Tag: tax plan
Panicked GOP Rushes Toward Secret Tax Deal Before Alabama Seats New Senator

Panicked GOP Rushes Toward Secret Tax Deal Before Alabama Seats New Senator

Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.com

A significant consequence of Democrat Doug Jones’s amazing victory in the Alabama election is that in January, Republicans will be down to just 51 votes in the Senate. Which is why House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are determined to vote on their tax scam in December.

On Wednesday morning, Republicans in Congress frantically announced they have the outline of a deal to be passed by the House and Senate, and they’re hoping to rush through a vote next week. (Update: Republican leaders announced a final bill early on Thursday.)

None of the details of this secret deal are yet known. Any of the horrifying provisions of the House and Senate bills, from taxing graduate students to ending the health insurance mandate to eliminating credits the middle class relies on, could have made it in.

If Republicans hold the vote next week, before Jones is sworn in, then the temporary Senate appointee, Luther Strange, will get to vote for it, despite the fact that nobody in Alabama elected him.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is demanding the vote be postponed until Alabama’s new senator is in the chamber to give his constituents a voice. Other Senate Democrats are following his lead, including Ron WydenElizabeth WarrenKamala Harris, and Chris Van Hollen.

It should be noted that in 2010, Senate Republicans were adamant that the surprise Massachusetts election of Scott Brown meant Democrats should delay a vote on Obamacare — which they did. And that was over a bill that went though regular order and public hearings, and was not nearly as unpopular in polls.

Among the Republicans who took that view at the time were John McCain and Susan Collins, both of whom have been absolutely fine with how the tax scam has been rushed through so far. “I don’t think an election should drive the timetable,” Collins now says.

And while delaying a tax vote a few weeks is apparently so unreasonable, Senate Republicans were fine with delaying a Supreme Court nomination 293 days, until there was an entirely new president.

It is clear Republicans are still struggling to even wrap their heads around Alabama choosing a Democrat, let alone that that Democrat deserves a say in national legislation. RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) have said that Jones should switch parties because Alabama voted for Trump, weirdly forgetting that Alabama also just voted for Jones.

Republicans should wait until every last American is properly represented in the Senate before moving forward. They should not fear the will of Alabama, and the nation.

Header image: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

 

Trump Offers Huge Favors To Billionaires, Calls It A Big Economic Speech

Trump Offers Huge Favors To Billionaires, Calls It A Big Economic Speech

Published with permission from AlterNet.

If it came out of the mouth of any other politician, the speech delivered Monday by the Republican presidential candidate at the Detroit Economic Club would have been stunning in its mendacity. But issuing forth from the pie-hole of Donald J. Trump, it was, sadly, to be expected.

The lies were almost too many to count: Point to a sentence, find a lie. There was the lie about his opponent’s policy on taxing the middle class; Hillary Clinton clearly said she wouldn’t, and Trump is using her dropping of a consonant on a single word to say she did. (Just to be sure, PolitiFact had academics run audio of Clinton’s tax statement through a machine that analyzes such things.)

He claimed “the terrible Obama-Clinton judgment” destroyed Detroit’s manufacturing sector, when the Obama administration twisted Republican arms to get the funding to save the American auto industry.

There were also lies of omission. The U.S., he said, has the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, without mentioning the fact that many of the nation’s largest corporations pay no taxes at all. In fact, some, such as Verizon and General Electric, actually pay a negative tax rate, meaning they actually get rebates back from the Treasury.

I could go on and on, but “Trump lies” is pretty much a dog-bites-human story. Yawn.

More telling is who Trump named to his economic team—the very sort of people who stand to gain from his Main Street-looting economic policies. For starters, they are 13 rich white men. But they’re rich white men whose riches were mostly gained by preying on the weak. And most, Politico’s Shane Goldmacher reports, are major donors to the Trump campaign.

Take John Paulson, whose Paulson & Co. hedge fund, according to Forbes, “is famed for betting against subprime mortgages at the peak of the 2007 credit bubble.” Paulson, the magazine reports, is worth $9.8 billion.

Then here’s Harold Hamm, founder of the oil firm Continental Resources, who is known to frequent the big donor confabs convened by the Koch brothers (but who is now at odds with the scions of Koch Industries over the brothers’ refusal to back Trump). Hamm is a backer of the climate-science deniers in Congress, according to the Energy and Policy Institute, and is said to be shaping Trump’s energy policy. If you don’t see climate-science deniers as preying on the weak, think about the people who got hurt in Hurricane Katrina. Think about the people who can’t sell their homes in Norfolk, Virginia because of sea-level rise.

