Class Families

The following message from Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer was e-mailed November 17, 2017:

Yesterday, House Republicans passed their tax scam bill through the House, voting to raise taxes on 36 million middle-class families, provide massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and corporations, and add $1.5 trillion dollars to the deficit. House Democrats unanimously opposed this tax scam that overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy while leaving the middle class behind and triggering a$25 billion cut to Medicare next year alone. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to reject this bill and work with Democrats to reform the tax code in a bipartisan, transparent, and revenue neutral fashion. Continue reading “House Republicans Vote to Raise Taxes on 36 Million Middle-Class Families”

If The GOP Wants A More Popular Tax Plan, Minor Tweaks Won’t Be Enough

The following article by Harry Enten was posted on the Fivethirtyeight website November 17, 2017:

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY FIVETHIRTYEIGHT / GETTY IMAGES

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. Today’s theme song: “You Can Count on Me” from the television show “My Two Dads.”

Poll of the week

A Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday found that just 25 percent of voters approved of the Republican tax plan. A majority, 52 percent, disapproved. That’s really bad and in line with prior polling.

Senate Republicans seem intent on pressing forward anyway and are now trying to include a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate in the bill. But while attaching a partial Obamacare repeal to tax legislation is probably a mistake politically, some of the GOP’s recent tweaks to the legislation suggest that they’re reading the same polling we are and trying to improve the politics of their tax push. Continue reading “If The GOP Wants A More Popular Tax Plan, Minor Tweaks Won’t Be Enough”

The Tax Bill Will be an Albatross for House Republicans

The following article by Ryan Collins was posted on the Center for American Progress website November 15, 2017:

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) shakes hands with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), on January 3, 2017, on Capitol Hill. Credit: AP/Jose Luis Magana

Republicans have convinced themselves that they must pass a tax plan to maintain their political majority in Congress. As Heritage Foundation fellow and Trump administration tax policy advisor Stephen Moore said, “The Republicans are finally figuring out if they don’t pass this, the political consequences are going to be catastrophic.”  Republican members of Congress, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have echoed similar statements. The truth is that passing a tax plan this bad—which now includes repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate—could be even worse for congressional Republicans’ political prospects.

Make no mistake, voting for this bill is likely to end a lot of political careers: Every single Republican member of the House will own this vote. The political ads against these members practically write themselves.

The robust string of Democratic victories in Virginia and New Jersey signal that the electorate has soured on both President Donald Trump and a congressional agenda that seeks to strip them of health care and raise their taxes, all while giving massive tax giveaways to millionaires, billionaires, and large corporations. Continue reading “The Tax Bill Will be an Albatross for House Republicans”