“Come on guys, get to work,” Brian Sozzi writes for TheStreet. “If you don’t, the historic stock market rally is going to go up in flames.”
“The biggest ideas for overhauling the nation’s tax code are either dead or on political life support, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. At the heart of the issue are Republican lawmakers being unable to find ways to offset the deep tax cuts that many promised on the campaign trail,” Sozzi writes. “What is taking shape, or so it appears, is a grand bargain on taxes that is far removed from what President Trump rode to office on. Moreover, it’s looking like a tax plan that could roil the markets, where hot names such as Action Alerts PLUS charity portfolio holdings Apple, Alphabet, Facebook, Netflix, and even Walmart have rallied on the premise of more cash being put in the pockets of consumers and corporate coffers.”
Read more in the full article here.
“The clear winner, so far, is the status quo,” Richard Rubin reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Republicans, who control both chambers, are scouring the tax code, searching for ways to offset the deep rate cuts they desire. But their proposals for border adjustment—which would tax imports—and for ending the business interest deduction and making major changes to individual tax breaks for health and retirement have all hit resistance within the party. The only big revenue-raising provision with anything close to Republican consensus is repealing the deduction for state and local taxes, and that idea faces objections from blue-state lawmakers in the party.”
“The GOP’s dreams have collided with interest-group lobbying and the tax system’s reality,” Rubin reports. “Politicians all profess to hate the tax code, but they don’t agree on exactly what they hate. Voters gripe about complexity but are wary of losing cherished breaks that are woven into the economy.”
“Republicans are still hunting for ideas to soften the revenue loss from their proposed tax-rate cuts, and party leaders say they will finish a historic tax-code revision by year’s end. President Donald Trump said on Twitter late Sunday that the process was ahead of schedule and ‘moving along…very well,'” Rubin reports. “One possibility is a temporary tax cut that would expire to comply with rules preventing long-run deficits. ‘Permanent is better than temporary, and temporary is better than nothing,’ Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the House Ways and Means Committee last week. Another path is settling for a 25% corporate rate instead of the 20% backed by House Republicans or the 15% proposed by Mr. Trump.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Real change is hard.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth! — President Ronald Reagan
I think Reagan meant to say that was the greatest enemy of the people’s health and wealth is the government.
Feel free to emigrate to another country where the government is very weak and anarchy reigns. After a year or so, come back and tell us all about what is evil in this world.
I do not dispute that citizens must be vigilant to curb the excesses of government. But to name it the “enemy” is an excess of the paranoid alt-right. The alt-right has worked hard over the past couple of decades to manufacture a lot of enemies – press, Democrats, taxes, rules and regulations, etc. You will never get anywhere with that philosophy, except for the occasional blip like Bannon-Trump.
Moderation is the best path.
You can vote me down, but the truth in my post is still staring you in the face! It burns to face logic and truth, doesn’t it?
“That government is best that governs least.”
Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” – 1849
H.D. Thoreau ran away to the woods and lived like a hermit, which is not an option in modern society.
But then, quoting quaint historical quips in your mind proves your feeble points, which essentially boil down to a bubble world where a society can live in isolation, and your tribe can rule with authoritarian might, as long as patriotic nationalistic fervor is displayed while you throw 60% of your nation under the bus.
You are a water boy for a corrupt administration that ignores the Constitution even while you espouse literalist interpretation of the US Constitution. You reject modern legislation and think that centuries old documents are perfectly adequate to run a society when clearly technologies have enabled evil on unprecedented scale, and corporations have undermined personal freedoms and hoarded the majority of the wealth that we all helped generate. Yet you still defend the greedhead scum that dominates the government that you whine about incessantly.
That’s all they have. They’d see the US go down in flames merely to prevent their imaginary fear that liberal, progressive government would take away their assault weapons.
“That’s all they have.”
right dullard, that’s all we have:
• The Presidency
• The Senate
• The House
• The Supreme Court
• The State Houses
• The Governorships
you lose.
again.
Thank you so much for that ineffectual screed on scum, Ms. Griffin. Your mentality guarantees a supermajority in the Senate after 2018.