And let’s not forget Steve Feinberg, the CEO of something called Ceberus Capital Management, which Evan Popp and Josh Israel of Think Progress describe as “a private investment firm which specializes in ‘distressed investing.’” Among the “distressed” properties acquired by Ceberus is Remington, the manufacturer of the AR-15-style rifle—the kind that was used in the Sandy Hook massacre and other mass shootings.

My personal favorite among the men at Trump’s economic table is probably the least wealthy but perhaps the most disingenuous: Stephen Moore, former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and late of the Heritage Foundation. Known for his insanely inaccurate economic predictions, Moore has been the toady of billionaires for decades, allowing him to fall ever-upward.

In 2011, while reporting for AlterNet and the Investigative Fund on the Koch brothers’ fomenting of the Tea Party movement, I found Moore wrapped up in a for-profit scheme apparently designed to scare the employees of companies hired by him into voting for Republicans. The scheme was called Prosperity 101 and was helmed by Mark Bloch, then the state chairman of the Wisconsin chapter of the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity political astroturf group. Moore was often a paid speaker at the ostensibly voluntary seminars employees at firms in the Koch network were invited to attend. He was also often a paid speaker at Americans for Prosperity events, even as he sat on the editorial board of one of the nation’s major newspapers.

Moore’s contribution to the seminar textbook was illustrative of his willingness to simply make stuff up. From AlterNet’s 2011 report:

In “The Keys to Prosperity,” Moore’s chapter in the Prosperity 101 textbook, he offers up a series of charts, some of them indecipherable, including a pie chart called “Where Your Federal Tax Dollar Goes.” (Apparently derived from an earlier presentation Moore made at an AFP Foundation event, the same charts can be found here; scroll to slide no. 16 for this one.) Citing such official sources as the Internal Revenue Service, the Government Accountability Office and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it features eight slices labeled “Flushed Down a Toilet, “Pissed Away,” “Down a Rat Hole,” “Sleaze,” “Corruption,” “Given to ‘Supporters,'” “Tossed Down the Drain,” and “Postage Stamps.” (The latter, Moore baselessly contends, accounts for 6 percent of your tax dollars—which is, incidentally, six times theallotment for non-military foreign aid).

In psychology, there’s a concept known as projection, the term for when a patient ascribes to his nemesis the very motive or behavior that animates the patient.

In his nearly hour-long speech at the Detroit Economic Club, Donald Trump accused his opponent of being “bought, controlled and paid for by her donors and special interests.”

Look at the men on Trump’s own economic team, and you’ll get a very clear idea of just who his policies aim to benefit.

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet’s senior Washington editor. Follow her on Twitter @addiestan.

Trump Says He’s Open To Raising Taxes On The Wealthy

Trump Says He’s Open To Raising Taxes On The Wealthy

Donald Trump said on Sunday he was open to raising taxes on the rich, backing off his prior proposal to reduce taxes on all Americans and breaking with one of his party’s core policies dating back to the 1990s.

“I am willing to pay more, and you know what, the wealthy are willing to pay more,” Trump told ABC’s “This Week.”

After effectively sealing the Republican nomination last week for the Nov. 8 presidential election, Trump has used speeches and interviews to offer more details on his policy positions.

The billionaire real estate tycoon has said he would like to see an increase in the minimum wage, although he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday he would prefer to see states take the lead on that front instead of the federal government.

“I don’t know how people make it on $7.25 an hour,” Trump said of the current federal minimum wage. “I would like to see an increase of some magnitude. But I’d rather leave it to the states. Let the states decide.”

Trump’s call for higher taxes on the wealthy is a break with Republican presidential nominees who have staunchly opposed tax hikes for almost three decades. Higher taxes have been anathema to many in the party since former President George H.W. Bush infuriated fellow Republicans by abandoning a pledge not to raise taxes and agreeing to an increase as part of a 1990 budget deal.

Democrats, including presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, have pressed for increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans for years.

Trump released a tax proposal last September that included broad tax breaks for businesses and households. He proposed reducing the highest income tax rate to 25 percent from the current 39.6 percent rate.

Pressed on the contradiction between his latest comments on taxes and the September tax plan, Trump said he viewed his original proposal as “a concept” and that he expected it would be changed following negotiations with Congress.

“By the time it gets negotiated, it’s going to be a different plan,” Trump told ABC. He emphasized in separate interviews with ABC and NBC’s “Meet the Press” that his priorities were lowering taxes on the middle class and businesses.

“The middle class has to be protected,” Trump told NBC. The rich are “probably going to end up paying more,” he said.

Clinton’s campaign staff said Trump’s comments were an effort to pander to voters beyond those who supported him in the primary elections and that he had no intention of raising taxes for wealthy people.

