Winners And Losers Of The Senate Tax Bill
Tony Nitti
... On the Senate floor, things went from shady to sham rather quickly. First, a list of possible amendments was handed out around Capitol Hill, but only to lobbyists, rather than journalists. Then, after a flurry of 11th-hour bargains were made to nail down the final few wavering Republican Senators, the final version of the bill -- now reduced to a lithe 479 pages -- was made available in the dead of night, and was voted on before you awoke. Even more embarrassing was the state the text of a bill that will shape our economy for the next decade was in, as it was complete with -- and I'm not making this up -- key amendments and alterations hand-written into the margins of the page, with large swaths of text simply crossed out. One enterprising twitter personality offered a $25 gift card to anyone who could decipher a critical piece of chicken scratch located on page 187.
If you're wondering how 51 Republican Senators can confidently vote for a piece of text so lengthy it would make Tolkien blush, well, they simply can't. Call me a cynic, but there is no chance any of the Senators fully grasp the impact of the sweeping tax changes they passed last night. I make my living in the Code, and 12 hours later, I'm still grappling with the intent and impact of certain provisions in the bill, as are other tax wonks ...
... the Senate bill will add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years. This is not up for debate. What is up for debate, however, is what the plan will cost after accounting for economic growth, or what is called the plan's "dynamic score." For months, deficit hawks within the GOP have been able to justify their vote for debt-financed tax cuts because Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn have continuously pushed the belief that the tax cuts will so dramatically boost the economy, that when it is all said and done, the bill will fully pay for itself. In other words, so much economic growth will be created by the plan that after ten years, there won't be an additional $1.5 trillion deficit; rather, there will be no additional deficit at all.
Mnuchin, Cohn and the like have remained steadfast in this belief, despite the presence of absolutely no empirical or anecdotal evidence to support such a claim. This refusal to accept battle-tested economic theory has, however, provided one fantastic moment of levity in this otherwise morbid process, as this article explains that of the 137 economists who reportedly signed a letter supporting the GOP's tax plan, many are retired, others may have never been employed as economists, and one may not even exist, the elusive Gil Sylvia, who I can only assume is a distant cousin of the equally-elusive Pepe Silvia of It's Always Sunny fame ...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2017/12/02/winners-and-losers-of-the-senate-tax-bill/#79992eb6254d
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