When we said "change the tax bill", we didn't mean "more giveaways to the rich"

One day after their already-small Senate majority was cut in half with the surprising election of Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama, GOP Congress members are still going ahead with their Piece of Shit tax plan. In fact, there are reports that a tentative tax deal is in place between the two houses.

Not surprisingly, few of the changes will affect any one that isn't rich.

Both the House and Senate bills propose slashing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. But negotiators were discussing whether to raise that rate to 21 percent in the final bill, lawmakers said.

Republicans were said to be leaning toward setting the corporate rate at 21 percent and the top individual income tax rate at 37 percent, down from 39.6 percent.

A one-percentage-point change in the corporate rate would give tax writers about $100 billion of revenues over a decade that could be used in many ways. One could be to repeal a federal tax on inheritances paid by wealthy Americans. Another might be to end the corporate alternative minimum tax.

Some Republicans also wanted a higher corporate rate to pay for a higher child tax credit.

Lawmakers had also debated capping a popular individual deduction for mortgage interest at $750,000 in home loan value, instead of $1 million.

Later reports indicated that AMT repeal is also part of this deal. Combined with the lower rate on the highest income, that means MORE tax cuts for the rich with the large corporate tax cut being slightly less large.


Permanent avatar of this tax package.

But a Bloomberg News report indicates that there might be a couple of other modifications. This includes a modification of the changes to the SALT deduction that makes the damaging move of limiting the deduction a little less damaging for the middle and upper-middle classes.

A tentative deal reached by House and Senate lawmakers includes letting taxpayers deduct state income taxes in addition to property levies -- up to a $10,000 cap, according to two people briefed on the details.

The versions of the bills approved by the House and Senate just preserved the individual deduction for state and local property taxes -- capped at $10,000 -- but not for income taxes. House and Senate leaders, along with the White House, had previously signaled they were open to including state income tax deductions in the cap.

Of course, if that exemption is still below the doubled standard deduction of $12,000 single and $24,000 married filed jointly, then adding local income taxes to the SALT write-off doesn't matter because PEOPLE WON'T BE ABLE TO USE IT ANYWAY. And the damage to the housing market would still occur, since the incentives of home ownership get greatly reduced.

The Bloomberg article also says that the tax break for pass-through entities for owners of LLCs and other privately-held companies won't be as big. That tax cut for pass-throughs was demanded by Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (who conveniently was bequeathed a pass-through entity by his father-in-law), but don’t shed too many tears for the Ron Johnsons of the world, because they’ll still get a nice tax cut.

Under the House and Senate agreement, pass-through entities would be able to deduct 20 percent of their business income, instead of 23 percent as originally proposed in the Senate bill approved Dec. 2, the people said. The top individual tax rate would also be lowered to 37 percent, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. Combined with a lower individual income rate, the change would still provide roughly the same amount of relief for owners of the most lucrative pass-through businesses.

If it's the "same amount of relief", then what’s the point of changing the pass-through tax rate from 20% to 23%? Oh wait, that's because smaller business owners whose income doesn't fall under the top tax rate will pay more under this compromise, so there's your revenue increase (excuse me, I need to slam my head on a desk)

But all of these extra tax cuts for the rich makes me skeptical of how the math can add up so the price tag fits under the $1.5 trillion limit to allow the tax scam to pass with 50 votes in the US Senate. So what's under the shell that transfers all this money to the well-off?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Wednesday that a tax overhaul will include the repeal of the mandate for individuals to buy insurance -- a core part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act...

The repeal of the mandate is seen as a win-win for most Republicans -- smashing Obamacare, as they’ve promised to do for years, while raising some $300 billion to pay for tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office has said the savings would result because the federal government would no longer have to provide subsidies for roughly 13 million people who would no longer be insured.

Oh, so this Piece of Shit would pay for a bigger tax cut for the rich by CUTTING PEOPLE OFF OF HEALTH CARE? You run on that in 2018, GOP....if you can get yourself out of the tar and feathers by then.

And may I remind you that the GOP has no voter mandate for this. In the last 14 months, the GOP has:

Received less than 46% of the popular vote for president
Lost 5 seats in the Senate
Lost 7 seats in the House

And now Dems lead the Congressional ballot by 10+ points ahead of the 2018 elections. No one wants this Piece of Shit tax bill and the Banana Republicans have no consent of the governed to stay in power.

We have to stay on each detail as the GOPs try to jam this through, because it seems that it is deteriorating by the day. If the GOPs keep ignoring the public, then harsh action needs to be taken. This includes the Dems in Congress stepping up and SHUTTING IT DOWN as funding runs out for the government in 9 days. The shutdown has to be vocally signaled and then executed if this Piece of Shit goes through.

Yes, it's that bad. And the refusal of the GOP to listen to anyone but their donors must be met with major consequences that go beyond the economic damage that this awful bill will inflict.