No GOPs. This tax scam will not "Pay for Itself". STOP IT

In light of Mitch McConnell, Ron Johnson and other GOPs still claiming that their Piece of Shit tax bill will be "revenue neutral" due to great economic growth, the Wall Street Journal's John Harwood sends this reminder that you should always keep in mind.

thing to remember about JCT dynamic score: it didn’t say deficit would rise $1-trillion despite big surge in economic growth. It said THERE WON’T BE A BIG SURGE IN ECONOMIC GROWTH https://t.co/wpZhLit60o

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) December 3, 2017

And if you take a look at the Joint Committee on Taxation's analysis, they explain that any increase this bill gives to GDP will be relatively small, and will mostly be gone after 8 years.

We estimate that the proposal would increase the level of GDP relative to the baseline forecast, by 0.8 percent on average throughout the ten-year budget window. In general, tax policy affects economic growth by changing incentives for owners of capital to invest, and for potential workers to supply labor to the economy, by changing the after-tax rates of return to these two factors of production. Changes in tax policy can alter these after-tax rates of return - either directly by changing the amount of payments going to taxes, or indirectly, by changing aggregate demand, which can change gross payments for output. The projected increase in GDP during the budget window results both from an increase in labor supply, in response to the reduction in effective marginal tax rates on wages, and from an increase in investment in response to the reduction in the after-tax cost of capital. Because of the expiration of individual income tax rate cuts and other provisions affecting wage taxation after 2025, the increase in labor supply is expected to decline, and possibly reverse, after 2025. Similarly, the expiration of bonus depreciation and the special deduction for pass-through income are expected to slow the rate of new investment toward the end of the budget window. As a result, the increase in output is expected to be smaller towards the end of the budget window.

The JCT analysis says that the tax bill would raise employment by all of 0.6%, which would be the equivalent of about 9,000 jobs a month. And of course, this doesn't take into account the negative economic effects of increased inequality, a declining housing market (due to mortgage interest and property tax deductions becoming less likely to be used) and possible cuts to health care and Social Security that might be imposed if the country is stupid enough to keep the Republicans in power.

Also a reminder, when you read "$1.4 trillion in deficits over 10 years" in reports on this tax scam, that is $1.4 trillion IN ADDITION TO what the country's structural deficit already is for those 10 years. I am going to use the CBO's updated numbers, based on what they think was in the bill that passed the Senate, and combine it with the JCT's allowance for economic growth. You'll see that the growth doesn't come close to being "revenue neutral", and that the deficit is projected to double between 2018 and 2022.



Again, this is assuming consistent growth of more than 2% in each of the next 9 years. Throw in a likely recession or two in those years, and that $1.2 trillion deficit in 2022 becomes a lot bigger, and a legitimate economic problem.

Let's not forget that this thing is far from being law. There are a lot of differences between the House and Senate bills that have to be worked out, and given the huge amounts of garbage that have been added to this already-bad bill, there may not be a majority of members in both houses that'll let it go. And if you give a damn about this country fiscally or economically, you'd better hope it doesn't pass, because if you thought the 2000s and 2010s were substandard, 5 years under this Piece of Shit will put together the worst trends of both decades.