In his constant pursuit of distraction, Donald Trump proposes matching his election-buying welfare for farmers with more election-buying welfare for the rich:
The Trump administration is studying a plan to cut capital gains taxes by $100 billion over 10 years by factoring in inflation, it was reported Monday.
Treasure Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Argentina earlier this month that his department was studying whether it could issue regulations on its own — without going to Congress — to allow Americans to account for inflation in determining capital gains tax liabilities, the New York Times reported [Bob Fredericks, “Trump Administration Weighs $100 billion Tax Break for Capital Gains,” MarketWatch, 2018.07.31].
Trump really has no sense of paying his bills. He can come up with $12 billion to throw to farmers whom he’s destroying with needless tariffs. He can threaten a shutdown tantrum if he doesn’t get $18 billion to spend on a needless wall (er, fence) that he promised we wouldn’t have to pay for. And then, having ballooned the deficit for no reason other than ego and base-placation, Trump proposes throwing another $10 billion a year back at his wealthy family and friends in a needless tax cut.
To top it off, Trump teases doing it by the executive fiat that Republicans used to contend was unacceptable. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush rejected this exact policy as illegal:
Senior administration officials have discussed whether to proceed but have not concluded they have legal authority to do so. The move was rejected during the George H.W. Bush administration because it was seen as outside the scope of Treasury’s authority and only attainable via an act of Congress.
…In September 1992, the Justice Department during the end of the Bush administration found that Treasury did not have the legal authority to make the change unilaterally. It predicted that adopting the inflation change without input from Congress would be challenged in court, and that the government would lose the case [Damian Paletta, “Trump Administration Considers Tax Cut for the Wealthy,” Washington Post via Chicago Tribune, 2018.07.30].
Senator John Thune balked this month at bringing more tax cut legislation to the Senate floor this year, just because the Senate can’t muster 60 votes to pass such bad policy. But we can’t count on him to oppose Il Duce’s further reckless handout policies via executive overreach.
What they ought to do is eliminate the capital gains tax and instead tax capital gains at the same rates as ordinary income. Why should people who work for their money pay a higher tax rate than people who make their money from investments?
Comrade NOem and 40% of the rest of the bribe takers, are all in on this. The latest survey says republicans are okay with Putin running the show here. So, as the numbers indicate, 40% of republicans (why do we call them that?) are really traitors to our democracy. Line up 10 of these folks and 4 of them want to destroy America. Amazing. As long as your pockets get lined with the payoffs, just like gangsters of the Depression, it is all good.
“American intelligence officials say Russia is still trying to interfere with U.S. elections, as the November midterms approach. And Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has said he prefers Donald Trump in the White House.
That’s okay with some Republicans, according to a Yahoo Finance/SurveyMonkey poll of 2,509 Americans conducted July 25-27. In the survey, 11% of people who identify as Republican or lean Republican say it’s “appropriate” for Russia to help Republicans keep control of Congress in the upcoming elections. Another 29% say it’s “not appropriate, but wouldn’t be a big deal” for the Russians to help. So combined, 40% of Republicans either approve of Russian interference, or don’t strongly object to it.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/republicans-want-russia-influence-us-elections-202847050.html
So, how do we want to do this in the upcoming election? Democracy or Putin, it is that simple.
Nothing but silence from the GOP deficit hawks.
Rorschach, I could not agree more: that differentiation of tax rates is a value judgement of worth.
But really, who can be surprised that the Trump presidency facilitates an accelerated wealth grab for the 1%?
Comrade NOem is all in on this scam. According to her recent blurb, she was cheerleading the Tax Cut 2.0 that she says is coming up so soon, she will support and vote for it. Comrade NOem is one of the 40 per centers Russian supporters. Lets keep them that way and beat their arse’s by being American 60 per centers. USA! USA!
you can’t count on sen. thune for anything .
Russpublicans, the US’s newest political party.
Regular Income taxes have inflation factored in with wage increases. Why shouldn’t capital gains have the same thing? Government is the one that controls inflation.
The middle class has a lot of capital gain also so it’s not just for the rich Cory.
Jason, pick a lane – on another thread you say that the rich pay far more taxes than the poor; here you falsely imply that there is some parity between tax savings between the middle class and the wealthy?
American Workers pay higher taxes than American wealthy investors: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-12/why-american-workers-pay-twice-as-much-in-taxes-as-wealthy-investors
O,
Learn the difference between income taxes and capital gains taxes than we can have a discussion.
