Senate Voting On Tax Bill Tonight (Probably)

[r3volution 3.0]

Doing some procedural stuff right now, but looks like it's going to happen tonight or early tomorrow

Live floor cam and updates below

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/362670-drama-gop-senators-hold-up-tax-vote

[r3volution 3.0]

Apparently the proposed "trigger" (to raise taxes in future if deficit too large) has been found against the rules by the parliamentarian.

They're proceeding with the bill anyway.

[Zippyjuan]

Apparently the proposed "trigger" (to raise taxes in future if deficit too large) has been found against the rules by the parliamentarian.

They're proceeding with the bill anyway.

That may cost the support of Corker and one or two others. Three "no" votes stops it. McCain says he is a "yes".

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax/senate-tax-bill-stumbles-on-deficit-focused-trigger-idUSKBN1DU1DS


Senator Bob Corker wanted to add a provision that would trigger automatic tax increases in years ahead if tax cuts in the bill failed to boost the economy and generate revenues sufficient to offset the estimated deficit expansion.

But the Senate parliamentarian barred Corker’s “trigger” proposal on procedural grounds. “We just got the realization from the parliamentarian that that’s probably not going to work,” said Republican Senator David Perdue.




A decisive Senate vote on the tax bill had been seen as possible on Thursday. It was not immediately clear when a vote would occur as Republicans wrestled with the obstacle thrown in their path by the parliamentarian.

Corker’s “trigger” amendment was needed to win his vote for the bill, as well as the votes of other Republican senators worried about the deficit. Those worries were raised after congressional analysts said the bill would not boost the economy enough to offset the estimated deficit expansion, as the Trump administration had said it would.

Other potential blocks:


Republican Senator Susan Collins, who also played a role in the failure of the Obamacare rollback, told reporters she was still not committed to the bill.

Senator Jeff Flake, another Republican holdout, said: “We’re still working on a few things.”

Several Republicans were withholding support while pushing for other changes, including a federal deduction for up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes and bigger tax breaks for “pass-through” companies, including small businesses.

[spudea]

It was just said the next roll call vote is 11am tomorrow. Only thing happening tonight is more democrat lies and hand wringing.

[Zippyjuan]

Joint Taxation Committee came out with a review- and says it falls $1 trillion short of Mnuchen's claim that the tax bill would pay for itself.


But the Joint Committee on Taxation, or JCT, a nonpartisan fiscal analysis unit of Congress, said the bill as passed earlier by the Senate Finance Committee, would generate only $407 billion in new tax revenue from increased economic growth.''

JCT had earlier estimated the tax bill would balloon the $20 trillion national debt by $1.4 trillion over 10 years. The new estimate, counting “dynamic” economic effects, put the deficit expansion at $1 trillion, far short of assertions by some Republicans that the tax cuts would pay for themselves.

That is an average of $40 billion a year in a $14 trillion economy against the $4 trillion budget.


http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-plan-senate-bill-jct-dynamic-scoring-analysis-2017-11


The JCT estimated the bill would increase US gross domestic product by 0.8% above the current baseline over the first 10 years.

Less than one percent improvement in GDP over ten years.


But that forecast is less than the boost to GDP of 3% to 5% a year that conservative economists, including the White House Council of Economic Advisers, expected.


Scott Greenberg, a senior analyst at the Tax Foundation, had estimated that the JCT's growth projection worked out to a boost of roughly 0.15 percentage points annually. Jason Furman, the chairman of the economic council under President Barack Obama, had forecast a smaller increase.

[r3volution 3.0]

That may cost the support of Corker and one or two others.

Vote officially delayed till tomorrow, apparently to rewrite the "trigger" language.

[Zippyjuan]

Vote officially delayed till tomorrow, apparently to rewrite the "trigger" language.

Corker now seeking higher amounts of tax increases in the trigger following the JCT report. That will make getting it done harder.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-republicans-delay-tax-reform-bill-after-hitting-deficit-obstacle/article/2642239


The delay came after Republicans discarded their plan to implement a "debt trigger" for their plan in a Senate floor confab. After being told that the mechanism would run afoul of Senate rules, they began hashing out other ways to raise hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and others are seeking even greater revenue offsets after an official congressional analysis released Thursday found that the bill would increase deficits by $1 trillion over 10 years, even accounting for faster economic growth.

