The Schumer-Manchin climate legislation deal appears to be trading one rich people’s tax break for two to get Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s vote:
The Arizona Democratic centrist announced that she’s signed off on the legislation after winning tweaks that include the removal of a narrowed loophole for taxation of certain investment income, a provision known as carried interest.
…The new agreement with Sinema includes a new 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks that will bring in $73 billion, far more than the $14 billion raised by the carried interest provision, according to a Democrat familiar with the deal.
The deal with Sinema also adds roughly $5 billion in drought resiliency to the bill, according to another person familiar, and changes portions of the corporate minimum tax structure to remove accelerated depreciation of investments from the agreement. That depreciation-related change will cost about $40 billion [Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine, “Sinema Signs onto Dems’ Party-Line Bill Ahead of Momentous Saturday Vote,” Politico, 2022.08.04].
Sinema says protecting accelerated depreciation will help manufacturers buy new equipment more quickly. She also says she’ll work on reforming the carried interest loophole later in separate legislation.
Senator Thune doesn’t care which tax breaks his rich friends get to keep; the Senate GOP’s #2 is calling the budget deal names and vowing zero Republican votes for the Inflation Reduction Act. We’re still waiting for the parliamentarian to rule whether the bill can advance under budget rules allowing simple majority votes rather than requiring 60 votes to end filibusters.
Sinema saved the “hedge funds” who benefit greatly from “carried interest” pocketing billions for their Managers who probably deposit their swag in Sioux Falls based Trusts as they sail the world in their yachts. These fellows almost bankrupted the country in 2008. Major Banks and Investment firms went under (Remember Merrill-Lynch, Wachovia, Bear-Stearns??), the stock market cratered (Chrysler and GM went bankrupt, Ford Motor stock went to 98 cents), and George W. Bush, who neither understood what had happened or what he should do, turned the country over to Treasury Secretary Hank Peterson. Hedge Fund billionaires continue to loot ours and the world’s economy. The Mafia had more social conscience.
Thune and not-so-Rounds again show they are only interested in obstruction, not solving problems.
They had years to “fix” the Affordable Care Act, years to pass an infrastructure bill — crickets.
Retire these worthless obstructionists.
Duh Thune and EB5 Rounds just voted against capping insulin prices. It’s clear that both of these fascists think South Dakotans pay the correct price for the insulin they are now getting…. nice