Tax bill passes in senate 51-49

[franklin]

Doesn't look like it, DanoneWave (as they are now known since they bought WhiteWave) is headquartered in NY.

That doesn't matter. DanoneWave is owned by Danone, and their official headquarters appears to be in France so the subsidiary is also technically headquartered in France. From their interim report, the effective tax rate on all their companies (they didn't differentiate by company or country), is 30.3 - 32.x%. It's possible under the new tax code that the US now becomes Danone's tax shelter.

 

[♪alt13]

I'll offer one possible silver lining to this robbing of the Treasury. This bill will certainly create inflation, allowing the Fed to raise rates to what is considered more normal levels without inducing a recession. In fact, it's reasonable to speculate that in an economy already over full employment, all the lowered taxes will do is go to either inflation or savings. You cannot create jobs or grow the real economy when there are no more workers. You can grow nominal GDP and hopefully improve the debt:GDP. The downside, of course, is that any gain the middle and lower classes would have gotten would be completely erased by inflation. You don't get more money when it's equal nominally to an inflationary increase.

And most of us will wait a year or more for our wages/salaries catch up. Yeah inflation!

Rich people get more money that they get to spend at today's prices, cause inflation, and then drag their feet increasing the pay of their workforce. Woo-hoo

Deficit spending is a transfer of wealth. In this case(most cases) from the working poor to the wealthy. Whoever gets the "new dollar" first gets a little bit of every one else's dollar.

 

[Deleted member 365]

Wait, are some of you still debating whether this tax bill will actually increase the deficit?

Dude...

Guys...

Stop trusting what the orange clown says.

It’s really not that hard.

The CBO, the Tax Foundation, Heritage, hell even Goldman Sachs predicts these tax cuts to add $1 trillion onto the deficit by 2019.

The question isn’t whether this is redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class or whether this will add to the deficit, the question is if the GOP will swing for the fences and shred New Deal programs and safety nets to make up for the deficits?

Many repubs, knowing that they’re facing a blue tidal wave, might see that they have nothing to lose and finally fulfill their fantasies of erasing major progressive reforms. Some repubs might see an opportunity here to slash entitlements, since many of the individual tax cuts won’t expire for another decade. Make the cuts now, while you control all 3 branches.

Paul Ryan, for instance, has already said that the house will target SS and Medicare next year. Marco Rubio has hinted as much. McConnell and Trump meanwhile, have denied their desires for entitlement reform. But that won’t mean they won’t. They may see 2018 as their last year to get anything done.

So I think we are debating the wrong issue here.

* We know it’s going to add to the deficit.
* We know it won’t stimule the economy. We are already at full employment.
* Business owners have already admitted in conferences with Munchin that these tax cuts will be manifest in shareholder dividends and CEO bonuses, not job creation or salary increases.
* we know this will only lead to increased wealth inequality and political instability. But the GOP has thrived on this issue, successfully deflecting the primary cause and successfully deflected the blame onto entitlements and immigrants.

* But what we don’t know is what will be cut because of this tax cut. What do the Kochs and Mercers want to slash?

If entitlements are slashed but trump voters (the GOP core) are too stupid or brainwashed by Fox News to understand, then why won’t congresspeople support entitlement reform since they’ll be primaried for being too liberal?

 

[Deleted member 365]

https://www.salon.com/2017/11/17/ceos-admit-they-wont-create-jobs-with-their-tax-cut-money/

White House economic policy adviser Gary Cohn saw one such indicator firsthand on Tuesday during a panel discussion at a conference for CEOs put on by the Wall Street Journal which featured he and a number of other prominent government and business leaders.

During a segment featuring Cohn and two other Journal editors, moderator John Bussey decided to take a poll of the business executives in the room about what they might do with extra money that would be freed up from the GOP’s tax cut plan.

“If the tax reform bill goes through, do you plan to increase investment?” Bussey said as he asked the assembled CEOs to raise their hands if they were considering doing so.

Almost none of them did so. The result clearly spooked Cohn. “Why aren’t the other hands up?” he asked with a nervous laugh. Rather than prolong the inconvenient moment, Bussey decided to move on to another question.

More recently, a formal poll of CEOs conducted in the summer by Bank of America and Merrill Lynch about the idea of temporarily relaxing corporate tax rates in an effort to encourage companies bring back profits earned overseas found that 65 percent of executives wanted to use the money to pay down their corporate debt.

