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3/25/2017 8:00 am  #1


Is Tax Reform Next?

I think that everything becomes more difficult for the President now. As Machiiavelli once wrote,  it is "Better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."

No Congressman is going to be afraid of a President with a 39% approval rating who just got his ass handed to him on healthcare.



What the failed Obamacare repeal means for tax reform

President Trump, the dealmaker-in-chief, was unable to bring together a factionalized Republican Party to make good on their marquee promise of the past 7 years: To repeal and replace Obamacare.
But now Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan hope to move on to greener pastures.
"We're going to go for tax reform, which I've always liked," Trump said after Ryan pulled the Obamacare repeal bill from the House floor Friday afternoon.

As stunning a defeat as this is for Trump, Ryan and the Republican Party, Ryan asserted that it wouldn't ruin their chance to do tax reform.
"Yes, it does make [tax reform] more difficult but not in any way impossible," Ryan said in a briefing with reporters Friday.

What's more, he noted, "every man and woman in this conference is motivated more than ever to step up our game."

But not everyone is quite so sure that Republican tax reform efforts won't suffer as a result of their failure on Obamacare.
"The defeat of health care reconciliation threatens to derail the entire Trump economic plan. Period. The balkanization of the GOP will continue. And Trump becomes an anchor around some GOP incumbents' necks," said longtime Senate Budget senior staffer Steve Bell, now an economic policy advisor at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

In any case, when the GOP takes up tax reform in earnest, they may have to do so with more sobered expectations as to what they can accomplish, said Dean Zerbe, former senior counsel to the Senate Finance Committee chairman and currently national managing director at alliantgroup.
"It will all be more modest," Zerbe said -- noting for instance, Republicans may lower tax rates but they won't be able to make them as low as promised.
While the word "reform" might be used it may not be a full overhaul of the tax system, either, although Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday morning asserted that that's very much still the goal and the hope is still to get it done in 2017.

But both lawmakers and Wall Street have been overly optimistic about what can be accomplished this year on the tax front.
They're underestimating how long it will take to get real buy-in from key players on something as complex as a tax code overhaul.
And they've disregarded the difficulty of getting agreement on a key question: Should the cost of the tax cuts in a reform package be paid for with tax increases elsewhere, and if so, where?
"The more you have to make up with revenue, the more enemies you'll make," Gray said.
At this point, Zerbe can see Republicans opting for a package of tax cuts and other changes that add a trillion dollars or two to deficits in the first decade.

Of course, Republicans will also rely on so-called dynamic scoring to help make any package of tax cuts look less costly. Dynamic scoring assumes tax cuts will generate some economic growth. That growth in turn will generate revenue and that can partly offset the loss of revenue from a tax cut.

Last edited by Goose (3/25/2017 8:00 am)


We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists. 
 

3/25/2017 9:56 am  #2


Re: Is Tax Reform Next?

Tax reform itself could be a good thing, BUT the notion Trump was floating was generous tax cuts for both the general public as well as corporations. All of that SOUNDS GREAT, but those pesky fiscal hawks that want to cut deficits will be a thorn in the side of these cuts IF there is NOT a defined way to pay for them. 


"Do not confuse motion and progress, A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress"
 
 

3/25/2017 11:20 am  #3


Re: Is Tax Reform Next?

Deficits only matter when a Democrat is in the White House.


We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists. 
     Thread Starter
 

3/26/2017 7:28 am  #4


Re: Is Tax Reform Next?

Where will the BLAME go when this thing does not accomplish what it was "promised" to do ? 

 


"Do not confuse motion and progress, A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress"
 
 

3/27/2017 1:34 pm  #5


Re: Is Tax Reform Next?

I didn't appreciate it at the time, but the failure on healthcare will make any tax reform more difficult, and less grand.


Dealt a Defeat, Republicans Set Their Sights on Major Tax Cuts

WASHINGTON — Picking themselves up after the bruising collapse of their health care plan, President Trump and Republicans in Congress will start this week on a legislative obstacle course that will be even more arduous: the first overhaul of the tax code in three decades.

Mr. Trump’s inability to make good on his promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act has made the already daunting challenge of tax reform even more difficult. Not only has Mr. Trump’s aura of political invincibility been shattered, but without killing the Affordable Care Act, Republicans will be unable to rewrite the tax code in the sweeping fashion that the president has called for.

The grand plans of lower rates, fewer loopholes and a tax on imports may have to be scaled back to a big corporate tax cut and possibly an individual tax cut.

A lot of people think Mr. Trump might go for this to get an easy win.

“They have to have a victory here,” said Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist who advised Mr. Trump during the presidential campaign. “But it is going to have to be a bit less ambitious rather than going for the big bang.”