Thanks again, dolt.
How is that libertarian paradise Somalia doing lately?
Status quo doesn’t seem so bad since it got us this far. The other thing they are running into is the adage “there is no free lunch”.
There are some who believe that. They belong to the “I got mine, screw everyone else” camp. That attitude is how great nations fall.
Continuous progress in lifting all people in the world out of ignorance and poverty is the only way to ensure that you are free and safe and happy. Otherwise, you’ll just be bankrupting yourself building moats and fences to protect your hoarded gains while the majority of the rabble grows increasingly desperate and ready to revolt.
I read his comment differently. If you want to have nice things, you have to pay for them. That includes all of us pitching in to pave roads, educate people, and so forth.
As much as I hate moochers who are too lazy, stupid, or poor to hold a good job, I hate even more the arrogant people who won the genetic lottery, had mommy and daddy set them up, and who now preach to everyone that taxes are evil, representative government is evil, healthcare is evil, and therefore they deserve special treatment so they can enrich themselves even more. They will label everyone else a libtard. Then in the next breath these self proclaimed conservatives/libertarians will cheer for increased military spending, Medicare, infrastructure, etc that will build up debts even worse than they already are.
There is no left and right on the current political spectrum. There is insane isolationist warmongering foreign war debt spending chicken hawks and then there are a handful of independents who nobody votes for because they don’t fall into the two brands that have been burned into Americans brains for too long.
Never say you’ve seen it all when it comes to government.
Not from the Trump administration, that’s for sure. Least honest and transparent government in US history.
the stock market is not the economy. so a few thousand oligarchs won’t get their precious greedy tax cuts. waaahhhh. cry me a river.
Clearly, ETR, you’re but a “paycheck-to-paycheck” participant in the US economy. While there is clearly “nothing wrong that,” you do not dictate/nor understand in any respect what drives the financial engine of this country. Many of my friends and associates are public employee retirement beneficiaries of their state and federal retirement plans . . . all of which rely almost exclusively upon investiture in the US stock markets. While these associates commonly “poo-poo” the supposed oligarchs and markets that you so vehemently criticize, your and their livelihood depends almost solely upon them, to one degree or another. And that is a sad but true fact, especially for collectivists like you. Sucks to be on the receiving end of things, huh.
Movements in the stock market can have a profound economic impact on the economy and everyday people. The stock market itself can affect consumer confidence. The stock market also plays a limited role in determining investment and jobs. When investors are making money in their investment accounts and in their 401(k)s, they tend to spend more, which helps everyone, not just those with wealth about whom you are so pitifully jealous.
so basically you’re saying that you are independently rich as you don’t require savings?
Unless you have all your savings in cash (which would not grow and actually dwindle due to inflation) or you have have secured income (real estate rentals etc. ie. you are ‘RICH’ like those you say you despise) or lucky enough to have a government pension you most probably have a 401 or something similar from work etc all of those are stocks or corporate bonds etc. So many tens of millions of people’s (basically everybody except govt. pension holders) retirement are tied up in stocks.
Even government like teachers pension plans are invested in stocks. If the stocks don’t grow the govt will TAKE TAX MONEY from infrastructure building like bridges, security etc to pay into govt. pensions.
if stocks don’t grow neither does your 401.
If your yearly expenditure is 40,000. If you retire and live for 30 years you will need 1.2 million in Cash saved up. (how much do you have in your 401 or similar for retirement? if there is no stock ‘growth’ your 401 will just depend on your contributions)
so you are either ‘ I don’t care about retirement’, have a govt. pension , or rich and thus able to say FU to all the stock (401 etc) holders…
NOTE: the only Organization today that can AFFORD PENSIONS is the govt. who can just INCREASE TAXES TO FUND IT! (note also nearly two thirds to 80% of the ‘stimulus money’ — tens of billions spent by the govt. in the last recession was NOT to ‘stimulate the economy’ but to pay of govt . pensions).