Next on the list were stock buybacks. Both strategies did little to boost America’s economy but were beneficial to booting share prices.

https://www.salon.com/2017/11/17/ceos-admit-they-wont-create-jobs-with-their-tax-cut-money/

 

[Deleted member 365]

Back in Washington, the “reforms” described earlier are just a prelude to what House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and allies really want: the destruction of America’s social safety net. “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said Wednesday. “Frankly, it’s the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt.” In other words, it’s not just Medicaid in the crosshairs — it’s Medicare as well.

The tax plan creates exploding deficits.
Which then creates the need/sense of urgency to make cuts to safety nets.

So not only to you see redistribution of wealth via tax cuts but then the middle and lower class get hit with cuts to programs they primarily Benefit from.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...-is-just-a-prelude-to-attacking-entitlements/

 

[Deleted member 365]

Seemed to work just fine for ACA...

Stupid post. In what way was the ACA similar to this tax bill?

The ACA was debated for over 9 months, was presented in countless town halls, included over 100 amendments proposed by republicans (but then voted against because they wanted to make obama a one term president).

Oh, ontop of that, the ACA helped the country. Sure, some of you saw premiums go up. But that was already the case prior to the ACA passing. Some people act as if premiums had never gone up. Sheesh

Comparing the ACA to this unpopular tax bill literally written in the wee hours of the night by hundreds of lobbyists (with hand written notes and amendments) was unprecedented. Oh, and literally a handful of the richest Americans are benefitting from it. It’s the complete opposite of what trump campaigned on. He claimed he’d make rich people, like himself, pay their fair share and use those revenues to rebuild America. He’s doing the opposite. He’s pulling a reverse Robin Hood. He’s robbing his constituents and flooding the swamp he promised to drain.

So I’m not seeing the parallels to the ACA at all.

 

[fishonjazz]

Thriller killing it

 

[Deleted member 365]

Thriller killing it

Thank you.

One last post, doesn’t anyone find it a little suspicious that one year before this tax law kicks into effect that a handful of large corporations are already publicly announcing bonus checks to some employees? So clearly, they have the cash, why did they wait until this tax law was ramrodded through to give what could be a one time bonus check? Which, in the long run, will it compensate workers more the the tax increases/safety net losses?

Call me cynical, but I doubt this one time $1,000 dollar bonus that Comcast is offering to employees right now will compensate for the increased costs in health care due to the individual mandate being repealed and the cuts in safety nets required to offset budget deficits. Will it offset their increase in taxes due to SALT deductions going away? How about those who were using tution or medical deductions?

So IMO, it’s pretty disingenuous for large corporations to “award” employees with temporary bonuses (not salary increases) hoping they’ll forget how bad of a deal this tax law is for individual workers. Especially once the deficits explode and certain popular deductions expire in 2019-2027.

 

[Deleted member 365]

And boom goes the dynamite

[TWEET]944790800818466816[/TWEET]

 

[Gameface]

My

And boom goes the dynamite

[TWEET]944790800818466816[/TWEET]

What's it say?

 

[Deleted member 365]

My

What's it say?

Do I have this formatted wrong? Anyone know? Here’s the tweet(s)

In a rally in September:

“I have some very wealthy friends -- not so happy with me” - Trump to voters at a Missouri rally

Last night:

"You all just got a lot richer," President Trump told friends dining at Mar-a-Lago Friday night, hours after signing tax overhaul into law

 

[Deleted member 365]

Welp, this one is over. He is ending the year with a strong note.

Edit: AT&T and Comcast are giving $1,000 bonuses to their employees (at least 300,000 workers). AT&T announced a 1 billion investment in the U.S. Comcast announced 50 billion over the next 5.

@Stoked

This is a “strong note???” Really?

AT&T plans to lay off and fire more than a thousand workers starting early next year, according to local reports.

Across the Midwest, an estimated 600 workers were notified they were being laid off by the company on December 16, a week before AT&T announced it was doling out $1,000 bonuses to 200,000 of its employees in celebration of the Republican Party’s tax overhaul.

http://www.newsweek.com/christmas-att-layoffs-midwest-bonuses-trump-758391