Because of the arcane rules of lawmaking in Congress, there may be little choice. If Republicans intend to act again without the help of Democrats, they will need to use a procedure called budget reconciliation to have the Senate pass tax legislation with a simple majority. To make their changes to the tax code permanent, their plans cannot add to deficits over a period of 10 years.

Eliminating the $1 trillion of Affordable Care Act taxes and the federal spending associated with that law would have made this easier. Because they failed, Republicans will struggle to reach their goal of cutting corporate tax rates without piling on debt. Speaker Paul D. Ryan acknowledged on Friday, “This does make tax reform more difficult.”

Under pressure to get something done, some Republican deficit hawks appear ready to abandon the fiscal rectitude that they embraced during the Obama administration to help salvage Mr. Trump’s agenda.

In a rare shift, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, whose House Freedom Caucus effectively torpedoed the health legislation, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he would not protest if tax cuts were not offset by new spending cuts or new streams of revenue, such as an import tax.

“I think there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of some of my contacts and conservatives in terms of not making it totally offset,” he said. “Does it have to be fully offset? My personal response is no.”

The health care failure also makes the tax overhaul more politically complex as the fissures within the Republican Party have been laid bare. Mr. Trump followed Mr. Ryan’s lead and lost, making it more likely that the White House will try to steer the direction of tax legislation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/us/politics/trump-republicans-tax-cuts.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news


We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists. 
     Thread Starter
 

3/27/2017 3:57 pm  #6


Re: Is Tax Reform Next?

Goose wrote:

I didn't appreciate it at the time, but the failure on healthcare will make any tax reform more difficult, and less grand.


Dealt a Defeat, Republicans Set Their Sights on Major Tax Cuts

WASHINGTON — Picking themselves up after the bruising collapse of their health care plan, President Trump and Republicans in Congress will start this week on a legislative obstacle course that will be even more arduous: the first overhaul of the tax code in three decades.

Mr. Trump’s inability to make good on his promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act has made the already daunting challenge of tax reform even more difficult. Not only has Mr. Trump’s aura of political invincibility been shattered, but without killing the Affordable Care Act, Republicans will be unable to rewrite the tax code in the sweeping fashion that the president has called for.

The grand plans of lower rates, fewer loopholes and a tax on imports may have to be scaled back to a big corporate tax cut and possibly an individual tax cut.

A lot of people think Mr. Trump might go for this to get an easy win.

“They have to have a victory here,” said Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist who advised Mr. Trump during the presidential campaign. “But it is going to have to be a bit less ambitious rather than going for the big bang.”

Because of the arcane rules of lawmaking in Congress, there may be little choice. If Republicans intend to act again without the help of Democrats, they will need to use a procedure called budget reconciliation to have the Senate pass tax legislation with a simple majority. To make their changes to the tax code permanent, their plans cannot add to deficits over a period of 10 years.

Eliminating the $1 trillion of Affordable Care Act taxes and the federal spending associated with that law would have made this easier. Because they failed, Republicans will struggle to reach their goal of cutting corporate tax rates without piling on debt. Speaker Paul D. Ryan acknowledged on Friday, “This does make tax reform more difficult.”

Under pressure to get something done, some Republican deficit hawks appear ready to abandon the fiscal rectitude that they embraced during the Obama administration to help salvage Mr. Trump’s agenda.

In a rare shift, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, whose House Freedom Caucus effectively torpedoed the health legislation, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he would not protest if tax cuts were not offset by new spending cuts or new streams of revenue, such as an import tax.

“I think there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of some of my contacts and conservatives in terms of not making it totally offset,” he said. “Does it have to be fully offset? My personal response is no.”

The health care failure also makes the tax overhaul more politically complex as the fissures within the Republican Party have been laid bare. Mr. Trump followed Mr. Ryan’s lead and lost, making it more likely that the White House will try to steer the direction of tax legislation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/us/politics/trump-republicans-tax-cuts.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Even thought this might sound good to many, till the rubber hits the road there will be a lot of fiscal conservatives that will demand to see just HOW it is going to be paid for. I don't believe this one to be smooth sailing either - too many competing interests. I expect SOMETHING will be done, but NOT on the grand scale of the promises on the campaign trail. 


 


"Do not confuse motion and progress, A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress"
 
 

3/27/2017 5:00 pm  #7


Re: Is Tax Reform Next?

It's like George Jr all over again.

Let me guess...next he'll give eveyone a tax "rebate"  which was really just your own money from your next tax return?

I wonder which country he's going to invade at random for no reason at all (oil)?


If you make yourself miserable trying to make others happy that means everyone is miserable.

-Me again

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