U.S. Economy, Budget, and Bills

[LFC]

The recovery is picking up a bit. Remember when Trump said the economy and stock market (same thing to him) would collapse if Biden was elected? How's that prediction working out for you, Donald?

The US pandemic recovery picked up speed in March with a massive rebound in employment, according to government data released Friday, gains driven by business reopenings and accelerating vaccinations.

But the data also show the signs of remaining damage after more than a year of shutdowns and restrictions due to Covid-19.

The economy regained 916,000 jobs in March, the biggest increase since August, with nearly a third of the increase in the hard-hit leisure and hospitality sector, the Labor Department reported.

The rise in hiring pushed the unemployment rate down to 6.0 percent from 6.2 percent in February.

However, even as the economy begins to recover from the Covid-19 shutdowns, employment is still 8.4 million jobs lower than the pre-pandemic peak, the report said.

[LFC]

The Republican shaped CARES Act gave a big, wet, sloppy kiss (tax breaks) to the fossil fuel industry who proceeded to lay of over 58,000 people. Welcome to Tinkle Down Economics, transferring more and more wealth into the pockets of the wealthy for 40 years.

Bolstering arguments against providing further public benefits to the fossil fuel industry, a BailoutWatch analysis published Friday reveals that 77 companies got a collective $8.24 billion tax bailout last year, then laid off tens of thousands of employees.

The tax benefits for major polluters resulted from two provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, signed by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020. The CARES Act changed corporate tax cuts from legislation that passed under Trump in late 2017, which critics often refer to as the Trump-GOP "tax scam."

"The impact of the change was highly concentrated, enabling each of the 77 firms to collect an average of $107 million in benefits," the nonprofit's new report explains. "Among the top beneficiaries, the contrast between the millions—even billions—they received and the number of workers they sacked is staggering."

According to BailoutWatch's review of fossil fuel firms' Securities and Exchange Commission filings, "Payrolls were cut by a net 58,030 jobs at the 74 of these companies that reported employee headcounts for the end of 2019 and 2020."

"The 62 companies that laid off workers collected $7.65 billion through the tax bailout—about $131,000 for each of the 58,488 people they left jobless," the report says. "Five companies filed for bankruptcy protection after receiving $308.7 million in tax bailouts and laying off a total of 5,683 workers."

[LFC]

Republicans are screeching about Biden's infrastructure bill because (GASP!) it contains tax increases to pay for it. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) went on with Chuck Todd to bitch about it publicly. Chuckles tore him up. If you're being pwned on the facts by the likes of Chuckles then you aren't ready to appear anyplace but in the right-wing noise machine. Stick to Hannity and OAN. They'll treat you nicely.

Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd pressed Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) on former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, noting that the tax plan could be seen as an “economic failure” since the promises of massive economic growth never came true.

With President Joe Biden proposing increases in corporate tax rates to help pay for his $2.3 trillion infrastructure spending bill, Republicans have pushed back, complaining that the tax hikes on the wealthy will inevitably lead to job losses and impact small businesses. Wicker attempted to make that argument during his Sunday appearance on Meet the Press.

“What the president proposed this week is not an infrastructure bill,” the senator groused. “It’s a huge tax increase, for one thing. It’s a tax increase on small businesses, on job creators in the United States of America.”

He added: “How can the president expect to have bipartisanship when the proposal is a repeal of one of our signature issues in 2017 where we cut the tax rate and made the United States finally more competitive when it comes to the way we treat job creators? He reverses all that.”

Todd, however, pushed back on Wicker’s claims, pointing out that Republicans and Trump boasted at the time that the tax cuts would pay for themselves and would grow the economy at a much faster rate, things that have yet to come true.

“This tax cut that you guys put through in 2017, there were various promises made, that they would pay for themselves,” Todd declared. “Hasn’t come close to that. It was going to produce 4, 5, 6 percent growth. We didn’t even get 3 percent.”

“At one point former President Trump said this thing is going to pay off the debt like it’s water. As you know, the debt is way up,” he continued. “You look at this tax cut proposal, when most of the benefits seem to go to stockholders, with corporations didn’t do what you thought they were going to do which is take the savings and invest. They instead did stock buybacks. Wasn’t this tax cut an economic failure?”

Wicker disagreed with the NBC News anchor, blaming the slow growth numbers on the pandemic while citing the strong employment numbers prior to the lockdowns brought about by the coronavirus. At the same time, Wicker also wanted to let Todd know that “some of these predictions you mentioned I never participated in.”

[LFC]

Now it's Chris Wallace's turn to smack a Republican upside his head over his stupidity and hypocrisy.

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace cornered Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) over renewed complaints from Republicans about the rising national debt in the wake of the Biden administration’s proposed spending bills, asking Blunt if the GOP has lost any “credibility on these issues.”