“Don’t believe Donald Trump’s weak attempts at a general election ‘makeover’ for even a second,” Christina Reynolds, a Clinton campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Trump’s economic plans take direct aim at working Americans – his proposal to cut trillions in taxes for the top one percent would almost certainly come at the expense of working and middle class families.”

 

DEEP DIVIDE

Republicans remain deeply divided over Trump’s candidacy, although he has pledged to try to unite the party ahead of its convention in July. Prominent party leaders such as Paul Ryan, the top elected U.S. Republican, have distanced themselves from Trump over his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Ryan, who has been a leading voice for the Republican Party on budget issues for years and is the House of Representatives speaker, has proposed a series of budgets that would cut taxes across the board.

Trump has also called for new tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports to the United States, a position at odds with views on trade held by Ryan and many other pro-business Republicans.

Ryan, who will preside over the July 18-21 convention in Cleveland where the party will formally nominate its candidate, said last week he hoped to eventually support Trump. But he added: “I’m just not there right now.”

Republican U.S. Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona also is undecided about Trump. Flake said he wanted to see Trump revise some of his positions, including the proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States.

“He’s got to soften his position there,” Flake said.

Underscoring the party’s divisions, Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate and a Trump supporter, criticized Ryan for failing to endorse Trump. The conservative populist firebrand said she would work to defeat Ryan in his Aug. 9 primary race against a conservative businessman.

Clinton said she hoped to take advantage of Republican reticence over Trump to draw the support of party defectors.

“I am asking people to come join this campaign,” the former secretary of state told CBS. “And I’ve had a lot of outreach from Republicans in the last days who say that they are interested in talking about that.”

 

(Additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Paul Simao and Peter Cooney)

Photo: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Lynden, Washington, U.S., May 7, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart  

What It Now Means To Be A ‘Moderate Republican’

Jon Huntsman, the former Republican governor of Utah and more recently U. S. ambassador to China, has had his true-believer GOP credentials openly questioned by the Conservative Police.

True, Huntsman believes in evolution and accepts the reality of climate change, while supporting civil unions for gay couples. But what made Huntsman suspect was his statement about Barack Obama, who appointed him ambassador: “I respect the president of the United States. He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help a country we both love. But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who who’s the better American.”

Make no mistake about it: The Republican Party of 2012 is significantly more conservative and less moderate than the Republican Party that, four years ago, nominated John McCain. It’s not that long ago that the Republican Party had real liberal stars such as Nelson Rockefeller, and U.S. Sens. Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Jacob Javits of New York, John Chaffee of Rhode Island and Mac Mathias of Maryland.

Not fully trusted by many liberal Democrats and disliked by many conservative Republicans, these GOP mavericks were taunted: The definition of a liberal Republican is someone who, when you’re drowning some 30 feet offshore, throws you a 20 foot rope and boasts that he “went more than halfway.”

Huntsman’s positions on science, the environment and cultural issues are indeed unorthodox in today’s Republican Party. But where the rubber hits the road — on who pays federal taxes — Jon Huntsman is no flaming moderate. He’s more conservative than Mitt Romney.

This past week, Huntsman gave us his tax plan, which is enough to make Daddy Warbucks do handstands. Huntsman joins fellow GOP presidential candidates Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former CEO Herman Cain in calling for the elimination of any federal tax on capital gains.

According to the best estimate of the respected Tax Policy Center, U.S. households making less than $50,000 a year pay an average of less than $10 a year on investments. Even those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 annually pay just an average of $400 in capital gains taxes.

And the real winners if the capital gains tax is in fact lowered to zero? According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent of earners with an average pre-tax income of almost $7 million, who under the Huntsman plan would get a windfall tax cut of $350,000 a year. How moderate would you call that?

Not very, by recent Republican standards. During the 1996 GOP presidential campaign, Malcolm “Steve” Forbes advocated a 16 percent “flat tax” plan that excluded interest and dividend income from federal taxation. Forbes was challenged by Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who argued, “It’s not fair to say that people who work with their head or with their hands ought to pay taxes, but that people who earn their living with capital ought not to.”

Republican candidate Pat Buchanan was more colorful in his criticism, suggesting that Forbes’ plan to exclude dividends from taxation must have been forged “by the boys at the yacht basin” because it would “let some trust-fund baby in Florida clip coupons the rest of his life and pay zero taxes.”

The criticism of Gramm and Buchanan are just as valid today. Why should a firefighter or nurse or a Marine gunnery sergeant pay federal taxes on the wages each earns through blood, sweat and skill, while the lazy heir to a family fortune does not pay a dime to Uncle Sam?

You can call the candidate who wants to completely abolish the capital gains tax a lot of things, but you cannot call him moderate.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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