[CaptUSA]

Joint Taxation Committee came out with a review-

Can you show me one time when their reviews were accurate???

Just too many variables to predict such nonsense. The best thing to do is to just cut spending and keep cutting spending. Anything else is just moving the burden of the spending around... Changes in taxation may make parts of the economy grow, but other parts will suffer.

[Zippyjuan]

Can you show me one time when their reviews were accurate???

Just too many variables to predict such nonsense. The best thing to do is to just cut spending and keep cutting spending. Anything else is just moving the burden of the spending around... Changes in taxation may make parts of the economy grow, but other parts will suffer.

The bill doesn't cut spending at all.

[CaptUSA]

The bill doesn't cut spending at all.

Um. Yeah. Did you not read the first sentence??

Or do you just ignore what you can't defend?

[Zippyjuan]

Um. Yeah. Did you not read the first sentence??

Or do you just ignore what you can't defend?

I have not checked out all of their past reports. Have you? What is their record?

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

I have not checked out all of their past reports. Have you? What is their record?


He asked if you read the first sentence. You really are a poor Zip protege. Does Mentor Zip know of your work? Or is he too busy in the grocery store?

[Zippyjuan]

He asked if you read the first sentence. You really are a poor Zip protege. Does Mentor Zip know of your work? Or is he too busy in the grocery store?

Thank you for sharing information on the accuracy of the Joint Taxation Committee. It was highly enlightening.

[phill4paul]

It really is liberating not giving a fuck about what they wish to extract from others at gunpoint.

I..really..just don't give a fuck. Ya'll moan and bitch over it all you want.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Thank you for sharing information on the accuracy of the Joint Taxation Committee. It was highly enlightening.


I shared information about you not answering the question. If that's enlightening to you, then I suggest you tell Jeffry to get back here. Is he done stocking the dairy case?

[CaptUSA]

Thank you for sharing information on the accuracy of the Joint Taxation Committee. It was highly enlightening.

Oh holy hell, Zippy edition 25... YOU were the one using the Joint Taxation Committee to bolster your argument! The burden of proof is on YOU to demonstrate the accuracy and worth of your citation!

Go ahead... I dare you. :rolleyes:

[Zippyjuan]

Oh holy hell, Zippy edition 25... YOU were the one using the Joint Taxation Committee to bolster your argument! The burden of proof is on YOU to demonstrate the accuracy and worth of your citation!

Go ahead... I dare you. :rolleyes:

Obviously we won't know how accurate they are for several years. Do you have any reason to question their accuracy? Like where they have failed in the past? Do you have alternative projections for the impact of the bill? Bill promoters have cited the committee.


On Wednesday, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Orrin Hatch, cited the JCT's data in his defense of the bill.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-plan-senate-bill-jct-dynamic-scoring-analysis-2017-11

[r3volution 3.0]

^^^The Capt's main point was that, regardless of the impact on revenue, the real problem is spending (which is of course correct).

[Zippyjuan]

^^^The Capt's main point was that, regardless of the impact on revenue, the real problem is spending (which is of course correct).

I would agree. And was pointing out that the tax bill does not address it at all.

[CaptUSA]

Obviously we won't know how accurate they are for several years. Do you have any reason to question their accuracy? Like where they have failed in the past? Do you have alternative projections for the impact of the bill? Bill promoters have cited the committee.

No, No, No, Zipster.... YOU show me where they have succeeded in the past! Just once! Please. I mean, you posted their claim, so obviously you trust it. And then you consistently tried to deflect the burden of defending their claim...

Nice try. My main point is that these economic predictions are impossible to make because there are too many variables to even try to consider. And anyone making a claim that they know what the impact will be is either disingenuous or stupid.

But one things stands true - quit wasting resources by letting governments decide where to direct them, and the economy WILL grow! In other words, it's pointless to try to analyze a tax plan - cutting spending is the only thing that will really work.