With the White House pushing forward a $2.3 trillion infrastructure spending proposal that President Joe Biden has said will largely be paid for with corporate tax hikes, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) grumbled about the price tag while calling it a “Trojan horse.”

McConnell also said “it’s not likely” that he’ll support the bill, adding that it’s “going to have massive tax increases and trillions more added to the national debt.”

Noting that some of Blunt’s Republican colleagues are complaining that the bill will “explode” the national debt and deficits, Wallace aired some graphics that showed how fast the debt rose during the Trump administration.

“During the Trump presidency, even before the pandemic, the national debt increased by more than $3 trillion and in 2017, every Republican in the Senate, including you, voted for the big Trump tax cuts which cut revenue by almost one and a half trillion dollars,” Wallace said on Fox News Sunday.

“So I guess the question is, when I hear for instance Mitch McConnell talking about debt and deficits, hasn’t the Republican Party—haven’t you lost your credibility on those issues?” the Fox News anchor added.

“Well, I don’t think anybody has a very good record for the last decade on this,” Blunt conceded. “I think the deficit under the Obama years and the Trump years are very similar.”

Do you think the deficits were "very similar?" Do you really, Mr. Blunt? Or are you just another lying Republican shitbag? Let's go to the data.

[LFC]

The WaPo Editorial Board is stating the case that the proposed removal of the cap on the SALT (state and local tax) deduction is an unfair tax break for the rich. I have several problems with this and bolded the biggest one.

NEWLY IN control of Congress and the White House, and with a huge policy to-do list left over from the Trump years and the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats are fairly overflowing with legislative ideas, many of them worth pursuing — and at least one that is decidedly not. We refer to the push by some congressional Democrats to reinstate the federal tax deductibility of state and local taxes paid.

Such a measure would deprive the government of up to $80 billion per year to help pay for President Biden’s ambitious environmental, infrastructure and health-care plans. Yet if the history of this break’s impact is any guide, more than half of the benefits would accrue to the top-earning 20 percent of taxpayers, according to the Tax Policy Center. There’s nothing progressive about that; frankly, there’s nothing particularly centrist about it.

Democratic proponents of reinstating full deductibility of state and local taxes — or SALT — point out, correctly, that it was part of the tax code for more than 100 years until the Trump tax bill of 2017 capped the deductible amount at $10,000. The net effect was to reduce the deduction’s cost to the government from $100.9 billion in fiscal 2017 to $21.2 billion in fiscal 2019, a savings Republicans used to help cut tax rates for individuals and corporations.
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There is simply no denying, however, that the SALT deduction disproportionately benefits well-off households, and that limiting it was one of the few aspects of the Trump bill that actually promoted tax progressivity. It also reduced a nontransparent transfer from the rest of the country to high-tax, high-service states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland. Proponents of the SALT deduction, many of whom represent upper-income, Democratic-leaning cities and suburbs in the aforementioned states, say restricting it amounted to a federal penalty on states that offer a higher level of education, public health and the like. The better way to render such federal support, though, is openly and directly, via spending — as Mr. Biden has already done through his covid-relief bill, and as he plans to do in a new $2 trillion infrastructure package.

So my big problem with this is that it completely ignores how these states are disproportionately forced to provide funds for other states. They literally just picked 3 perpetually giving states and Maryland only gets more because it's adjacent to D.C.

My next problem is that this is the taxation of taxes, something that I have an issue with.

Another issue I have is that to get to "more than half of the benefits" they had to go from the very wealthy to "the top-earning 20 percent of taxpayers." That's a big expansion plus they didn't bother to analyze the other half of the benefits.

There are others who I see as having better ideas on this. Here's an article that the Tax Policy Center has on ideas to offset the impact of removing the SALT deduction cap. I like the idea of limiting itemized deductions. If done right we might even be able to get rid of the AMT.

[LFC]

Here's the top comment replying to this article. The author is more elegant than I was.

The SALT deduction was in place, unconstrained, for over 100 years for a good reason: you can't take the same dollar twice.

Under the Tenth Amendment, the States have primacy with regard to taxes. Taxes levied by States and subordinate governmental units come first.

Example: A person holds inherited property that is taxed at $30K per year. That was fully deductible in the past. Now, only $10K is deductible. The person earns $60K per year. Looking just at SALT, only $30K of income could be taxed in the past; this is the amount of income remaining after paying the property tax. After Trump & Co. meddled, $50K of income is taxable.

In a more extreme example, we approach the point where a person's income could be taxed 100%.

Some might say this person needs to divest the expensive property that has been in the family for generations. Others might insist the property be put to work so it pays for itself. The owner is the owner -- something Republicans like to champion.

In fact, the SALT change under Trump and McConnell served to punish blue states and blue urban areas where property taxes are generally much higher than in red states and the rare urban area that tends red. It was political vengefulness, dressed up in pious purging of tax loopholes, as an offset to the obvious benefits to rich people of reducing the top-end income tax rates.

