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Thune Wants to Protect Progressive Tax Brackets

Published 2017-11-09 by Cory Allen Heidelberger

The House GOP tax plan is in a tight mathematical spot. Republicans authorized only (hee hee!) $1.5 trillion in additional deficit spending over the next ten years, but the CBO says that, when we add interest, the plan will actually sink us another $1.7 trillion. Oops.

The Senate Republicans will try to close that gap with the plan they release today by delaying some of the plutocratic tax cuts. We may not get the full details yet—yesterday, the Senate signaled it would just give us a “conceptual mark” today rather than actual legislative text.

But details or no, Senator John Thune appears to agree with me on one key concept: progressive taxation is good!

Senators are looking for ways to maintain “progressivity” in individual income taxes, said Senator John Thune, the chamber’s third-ranking Republican leader.

“We want to maintain the existing progressivity in the code,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said Wednesday. “We’re trying to look at making sure the tax burden remains similar to what it is today” [“Senate Will Only Release a ‘Conceptual’ Tax Proposal Thursday, Aide Says,” Bloomberg, 2017.11.08].

It’s good to know that Senator Thune agrees with me that flat taxes are unfair to lower income taxpayers. His statement on progressivity signals that he further agrees with me that raising the tax rate on the lowest bracket and collapsing the existing seven brackets into four introduces more unfairness into our tax code.

The simplicity gained with fewer tax brackets is trivial at best. The only real complication is for the person at the IRS who generates the tax table; taxpayers and their tax preparers won’t find it any easier to look up their tax amount on a table based on four brackets than on a table based on seven brackets, or ten, or even a progressivity curve adjusted dollar by dollar.

A 10% tax hits a family making $30,000 a lot harder than it hits a family making $3 million. That’s why we scale up the marginal tax rates on higher incomes. And that, we can suppose, is why Senator Thune is advocating for avoiding the regressive tax changes proposed by his Republican colleagues in the House.

Published in South Dakota

17 Comments

  1. Rorschach

    Trump called a group of Democratic senators and tried to convince them to vote for the GOP Party tax plan to punish him.

    “President Donald Trump told a group of Democratic senators Tuesday that he’d be a “big loser” if the Republicans’ plan to overhaul the tax system is signed into law, multiple people with direct knowledge of the call told CNN.
    Trump, who said he made his assumption based on a conversation with his accountant, also said the GOP’s plan to repeal the estate tax was a toss-in because the plan is “just so bad for rich people.”

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/08/politics/donald-trump-tax-plan/index.html

    I don’t think the Democratic senators are as stupid as Trump hopes they are.

    2017-11-09
  2. Rorschach

    It just took a few years in Warshington for Kristi Noem to stop worrying about Booker’s share of the national debt. Watch her vote for higher deficits/higher debt. Poor Booker!

    2017-11-09
  3. Nick Nemec

    If they are really looking to reduce the cost of their tax cut bill they could cut the estate tax elimination. A quick google search reveals that the estate tax brings in $269 billion over ten years. But I suppose the GOP congress critters are loath to toss their super rich donors and the president under the bus.

    2017-11-09
  4. jerry

    Should be asking Thune and Rounds to share their love for pervert candidate Roy Moore down in Alababa. This tax thingy may not reach anything.

    2017-11-09
  5. mike from iowa

    Drumpf gets the pass through tax break for industries where profits are taxed as personal income, not korporate income. He will gain handsomely from losing the alternative minimum tax which caused him to pay 30 million more in taxes than otherwise. He and/or his brats will make out like billionaire bandits with the dismissal of the estate tax.

    We could all stand to be losers like that. So tell me why does this guy rate being given breaks for all the lies he spouts on a daily basis?

    2017-11-09
  6. mike from iowa

    Bible thumper and the man who holds the bible up as the soopreme law of the land turns out to be an alleged predator of underage girls.

    Drumpian chief economist sez korporate amerika will be so thrilled with them extra billions they will shower workers with higher wages. Uh huh. Gary Cohn jumped the shark.

    2017-11-09
  9. jerry

    To his credit, John Thune denounced Moore. We still don’t know about NOem or Rounds though, difficult decision for them I guess.

    2017-11-09
  10. OldSarg

    But they all cried out in unison: “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!” Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate addressed them again, but they kept shouting, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

    A third time he said to them, “What evil has this man done? I have found in Him no offense worthy of death.

    2017-11-09
  11. jerry

    The fourth time, someone in the back said it was beer thirty already. And so offeth they went.

    2017-11-09
  12. Douglas Wiken

    A proverb on the lips of a fool, hangs limp like the legs of a cripple.

    2017-11-09
  13. Rorschach

    I’m confused. Who’s supposed to be Jesus here?

    2017-11-10
  16. jerry

    McConnell admits to tax increase for middle class. NOem stands for this rate increase, Thune does and so does Rounds, we shall call them tax and spend for the rich from henceforth. Up jumped the devil:

    ““I misspoke on that,” McConnell told the newspaper. “You can’t guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase, but what we are doing is targeting levels of income and looking at the average in those levels and the average will be tax relief for the average taxpayer in each of those segments.”

    A Times analysis found that millions of middle-class families will see higher taxes under the bill, which disproportionately benefits corporations and the country’s wealthiest households.””
    Denny Stanford and the millionaires in South Dakota, of which all three of our congress folks are a part of, will get huge tax breaks that mean thousands and thousands of dollars in their pockets. The rest of us will just have a new diet of hot pockets.

    2017-11-11

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