[Zippyjuan]

No, No, No, Zipster.... YOU show me where they have succeeded in the past! Just once! Please. I mean, you posted their claim, so obviously you trust it. And then you consistently tried to deflect the burden of defending their claim...

Nice try. My main point is that these economic predictions are impossible to make because there are too many variables to even try to consider. And anyone making a claim that they know what the impact will be is either disingenuous or stupid.

But one things stands true - quit wasting resources by letting governments decide where to direct them, and the economy WILL grow! In other words, it's pointless to try to analyze a tax plan - cutting spending is the only thing that will really work.

Here is one of their reports on the Bush tax cuts: have it it. Was it inaccurate? http://www.jct.gov/x-51-01.pdf

I agreed that the issue is spending- not tax cuts and said this bill would do nothing on that issue.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

...have it it.

Have at it? You're the one making claims and then asking questions. You have a history of not answering questions about where you stand on issues. Will you answer here?

[Zippyjuan]

Speaking of other analysis of the tax bill, the US The Treasury Department had promised a review which would show that the tax cuts would pay for themselves but on the day voting could have started, that report still remains to be seen. It was a "top priority".

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-30/treasury-watchdog-probes-missing-analysis-of-gop-tax-proposal


Treasury Watchdog Probes Mnuchin's Missing Tax Analysis

The Treasury Department’s inspector general is examining whether political considerations interfered with Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s promised analysis of the Republican tax proposal.

“It’s a top priority,” Rich Delmar, counsel to inspector general Eric Thorson, said Thursday in an email. Delmar said he could not provide a timeframe for when the inquiry would be complete because it would depend on how quickly the department’s official watchdog receives the information and “how complex issues are.”

In a letter early Thursday, Senator Elizabeth Warren asked Thorson’s office to review whether Treasury resources were used to research the tax plan, and why no analysis has been released to the public or Congress. Mnuchin has repeatedly pledged that the Republican proposal would pay for itself through economic growth, and that his department would provide detailed analysis to support those statements.

But, with the Senate preparing to vote on the tax overhaul this week, Mnuchin has yet to deliver the analysis.

“Either the Treasury Department has used extensive taxpayer funds to conduct economic analyses that it refuses to release because those analyses would contradict the Treasury Secretary’s claims, or Secretary Mnuchin has grossly misled the public about the extent of the Treasury Department’s analysis,” Warren, a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, wrote in the letter.

A Treasury spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A new analysis released Thursday by the Joint Committee on Taxation found that the Senate tax bill would generate enough economic growth to lower its $1.4 trillion revenue cost by about $458 billion over a decade. That would leave a 10-year revenue loss of roughly $1 trillion, said the JCT, Congress’s official scorekeeper on tax legislation.

Mnuchin has promised “complete transparency” about the analysis and the tax plan’s economic benefits. However, in September, the Wall Street Journal reported that Treasury had removed from its website a 2012 research paper that contradicted the Trump administration’s stance on the wage growth expected from a corporate rate tax cut.



They promised Bob Corker they would have it earlier this week. They didn't.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/steve-mnuchins-dog-ate-his-tax-plan-analysis


When Treasury officials met with Senator Bob Corker on Monday after promising to provide him with analysis prior to the full Senate vote, they came empty-handed. “They came over, had a very nice meeting, but there’s no modeling yet,” Corker said.


Late in the day on Thursday, the Treasury Department’s inspector general, last seen probing Mnuchin’s infamous #daytrip, said that he was investigating the curious case of the missing analysis. “It’s a top priority,” Rich Delmar, counsel to inspector general Eric Thorson, wrote in an email. We’re sure there’s a totally reasonable explanation for Mnuchin‘s “check’s in the mail” approach here.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

The Treasury Department had promised....


What is this? High school promise rings? Instead of just posting articles, how about answering simple questions.

1. Did you read the first sentence?
2. Are you going to demonstrate the accuracy and worth of your citation?
3. Are you going to show where it succeeded?
4. Who is that in your avatar?
5. Did you clean up the mess in aisle 3?