re: #174 lawhawk

Greets and saluts from the Resistance in the NYC metro area. Trump’s busy tweeting this morning about tax cuts and lying his ass off (as usual). The GOP is likewise lying about their tax plan.

But first, a recap on Maria aid/recovery:

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The answer so far remains no. They haven’t given the USNS Comfort orders to go help in Puerto Rico.

Trump did finally waive the Jones Act this morning, more than a week after he should have - it was clear a week ago that massive aid was needed, and shipping would be critical to getting aid and equipment in.

PR is still in dire shape. Lack of water, food, power, and even money is an issue. Trump’s still too busy pandering to millionaires like himself though, and the GOP is more than happy to oblige Trump with a massive tax cut that shifts the burdens from the rich to everyone else.

We can definitively say that millionaires like Trump make out like bandits. We know their top tax rate gets slashed. We know that pass throughs would get a big tax cut (think Kansas), and the estate tax would get repealed (only affects 0.1% of Americans, but adds up to billions of dollars a year that could go to … disaster relief).

Instead, the GOP will claim that their tax scheme will grow the economy by a higher rate than the CBO or others estimate and that will not grow the debt. The reality is that the trickle down BS will do nothing to grow the economy but it will massively add to the debt, and the GOP response to this will be to slash and burn the safety net in response.

They’ve been trying to do that via Obamacare repeal to destroy Medicaid. They’re going to try the same thing with the outcome of their tax scheme.

And I refer to it as a scheme because there’s no bill. There’s nothing that can be scored. There aren’t even basic details like whether the GOP considers this revenue neutral or what the bracket thresholds would be.

I can set the brackets of 12%, 25%, and 35% any way I want. I could make 12% apply to the first dollar of income or to $12,000 or above. Likewise, I could set 35% to hit people at $450,000 or $4.5 million. Guess who benefits in each of those cases.

If Trump sets that middle rate anywhere near what he was proposing during the campaign, many Americans will see no benefit on the tax rate alone. They might get royally screwed depending on what deductions and credits will continue. But we know that the rich will see significant cuts. That’s the only we can know for sure.

Moring, the Comfort is headed that way:

The Internet asked for the USNS Comfort to be sent to Puerto Rico. The Navy listened.

miamiherald.com

Thanks to 160K+ of you who signed the #SendTheComfort petition, the Comfort will be sent. Read tonight’s update. https://t.co/hyVY4VXCSJ pic.twitter.com/RqWsdLoO7g

— Send The Comfort (@SendTheComfort) September 27, 2017

It is a disgrace that costs lives that it wasn’t there much, much earlier.