Republicans politicians, for once in their
sorry lives, need to grow a backbone
There are many reasons why the Senate version
of tax reform should not see the light of day, but let me focus just on
one. It safer that way, if I put too
many points into one posting, I would be afraid too many readers might just
lose it completely and spontaneously combust into a pile of ashes. I wouldn't
want that on my conscious.
You may have heard that there are a lot of
positive tax reductions for businesses, and there are also tax reductions for
many, but not all individuals. This
part is true.
But do you know that the business tax reductions
are permanent? Which means it's very
possible that they could stay in place for all of eternity or until hell freezes
over, whichever comes first.
But, but, but the individual tax cuts, on the
other hand, are set to expire in 2025. Hmmm...maybe
it's just my own personal, always optimistic, glass half-full outlook on life,
but that seems to be a few years shy of eternity to me.
Yes, I know, it hard to comprehend, so let me
try explaining it another way. It’s
pretty much the equivalent of you getting a good job out of college at age 22
and agreeing with your new employer that you will work 10 hours of overtime a
week, for the good of the company, until the day you die, but your employer
will stop paying you overtime pay before you reach your 30th birthday. That’s fair, right? That's something you can swallow.
As perverse as this is, Republicans, including
Speaker Paul Ryan, blamed, what they consider to be, the arcane Senate rules,
for causing this “disconnect”. Imagine
my surprise. I thought those rules were
in place to keep stupid politicians from doing stupid things. It shows you just how little I really
know.
The arcane problem to which Republicans will
refer is that if the individual tax cuts were permanent, that would jack up the
calculated cost of these tax cuts from $1.4 trillion to somewhere in the range
of $1.9 trillion, according to the fiscal watchdog group Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget, which is roughly $.4 trillion over the so-called
arcane Senate limit.
Republican leaders, in promoting their PT
Barnum “there’s a sucker born every minute” approach to tax reform say, don't
worry, don't worry, Congress will do the right thing in 2025 and extend the
individual tax cuts. I suppose that is
possible. It is also possible that the approval rating of Congress will top 15%
by 2025 as well, but I wouldn't put any money on it.
“The savings, the score (i.e. the $1.4 trillion
stated cost), it just isn’t valid because you know that they’re not going to
follow through,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), an avowed fiscal conservative, said
in a recent interview. “You can’t assume that we’ll grow a backbone later. If
we can’t do it now, then it’s tough to do it later.”
Great point Senator Flake, thank you for
trying to get your Republican friends to think intelligently. It’s an uphill battle I know. And here’s another question you can ask them. Why don't Senate Republicans just make the
individual cuts permanent and allow the business ones to lapse in 2025 instead?
That would be because many Republicans politicians
cater more to their donor class than to their citizen class.
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