And they got rid of the idea of taxing graduate student tuition grants as income. That’s an important change!
I just came in to post about that as well, John. AP story.
Other than the top rate dropping to 37%, it sounds like the changes coming out of the conference committee ought to make Democrats happy (or, perhaps more precisely, happier than the original version that passed the Senate).
It still sabotages the financial basis of the Affordable Care Act. The people have made it pretty clear they don’t want it repealed, but this bill sneaks it in and essentially does just that. There’s also the trillion or so dollars added to the national debt.
Happy is the wrong word. Why should most people be happy with this claptrap?
To how many significant digits are you measuring happiness?
I’m generally happy with it because my taxes are going to go down. That would be, I imagine, the primary motivation for most people to feel happy about it.
Are you most people?
I’m not. I said “ought to”. I have no actual expectation that it’ll receive a single D vote, or that any non-conservative Doper will express even begrudging approval / acceptance.
I won’t likely suffer much at all, other people will, and I give a fuck. If that adds up to “happy”, well, OK.
Gasp! He’s actually read my e-mails asking him to consider his place in history!
Or maybe not, but it’s a nice thought.
I’m genuinely confused by this. Who are you thinking of that will suffer and that you give a fuck about? Other than me, of course. 
It’s been in the news, John.
I might suffer a little, but I don’t mind that if the money were actually going to pay for things I care about. Instead, we’re looking at cuts to Medicare starting in 2018, a plan from the Ryan wing to make much bigger cuts because of the hole in the budget they are causing, and higher premiums for people trying to afford health care coverage, which is likely to disproportionately affect people over 50 who are not yet Medicare eligible–resulting in many losing coverage/skipping care, resulting in higher costs for Medicare when they are eligible. What a great idea. What could go wrong?
OK. Thanks. I can’t say I’m fully convinced that those predictions about health care will play out as they say, but I can see that reasonable people could disagree about that, so I wouldn’t discount someone else accepting those predictions.
Which predictions?
Concerning healthcare. Whether people will drop out when they really don’t want to and how the subsidies will be affected. You have to go to the WaPo story linked to in Elvis’ cite as that cite only makes an assertion about folks making under $30K being affected, but it doesn’t say why. Making such assumptions about people’s behavior is tricky, plus it’s predicated on getting rid of the Individual Mandate, which I was never in favor of. But, I’m sure most of the poster here are in favor of it.
There’s a ton about the bill that concerns health care. Getting rid of the mandate is just a part of that. I can’t really dispute the rest of what you say, since you’re just apparently basing it on a feeling.
What are the other parts of it?
Not sure if you have addressed this – does the bill’s impact on the deficit and debt concern you at all?