“note also nearly two thirds to 80% of the ‘stimulus money’ — tens of billions spent by the govt. in the last recession was NOT to ‘stimulate the economy’ but to pay of govt . pensions”
this is incomplete (no edit function): more accurately is ” to pay off govt . worker salaries and pensions, and keep collapsing local government services… very little was actually directed to corporate workers affected by the recession or to ‘stimulate’ struggling businesses i.e the economy “.
That comment is among the most ignorant i’ve ever read on this website. Congratulations on your accomplishment. It’s clear you know very little about very little.
Very few people, who are most vocal have no freaking idea how government or public policy works and how hard it is to make change, where the winners are great and the losers are small.
Slashing budgets and cutting taxes as if it were some simple task, without real research, is pure incompetence and injustice. Trump was flat out lying or out of his mind when he said he could fix this. He was effectively promising to raise the dead, (metaphorically).
Reagan was wrong, California’s Prop 13 was wrong. There should be no reason California as a state and geographic region with an economy larger than Russia or the 6th/7th largest in the world, shouldn’t be able to effectively manage large earth works, universal health care and other big government projects. These aren’t bankrupting issues.
But the waters are poisoned. Systems and laws are undermined. This goes for all the states and the US as well. It’s not that anyone can’t do their jobs, they aren’t allowed to. It’s planned sabotage. It’s been going on for a long time.
With CA Single Payer, workers will become healther to tackle jobs needing alertness and physical capabilitie which would free the corporation from taking medical care of its workers, hence good for the bottom line.
The cost at $400 billion. Doesn’t seem right. Let’s ask Canada or other populations similar to California. What does it cost for public healthcare? The point of it is to produce buying power. I think $400B is wrong.
If that 400 BILLION is more than the UK, Canada, or Germany you may be right. States rights won’t apply to single payer all the lesser states will make sure of that. (by crying foul)
Any cuts to the jobs program known as the Pentagon is excruciatingly difficult if not impossible since it dominates such a large portion of the wastful spending Executive Branch.
Its job creation can be likened to Pharaoah’s pyramid jobs program except that, while the pyramids are permenent devices that generations can enjoy, the Pentagon by contrst produces expendables that will need periodic replacement due to war, hence the need for ongoing wars.
The GOPe have shown they will do anything to bring down Trump.
As soon as the losses start, they will play it until they get a full-on crash.
All they are doing is following Plosives and Reed’s driving the 08-09 recession into a Great one.
And the GOPe will use the ACA collapse to drive new, even greater recession if they can.
Neither party’s leaders live America – they care only for power in their vision of a one world Marxist Muslim New World Order….
correct…the Libtärds are not the problem, they’ve been beat like a red-headed stepchild…the Traitor McCains are the enemy…the fetid residue of the Bush Crime Syndicate.
You folks appear to have a lot of enemies. You are always naming new ones. Paranoia reigns in your segment of the political spectrum. For instance, the vast majority of legitimate news agencies are “lame stream media” producing “fake news” while one network (Fox) and a handful of alt-right websites are the source of all truth?! You guys are nuts if you think that you or your sources are “fair and balanced.”
At some point one has to ponder the possibility that a group like yours that appears to have so many enemies may simply be the lunatic fringe blaming everyone else for wrongs both real and imagined.
It is interesting that you still revere Reagan, but revile both Bush and McCain. What about Romney? Cheney? George H.W. Bush? I am really curious if you like anyone other than Reagan and Trump…
John Kennedy (The Last Good Democrat) and Dwight Eisenhower (The Liberator of Europe) are admired by sane Americans. What you do not seem to grasp, or do and are being disingenuous, is that it is not a question of democrat vs republican or conservative vs liberal, it is the preservation of American sovereignty vs the feudalism nouveau of globalism.
get it now, stupid?
…further, Americans are fiercely independent whose blood has been shed since 1776 to defend our sovereignty. We will never, never acquiesce to live under the tyranny of a “European Union” model where unelected technocrats and bankers mandate and subjugate our Constitution and its Bill of Rights to the lie of “multiculturalism” that destroys our self-determination, safety, prosperity and heritage.
“Fuck the New World Order.”
Lunatic Fringe i know you’ve out there.