Jason, read the article; it explicitly shows two examples of incomes – one from labor/work and one from investment income – and how the taxation is vastly different.
Besides, your offer for a discussion is hollow – a discussion needs two-way participation and thoughtful consideration of another. You troll.
A move being contemplated by the Trump administration to let Americans account for inflation in determining their capital gains tax liabilities would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy.
A study released in the spring from the University of Pennsylvania’s business school shows the top 0.1% of earners, in particular, would reap more than 60% of the tax cut, according to the school’s model.
The middle class, by contrast, gets a mere 0.1%.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-who-wins-and-loses-if-capital-gains-are-indexed-to-inflation-2018-07-31
for above post.
Many middle class families have investments that are subject to capital gains tax.
The top 1% of taxpayers pay 90% of the income taxes.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/06/a-closer-look-at-who-does-and-doesnt-pay-u-s-income-tax/ft_17-10-04_taxes_stats/
You’d be wrong again, wrong Jason.
Sixty percent of all taxes paid to the Treasury aren’t income taxes, Jason.
Wrong Porter. You can’t add FICA taxes to your denominator.
We can make the case the money earned from actual work should be taxed less than money gained by investment and luck.
The Executive Branch should also not illegally cut taxes.
The top fifth are getting 70% of the December tax cuts; the top 1% get 34%.
The illegal tax cut Trump is now proposing would give 63% of its money to the top 0.1% and only 5% of its breaks to the bottom 95%. So please don’t blow your middle-class smoke up my skirt.
In cases where we could protect ourselves, Russian Comrades Rounds and Thune vote to kill election security. These Russians want to keep the fox in the hen house, the Putin way.
“Senate Republicans voted down a bid Wednesday to direct an extra $250 million toward election security in advance of the 2018 midterms, despite heightened warnings from intelligence officials that foreign governments will try to interfere in the contests and evidence that some lawmakers have already been targeted.” Washington Post 08/01/2018
Bob Corker was the only patriot while the rest of the Senate Russian comrades showed their traitor back sides.
Thune and Rounds apparently believe our #1 fiscal priority is to put more money in the pockets of rich people. Given the example of the current occupant of the White House, I don’t think that’s a good national security strategy.
Between the tax cut and the rest of republican spending, we are fueling our way into a crash that will make 2008 seem like a bubble gum pop. This bubble is getting larger by the second and today on Wall Street, it looked like the fuse was lit. This is taken from an article from the New York Times yesterday. It only seems fitting to review it after the crash of Turkey’s currency today. There is only one thing republicans want to do now, cut Medicare and Social Security to make up for their incompetence.
“The $30 trillion domestic stock market seems to get all the attention. When the stock market sets new highs, we instinctively feel things are good and getting better. When it tanks, as happened in the initial months of the 2008 financial crisis, we think things are going to hell.
But the larger domestic debt market — at around $41 trillion for the bond market alone — reveals more about our nation’s financial health. And right now, the debt market is broadcasting a dangerous message: Investors, desperate for debt instruments that pay high interest, have been overpaying for riskier and riskier obligations. University endowments, pension funds, mutual funds and hedge funds have been pouring money into the bond market with little concern that bonds can be every bit as dangerous to own as stocks.” Pay wall, but if you can, a great read New York Times 08/09/2018 William D. Cohan
More from the same article. If this does not give you pause, then you really do not remember what happened in 2008.
“Examples of mispriced risk are strewn across the financial landscape. In June, Asurion, an insurer of cellphones, closed on a $3.75 billion loan package from Wall Street’s biggest banks, with minimal covenants — agreements to protect creditors by notifying them when certain red flags, like a higher than agreed-upon debt-to-cash flow ratio, are waving.The proceeds of Asurion’s “covenant-lite” or “cov-lite” loan were used to pay dividends to the three private-equity firms that own the company. Its debt load has increased to $11.3 billion, seven times its cash flow. For additional irresistible fees, Wall Street then repackaged the Asurion loans into securities and sold them to investors, who now own the debt of a highly leveraged company with far fewer protections.
According to LeveragedLoan.com, which monitors the corporate loan market, the issuance of cov-lite corporate loans has exploded in the past few years and reached a record in May. Cov-lite loans now account for nearly 77 percent of the estimated $1 trillion corporate loan market. And some of these loans are packaged and resold as bonds or as other complicated investments.” New York Times, William D. Cohan 08/09/2018
That should sober up the trumpers who think that all is going well with our finances, here is a clue, they are not going well and if NOem and the rest of the dumb arses have an opportunity, they will worsen it with more tax breaks.