I would not sit on a hot stove…
…until Congress passes a tax reform bill.
But it looks as though it might happen. The House seems poised to do it. If the Senate manages to pass one, it will probably be somewhat different, and then those differences must be ironed out.
The motive is to pass something that can be called a victory for the GOP. And the Democrats’ motive is to thwart that, if possible—and if that’s not possible, then to stand united against it and label the bill as a bad one.
There had been reports that the bill might include a repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate. There was an effort to do that, but it failed. There’s still a possibility that something of the sort might be included in a later version of the bill that could emerge in the ironing-out process.
This is how sausage is made—or not made, as the case may be.
[UPDATE: The bill passed the House:
The vote was 227-205, with 13 House Republicans joining all Democrats to oppose the bill. As the vote tally passed the majority mark, Republicans in the House began to cheer. At the same time, Democrats on the other side of the chamber also began to cheer — and wave goodbye to their colleagues across the aisle, as both sides see the legislation as a polarizing issue going into next year’s midterms.]
]
I would not sit on a hot stove period!
After looking at the details, I found under the House bill our taxes actually go up, and by a significant amount! Fortunately, in this case, I have 2 Democrat senators to appeal to vote against the bill. They would do that naturally. However, to me this so-called tax reform looks like something out of the D playbook. The GOP can go stuff itself. Or better, a pox on both of their houses.
The Deep State uses another method for making sausage.
Smoke and mirrors. A dog and pony show. Until they pass a mandatory budget bill that prohibits debt ceiling expansion with the sole exception of in a time of declared war… it’s just “rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic”.
Paul Ryan e-mails me regularly (because I e-mail him occasionally) with updates on legislation. His e-mail about the tax plan that just passed motivated me to see how it would affect my taxes. Sadly, I will pay about $2500 more a year. That amount won’t cause me to go to the food bank or go without shoes. However, I’m not happy about it. And I told him so. Hope many others do the same. They are advertising this as a tax cut for the middle class and an increase for high wage earners ($500,000 and up). But they overlooked middle class seniors with high medical costs, high real estate taxes, and high local sales taxes. Probably not enough of us to concern them. Am I going to vote for a Democrat in protest? Nope. They can ignore me.
My best hope for more prosperity is that the corporate tax cut, deregulation, small business tax cuts, and better trade deals will lead to more real economic growth that will grow my investment portfolio. Unfortunately, it’s looking like the Senate won’t get ‘er dun. So, at least my taxes won’t go up, but now it’s back to defensive investment measures and hoping that deregulation and trade deals will be enough to grow the economy.
I like what I’ve seen of this so far. The changes to the corporate tax are badly needed and long, long overdue. It’s also good to simplify things with the elimination of deductions, and so on. I’m looking forward to this.
the Obamacare individual mandate…
The born alive penalty.
That said, they need to restore markets to set pricing (“affordability”), and focus on reconciliation (“availability”), revitalization, and rehabilitation to improve Americans’ standing. Judging from the left-right-center collusion that drove the mortgage crisis, and decadal economic resets, these are not forthcoming, but we should strive, anyway.
They need to reduce capital stagnation (e.g. productivity), improve capital formation (e.g. savings), and mitigate progressive corruption (e.g. redistributive change).
Ditto to physicsguy on the this monstrosity of a tax bill. My taxes will also go up significantly, mostly because they insist on ending the SALT deductions. Does the Republican Party have a death wish?