$1.5 Trillion GOP Tax Cut Thread

[King Lear]

This bill is horrible and the only way Democrats can sabotage this is to start a government shutdown. If this bill passes it will cause the stock market to hit 30000 next year and the GOP base of old rich white voters will swamp the polls next year and reward their party for their massive nest eggs causing democrats to lose a bunch of trump-state senate seats and fail to flip the house.

[Sestak]

Now moving on to Stabenow's MTI. Note that I won't be able to say how it's going, as I have to watch on mute.

[GeorgiaModerate]

This bill is horrible and the only way Democrats can sabotage this is to start a government shutdown. If this bill passes it will cause the stock market to hit 30000 next year and the GOP base of old rich white voters will swamp the polls next year and reward their party for their massive nest eggs causing democrats to lose a bunch of trump-state senate seats and fail to flip the house.

*plonk*

[Sestak]

Stabenow motion at 39-49. With 2 Senators out, that means it fails. No surprise.

[Sestak]

Stabenow motion fails 45-54.

[Kingpoleon]

Angus' motion to instruct on keeping the bill deficit-neutral fails, 48-50.

Boooo!

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Stabenow motion was about the corporate tax rate. Failed 44-54.

Rubio motion to instruct re: Child Credit agreed to by voice vote. Hmm.....

Now voting on Booker motion to instruct Re: Individual Mandate

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The removal of Salt deductions would screw over alot of upper middle class families in high tax states. Im glad some progress is being made to lessen the blow.

But if that were your concern then I assume you would have opposed the Obamacare tax increase on income over 200K/250K. Because it is the same set of people. 

Being part of the top 5% does not make you part of the middle class, not even the upper middle.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Booker motion to instruct fails 47-51.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

why are so many of these votes missing 2 senators?

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

why are so many of these votes missing 2 senators?

They decided to not show up today.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

why are so many of these votes missing 2 senators?

They decided to not show up today.

which 2 are they?

[Sestak]

I thought I saw 99 on the cspan count for stabenow MTI. Was the count wrong?

[Dr. MB]

why are so many of these votes missing 2 senators?

They decided to not show up today.

which 2 are they?

Al Franken and Lamar Alexander didn't vote today. Alexander also didn't vote on Duke but Franken did.

I thought I saw 99 on the cspan count for stabenow MTI. Was the count wrong?

No, it was 98: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/115-2017/s308

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

We know the Senate republican conferees now. No word yet on Dems.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-06/mcconnell-says-he-s-open-to-state-break-tweak-tax-debate-update

Full list of members:

Republicans: Brady (TX), Nunes, Roskam, Black, Noem, Upton, Shimkus, Bishop (UT), Young (AK), Hatch, Thune, Cornyn, Portman, Scott, Toomey, Enzi, Murkowski

Democrats: Neal, Levin, Doggett, Castor (FL), Grijalva

[Sestak]

Murkowski being on the conference essentially illustrates that leadership is absolutely sure of her vote. Shame.

[junior chįmp]

Murkowski being on the conference essentially illustrates that leadership is absolutely sure of her vote. Shame.

The whole thing is a joke. Might as well turn your head away and look to 2018 cuz that's all you can do at this point

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Also loving the current gender ratio of this conference. 18 Men and 4 Women. LOL.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Unclear why, but Walden has been removed from the conference and replaced with Upton. My previous post has been edited to reflect this.

[jaichind]

Well, yes and no. People in NYC, for example, right now always itemize down to about 75k in income just on the basis of SALT. This does nothing for the people in the lower end of that group but is helpful for people around 300k or so (it also favors older people over younger ones since it's really all about whether you have a mortgage or not, but that's more of a feature of the mortgage deduction that has knock-on consequences here).

Well, if we go with NYC I agree that a single person with AGI of slightly below 100K would dip into itemized deductions just based on SALT (no mortgage as it is unlikely someone with 100K can afford to buy a home/condo in NYC.)  But under this plan the standard deduction surges to 12K which means you have to go up to nearly 150K to have SALT near standard deduction (again 150K income most likely will not allow someone to buy a home.)  But even in this case due to lower rates this taxpayer still pays less in taxes.  And even if we allow for SALT deductions to be allowed up to 10K under this GOP compromise plan it would still not help get it past the standard deductions of 12K unless charities is fairly high.

Of course I agree with you, this compromise helps at the marginal level for people more above 250K especially if they have a significant mortgage payment.  In NYC you will have to be at around 250K to be able to buy a reasonable condo or house.  But for incomes above 500K this does not help again as people with income above 500K will most likely have real estate taxes above 10K making this compromise not helpful.

So this idea is an idea for people in the 250K-500K range living in a high tax area (NYC, CA, NJ etc etc)

[jaichind]

The removal of Salt deductions would screw over alot of upper middle class families in high tax states. Im glad some progress is being made to lessen the blow.

But if that were your concern then I assume you would have opposed the Obamacare tax increase on income over 200K/250K. Because it is the same set of people. 

Being part of the top 5% does not make you part of the middle class, not even the upper middle.

Sure.  But this idea of allowing SALT deductions of up to 10K as opposed to 10K real estate taxes (pick the higher of the two) only helps people in the 250K-500K range anyway which is the same bunch of people that was asked to pay the Obamacare tax (in addition to 500K+ of course.)

[jaichind]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-sees-a-fix-for-tiny-sliver-not-helped-by-tax-bills/2017/12/06/70776cae-dab1-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.167b1d16be48

"But GOP negotiators are now openly discussing the possibility of moving that rate up to 22 percent in order to free up more revenue, people familiar with the discussions said. One of those people said the 22 percent rate is “seriously under discussion.”"

This is disappointing.  I am not married to 20% corp tax rate.  I just think they should go all out to get rid of all the different deductions (SALT, real estate taxes, mortgages etc etc).  Raising the corp tax rate to 22% means they can put back in these deductions.  Oh well.

[Kingpoleon]

The removal of Salt deductions would screw over alot of upper middle class families in high tax states. Im glad some progress is being made to lessen the blow.

But if that were your concern then I assume you would have opposed the Obamacare tax increase on income over 200K/250K. Because it is the same set of people. 

Being part of the top 5% does not make you part of the middle class, not even the upper middle.

At what level does the upper middle class end? $150,000? $100,000?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The removal of Salt deductions would screw over alot of upper middle class families in high tax states. Im glad some progress is being made to lessen the blow.

But if that were your concern then I assume you would have opposed the Obamacare tax increase on income over 200K/250K. Because it is the same set of people. 

Being part of the top 5% does not make you part of the middle class, not even the upper middle.

At what level does the upper middle class end? $150,000? $100,000?

I'd say roughly $150,000 or $200,000 for a definition based on household income depending on  whether you consider the upper class to be the top 10% or top 5%.

[Fight for Trump]

Household income of $200k for a family of four is barely upper-middle class in the average city, imo. Just middle-class in NYC.