# The 2017/2018 Trump/GOP tax plan **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 27, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442 "2017-09-27T17:47:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 39
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/761 "2017-12-05T21:53:56Z")
I can see the War on Christmas is in full swing. Happy Holidays, everyone! ---
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/762 "2017-12-06T10:20:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I can see the War on Christmas is in full swing. > > Happy Holidays, everyone! Merry Wintereenmas, every one. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/763 "2017-12-06T14:42:18Z")
Just want to note, on several occasions over the past couple of days (including when I was being sedated for my frigging colonoscopy!) I’ve heard folk discuss the proposed tax bill. Every single comment concerned the impact it would have on the individual’s tax liability. I lost consciousness before I could observe that not a single person has commented one way or another on the underlying propriety of the action - apparently reducing taxes on the wealthy, whether economic stimulus would result, or the increase of the debt. Congrats to the Repubs for capitalizing on we Americans being exceptionally egocentric, greedy, and short-sighted folk. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/764 "2017-12-06T14:47:46Z")
Tax reform of any kind is really meaningless until we put a balance budget in place. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/765 "2017-12-06T14:50:12Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Tax reform of any kind is really meaningless until we put a balance budget in place. Half of the budget is the revenue side. Cutting revenue is not something that usually helps to balance budgets. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/766 "2017-12-06T14:50:26Z")
How’s that goin’ for ya? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/767 "2017-12-06T14:52:24Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Just want to note, on several occasions over the past couple of days (including when I was being sedated for my frigging colonoscopy!) I’ve heard folk discuss the proposed tax bill. Every single comment concerned the impact it would have on the individual’s tax liability. I lost consciousness before I could observe that not a single person has commented one way or another on the underlying propriety of the action - apparently reducing taxes on the wealthy, whether economic stimulus would result, or the increase of the debt. > > Congrats to the Repubs for capitalizing on we Americans being exceptionally egocentric, greedy, and short-sighted folk. Well, you were hearing about it in a manner that was quite appropriate to the overall effect the tax bill will have on the country. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/768 "2017-12-06T15:54:59Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Using the numbers provided by Politico ($528M/1400 students = $377k/student), Toomey’s Senate amendment wouldn’t have even benefited Hillsdale College, as they apparently fall below the Senate version’s $500,000/student limit. That is true. But the Senate bill initially used the same $250K threshold as the House bill, and that number was amended _after_ Toomey proposed the “Hillsdale exemption.” In other words, at the time Toomey and Cruz put it forward, the exemption would only have benefited Hillsdale. What is unclear is why _he_ was still defending the exemption when it no longer benefited anyone (unless perhaps the DeVos family told him they were about to make the endowment a whole lot bigger). ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/769 "2017-12-06T17:38:09Z")
What is unclear is how anyone could consider the Hillsdale giveaway to be the key feature of the bill. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/770 "2017-12-06T18:02:17Z")
Not a key feature, but kinda cute, in the Adopt a Mangy Puppy sort of way. Your Father’s Oldsmobile Republicans used to crave intellectual foundations. They want learned papers from academic economists who will stroke their chins and say that this whole supply-side approach is the bee’s knees. And that massive tax breaks for the well-to-do and _corporadoes_ will shift the economy into high gear. Not so many of them left any more, but they are still there. They still hunger to drape some intellectual dignity on bankrupt policies and theory. As said, their power has waned since the arrival to power of the Batshit Baboon Brigade, but still enough to sneak in this little morsel. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/771 "2017-12-06T18:09:02Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > What is unclear is how anyone could consider the Hillsdale giveaway to be the key feature of the bill. Well, it certainly wasn’t a reduction of AMT. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/772 "2017-12-06T21:58:18Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > How big of a problem? I looked through the article and couldn’t find the amount. How much money do they need to find to be able to repeal the AMT? Is that a $100B chunk? $500B? $1T? This article says that the AMT shortfall is [300 billion](http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-reform-bill-mistakes-corporate-amt-2017-12?__twitter_impression=true). So, that’s another 300 billion worth of revenue (or spending cuts) they have to find now. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/773 "2017-12-12T00:43:48Z")
