Tax Plan Already Receiving Pushback From GOP Lawmakers
Rand Paul, Bob Corker not liking it so far
Last week, President Donald Trump’s administration and the GOP in Congress released a framework for possible tax reform. The details are vague, noting that more will happen once tax reform switches to committees.
However, two GOP senators have already voiced doubt over the framework: Kentucky Republican Rand Paul and Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, who recently announced he will not seek reelection next year.
On Tuesday, Paul tweeted out his displeasure over the plan after he read the analysis from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC).
This is a GOP tax plan? Possibly 30% of middle class gets a tax hike? I hope the final details are better than this. https://t.co/lcjkI4YRz8
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 2, 2017
The analysis from TPC shows “that by 2027, almost 30 percent of taxpayers with income between about $50,000 and $150,000 would see their taxes increase.” The center found that “about 25 percent of taxpayers would see higher taxes” by 2027.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) criticized the analysis, reminding the TPC that this is a framework and the finer details won’t come out until after the tax writing committees finish their jobs:
“This so-called study is misleading, unfounded, and biased. TPC makes a variety of overreaching and unrealistic assumptions about policy decisions Members of Congress still have to make as we draft pro-growth tax legislation,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said in a statement.
Corker criticized the part of the framework that will not allow people to deduct their state and local taxes. National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, one of the authors of the framework, said this part remained negotiable.
But Corker is concerned about the “revenue” because Heaven forbid the government stop spending and people actually get to keep their hard earned money that they earned:
“That’s the easiest one,” said Corker, a Tennessee Republican. “Some of the others are actually more offensive and produce lesser amounts of money.”
Corker said he will not vote for any package that adds to the deficit. White House Budget Director Mitch Mulvaney countered Corker by saying that a higher deficit will add growth. From Bloomberg:
White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is signaling similar flexibility, saying on CNN Sunday that decisions about deductions remain up in the air as “the bill is not finished yet.” He took it a step further, by adding that a tax plan that doesn’t add to the deficit won’t spur growth.
“I’ve been very candid about this. We need to have new deficits because of that. We need to have the growth,” Mulvaney said. “If we simply look at this as being deficit-neutral, you’re never going to get the type of tax reform and tax reductions that you need to get to sustain 3 percent economic growth.”
Is anyone else’s head spinning?
Remember, the GOP only holds a two seat majority in the Senate. If it comes down to a 50-50 vote then Vice President Mike Pence needs to cast the tie-breaking vote. That may not have to happen as we have seen with the attempts to “repeal” Obamacare. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is a moderate and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has no problem going against his party.
Corker once said that tax reform will be easier than Obamacare repeal. It looks like the senator may have to dine on his words.
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Comments
The GOPe really does want to go extinct.
Methinks all sorts of Americans will help them realize that wish come 2018 and 2020.
This tax reform would work to stop subsidizing big blue city homeowners at the expense of rural America.
So, naturally the GOPe is against it.
Nothing will happen while the GOPe leads the Senate.
These f89king morons need to get on board and pass something! I can understand Corker because he is gone next year (hopefully replaced by someone more concerned about the welfare of the people he is supposedly representing instead of the swamp)!
Their job is not to “pass something”. Their job is to stop bad legislation. No bill is usually better than a bad one.
“He took it a step further, by adding that a tax plan that doesn’t add to the deficit won’t spur growth.”
So, “Tax and Spend” is now the GOP formula, as well as the one they used to hang on the Deemocrats?
Now we CAN “spend our way to prosperity”…???
Well, when you take a reduction in entitlements completely off the table…as has Mssr. Arte d’Deal…you not nothin’ left but a crap sandwich.
And when you could have had a real “reform” in our tax code, you just decide to dick around the margine…well, business as usual.
Agreed.
“Entitlements”: America was sunk once it accepted this term.
While Corker is a true waste of protoplasm, Rand Paul has raised issues that I have complained about since the Republicans started touting “Tax Reform”. First, it is self-evident that nearly every single time politicians name a bill ” ______ Reform Act”, it is BOHICA time. You can think of as many examples as I: “Immigration Reform Act”, as well as all previous tax reform acts. All of the changes to the dreaded “deductions” are serious, serious tax increases on middle-class tax payers. The elimination of even more taxpayers from the roll of those actually PAYING taxes by raising the minimum taxable income level AND the creatively named “Earned Income Tax Credit” (which is actually a separate WELFARE BENEFIT (the MOST MISUSED part of the IRC). All that is necessary right now is to REDUCE the TAX RATES for everyone. Any simplification or other “reform” of the IRC should be debated over a long period of time AND any eventual version should have a start date ten (10) years from the date of enactment, to allow taxpayers, who have organized their lives around the previous law.
We will never get a handle on government spending until we address government spending. Taxes, in this case, are fairly moot. A *stable* tax system is critical for long-term planning, and a budget is critical for both long and short-term.
The spending patch runs out in December. A *good* Senate/House would have passed at least half of the seventeen or so budgetary groupings that make up the Federal budget by now. An excellent one would have done that by Oct 1, the end of Fiscal Year.
What we’re going to get (again) is a simple X% bump in every bloated budget item that got crammed through in 2008 and daisy-chained through omnibus budget agreements ever since. It doesn’t take Congress being in session for a year to do that. It would take about five minutes.
Preaching to the choir, I know…
Corker is toast so what he says is only temporary but Paul is the one that needs to go. His stands are like his father’s and are based on perfection with no room for compromise. Other than obamacare there are no good examples of perfection by any party. As it turns out obamacare was anything but perfection but the Dems thought it was. Paul can’t vote on anything but a total repeal of obamacare and that isn’t going to happen. There are all kinds of temporary problems with it that have to be covered until a replacement can be put in place. To suddenly repeal ocare with no transition policy in place would throw thousands of people out of their healthcare.The good people of KY need to get a replacement for Mr. Perfection.