… and after spouting those words of wisdom, Reagan then increased the size of government and Federal spending faster than any other president up until that time.
Clinton did the best job of constraining the size of government and eliminating deficits spending. In fact, in the last year or two of his administration he ran budget surpluses.
Too bad Republicans were more concerned about Clinton’s willy than the health of the nation, while their willies were receiving equal treatment in their own offices, e.g., then Speaker of the House, Newt.
Clinton just happened to be there. The budget and spending changes were ushered in by Newt Gringrich’s Republican revolution. Clinton’s party was smashed and he was forced to go on national TV to declare, “The era of big government is over.” That wasn’t his idea. It was Newt’s and the GOP’s.
Learn the history and/or stop lying about it.
The President needs to replace Rinsed Penis with Newt Gingrich. Gingrich’s experience and hard-nosed pragmatism can help him tremendously to navigate and destroy The Swamp.
Yet hypocrite Reagan started clandestine wars, bailed out dictators, sold arms to Iran, blew billions on Star Wars and other military buildups, and so forth. The debt ballooned on his watch and two recessions occurred. On Reagan’s watch were one financial crisis after another — doesn’t anyone remember the S&L fiasco? Let’s not forget the whole story folks.
The extreme righties have deified Reagan for sitting in office while the oil embargo shocks of the 1970’s subsided. They ignore significant details like demographics — the baby boomers entered their peak earning years in the 1980’s. Fed Chairman Volcker cracked inflation, propping up the value of the dollar before Reagan entered office and allowing decades of gradual rate decreases, which subsequent Fed chairmen used as economic stimuli.
Trickle down economics did not work then, and they don’t work now. All that happens when tax cuts are given to the richest few (especially corporations) is they hoard the money. This is exactly what Apple is doing. Sitting on cash and not delivering new Macs.
There were no “wars” during the Reagan administration. Even a mentally deficient libtard such as yourself cannot consider the weekend that the US military rescued American college students from Grenada as “war.”
The Reagan years were peace and prosperity, The Muslim Usurper years were division and poverty.
Deep Tax Cuts = Deep US government debt.
That’s the formula! It’s always the same.
Watch history repeat itself. Tinkle down economics has never been anything more than Feed The Rich… at the expense of our nation as a whole.
Sane taxes AND a balanced budget that benefits all citizens = The Ideal. But NEITHER worthless political party will deal with it. You can’t stop stupid. To hell with both forms of stupid.
The same fallacious argument leveled against JFK when he proposed and won tax reductions.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to be vacillating weasels.”
Fixation. It’s so wonderful to have a phrase dedicated to one’s self. Meanwhile:
…and at last a leader who has the courage and tenacity to affect a positive change in our economy, our security, out future…
and The Vacillating Weasel still vacillates, posting charts of the way “it used to be.”
you are a püssy: intellectually, morally, ethically.
You have no principles, you are toady.
You said the word ‘positive’!
(…Ignoring the rest of your usual clap-trap-crap…)
I easily point out that there are a few ‘positive’ things our overlord narcissist in chief has done:
1) He killed the TPP treaty, which was an abomination of corporatocracy. Bravo! I’d been calling for killing it for three years+.
2) He told the rest of NATO to get off their cheap asses and pay their fair share of military spending for a change! No more sucking off mother America. Bravo!
3) He’s all for cutting US foreign aid to non-friendly nations. There’s a great no-brainer. Bravo!
4) He fired Comey. I like that! But not for the reasons The Trump used, namely avoidance of prosecution for his sucking up to the Russians. The Trump may well be impeached for that bullshit. But firing incompetent, bumbling, techtard, election screwing Comey was a GREAT idea in and of itself. Good riddance.
And I know there’s at least one more I could come up with.
Meanwhile, The Trump has single-handedly wrecked the reputation of the USA, depicting us as blithering idiots who elected an idiocracy into power. My country isn’t going to become ‘Great Again!’ It’s already becoming a pariah of the world. We’re racing down the roller coaster into the pit of irrelevance in the world. That’s a very bad thing, isn’t it.
Signed,
Real Person,
:-Derek Currie
Hi everyone!