[Gaming the system](https://apnews.com/4b8757366b42434cacbc5db801691a59/In-tax-push,-Trump's-team-uses-a-dubious-growth-estimate)? > [@](#): > > The Treasury Department just gave Republicans ammunition that their tax cuts would pay for themselves. > > But the one-page memo relies on a mathematical gimmick: It includes an assumption that tax cuts and other Trump administration policies would cause the economy to expand at a 2.9 percent annual pace over 10 years. Economic growth at that level would, in theory, be enough to keep the national debt from rising. > > But most analyses have concluded that the Senate tax overhaul would add at least $1 trillion to budget deficits in the next decade because the analyses foresee significantly less growth resulting from the tax cuts. The U.S. economy has grown at an average rate of 2.6 percent over the past 30 years. But the annual pace has downshifted to roughly 2.1 percent since 2010 as baby boomer retirements have slowed the influx of people into the job market and worker productivity has lagged. > > The Treasury Department report enables President Donald Trump to claim that the Senate tax overhaul would pay for itself, even though outside analyses show otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/774 "2017-12-12T01:32:09Z")
Does the Treasury Department report get factored into the Senate scoring of the bill for reconciliation? Or is it just political ammunition? ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/775 "2017-12-12T03:41:22Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Does the Treasury Department report get factored into the Senate scoring of the bill for reconciliation? Or is it just political ammunition? For which side? The report says the tax cuts will pay for themselves. But only if they pass other legislation that makes the tax cuts pay for themselves. Which is not how this works. In other words, the report confirms that the tax cuts will not pay for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/776 "2017-12-12T14:58:33Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Does the Treasury Department report get factored into the Senate scoring of the bill for reconciliation? Or is it just political ammunition? No. Only CBO scoring can qualify a bill for passage via reconciliation. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/777 "2017-12-12T15:17:18Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No. Only CBO scoring can qualify a bill for passage via reconciliation. Thanks, that’s what I suspected, but I appreciate the confirmation. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/778 "2017-12-12T15:44:31Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > [This paper (PDF)](https://www.nber.org/chapters/c11534.pdf) analyses the home mortgage deception and is worth the read. I can’t quote from it (PDF), so I apologize for that. They find that it has, at best, a minimal effect on home ownership but does make the tax code less progressive. I’m mildly curious about this for reasons I don’t fully understand, but why can’t you quote from PDFs? > [@](#): > > This PDF is a selection from a published volume from > the National Bureau of Economic Research ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/779 "2017-12-12T15:57:38Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > I’m mildly curious about this for reasons I don’t fully understand, but why can’t you quote from PDFs? Some PDFs have strange formatting when you copy/paste like below. Random section from the linked PDF. > [@](#): > > The home mortgage interest deduction creates incentives > to buy > more > housing > and to > become > a > homeowner, > and the > case > for the > deduction rests > on social benefits from housing consumption > and > homeownership. There > is little evidence suggesting large externalities from > the > level > of > housing > consumption, > but > there appear > to be > externalities from homeownership. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442/780 "2017-12-12T16:08:53Z")
If that happens, to try to make it more readable I’ll copy into Word first, so I can get this: > [@](#): > > The home mortgage interest deduction creates incentives to buy more housing and to become a homeowner, and the case for the deduction rests on social benefits from housing consumption and homeownership. There is little evidence suggesting large externalities from the level of housing consumption, but there appear to be externalities from homeownership. Externalities from living around homeowners are far too small to justify the deduction. Externalities from home ownership are larger, but the home mortgage interest deduction is a particularly poor instrument for encouraging homeownership because it is targeted at the wealthy, who are almost always homeowners. The irrelevance of the deduction is supported by the time series, which shows that the ownership subsidy moves with inflation and has changed significantly between 1965 and today, but the homeownership rate has been essentially constant. At times, that doesn’t work either, so I’ll do some global search/replace to eliminate them. [Here’s an example](https://wordmvp.com/FAQs/General/DeleteParaMarksAtEndOfLines.htm) of how to do that. Worst is when the PDF is an image scan, then if I really want to quote from it I’ll have to retype it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442.md?page=38) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-2017-2018-trump-gop-tax-plan/797442.md?page=40)