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The Bob Cesca Show: A Very Money Man Christmas

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lawhawk12/22/2017 6:41:13 am PST

Greets and saluts from the Resistance in the NYC metro area.

Recall Trump and GOP claims they used to sell the tax scam:
1) It’s simplification. This is a full-on lie. This scam adds serious complexity to the IRC because of phase outs and additional limitations, plus new tax provisions. This adds loopholes and additional tax avoidance maneuvers

2) It’s going to help the middle class. This is a muddled mess. Some middle class might see a limited benefit for a limited time, because the personal income tax cuts are all designed to be temporary so that the scam can meet the rules for passage (but not the smell test). There’s CBO and JCT scoring that shows a significant percentage of taxpayers see no benefit or actually have to pay more thanks to this scam.

3) This will grow the economy. Even the most positive spin for this (aka dynamic scoring) suggests 0.2% growth resulting from the tax scam. In return, we add $1.5 trillion in debt and reduce Obamacare funding by eliminating the individual mandate funding mechanism.

4) This will be passed this year. That’s debatable. If Trump signs it this year, then pay-go rules will kick in and Medicare and other fed programs see mandatory cuts unless the GOP votes to override pay-go sequester rules. If they vote to override, that’s admission that fiscal responsibility is dead letter for GOP because it’ll add the $1.5 trillion to debt. If it waits to be signed until after January 1, the pay-go hits in 2019, after the Midterms (all the more reason to GOTV!).

5) The tax benefits will be felt immediately. This too is debatable, but verges on outright lie. Ivanka and others are claiming that they’ll see tax benefits in April, but April 2018 is the due date for the 2017 tax year, which was not affected by the tax scam. The first year that taxpayers could feel the benefit directly is the April 2019 tax return, which is for 2018 tax year. That the GOP and Ivanka are pushing this so hard shows that they don’t understand where/how taxes are paid, and they’re flat out lying about the consequences of their actions. Both are true - and the latter would bounce back to them because they’re promising something that is indisputably bogus.