Killing the SALT cap will not "cost" the Treasury billions, as stated in the opinion. No. In fact, that amount that would be "lossed" is an illegal taking. Theft by statute.

You can't tax and take the same dollar twice. The SALT cap is wrong. It must go.

[AnBr]

I think I might have posted this older article on the old board, but it is still relevant. Want to Kill Your Economy? Have MBA Programs Churn out Takers Not Makers.

After the financial crisis of 2008, many people predicted that there would be a crisis of capitalism. The best and the brightest would forgo careers filled with financial ledgers and become teachers or engineers, or start small businesses. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. In fact, getting an MBA has never been a more popular career path. The number of MBAs graduating from America’s business schools has skyrocketed since the 1980s. But over that time, the health of American business has decreased by many metrics: corporate R&D spending, new business creation, productivity, and the level of public trust in business in general.

There are many reasons for this, but one key factor is that the basic training that future business leaders in this country receive is dictated not by the needs of Main Street but by those of Wall Street. With very few exceptions, MBA education today is basically an education in finance, not business—a major distinction. So it’s no wonder that business leaders make many of the finance-friendly decisions. MBA programs don’t churn out innovators well prepared to cope with a fast-changing world, or leaders who can stand up to the Street and put the long-term health of their company (not to mention their customers) first; they churn out followers who learn how to run firms by the numbers.

[andydp]

For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.


Baron de Montesquieu

Just sayin`

[LFC]

After Republicans were mocked for their first squawking about the budget deficit, predictably timed for right after Biden took office, crazy eyed Rick Scott (R-FLuck Off Rick) is taking another hypocritical swing at it.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) has a plan for how the GOP can put an end to the raft of items on President Biden’s legislative agenda.

Refuse to raise the national debt ceiling.

In comments to NBC News, Scott said that he was pushing for spending cuts ahead of the July 31 deadline to raise the national debt ceiling.

“Our job is to be a fiduciary for the American taxpayer. That’s my job,” said Scott, after spending years voting to increase the debt limit as the deficit grew thanks to massive tax cuts passed by the Trump administration.

The comments come as Scott, who is in charge of campaigns for Senate Republicans in 2022, grasps for ways to undermine the Biden administration.

Tell ya' what, Rick. First thing you can do is to draw up an actual detailed, substantive bill that pays for all of the Republican tax cuts. When you find that $2T and can get it passed then you can talk about fiscal responsibility. Until then you can STFU.

[LFC]

More Republican posturing on earmarks and debt ceiling. They're beyond pathetic.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called the debt ceiling language "aspirational." Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the top Republican appropriator in the upper chamber, said it’s “a statement which we all believe in.”

“It's a good statement — probably meaningless — but it's a good statement,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was among the Republicans who said they will request earmarks as part of the spending process, while Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said he would not participate.

The new focus on fiscal conservatism follows years of Republican support for deficit-busting tax cuts, bigger Pentagon budgets and billions of dollars for a southern border wall touted by Trump. With President Joe Biden now in the White House, a number of Republicans have veered back to caring about the federal debt, unwilling to support the president’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure proposal and instead floating a smaller package totaling roughly $600 billion to $800 billion.

"We live in fiscally irresponsible times and both parties are equally guilty," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) after the internal discussion on Wednesday.

Equally guilty, Rand? Do tell.

[jackd]

President Obama and Lawrence Tribe to the contrary notwithstanding, it's always been hard for me to understand why Section 4 the 14th Amendment prohibiting the questioning of financial obligations of the United States doesn't make the debt ceiling irrelevant. It was included in the amendment to prevent newly reunited Southern legislators from withholding Union soldier's pensions but was not limited to that.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 22, 2021 16:46:11 GMT LFC said:

More Republican posturing on earmarks and debt ceiling. They're beyond pathetic.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called the debt ceiling language "aspirational." Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the top Republican appropriator in the upper chamber, said it’s “a statement which we all believe in.”

“It's a good statement — probably meaningless — but it's a good statement,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was among the Republicans who said they will request earmarks as part of the spending process, while Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said he would not participate.

The new focus on fiscal conservatism follows years of Republican support for deficit-busting tax cuts, bigger Pentagon budgets and billions of dollars for a southern border wall touted by Trump. With President Joe Biden now in the White House, a number of Republicans have veered back to caring about the federal debt, unwilling to support the president’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure proposal and instead floating a smaller package totaling roughly $600 billion to $800 billion.

"We live in fiscally irresponsible times and both parties are equally guilty," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) after the internal discussion on Wednesday.

Cornyn and Shelby are showing some good sense...debt ceiling deadlocks work against the Republicans and they know it, but the base doesn't so they straddle the fence.   

Earmarking got such a bad reputation but really it was the grease that made compromise possible.  Congress people bringing home the bacon used to be the way to re-election, but the ideologues took over to convince the base that any compromise with the evil Dems was a bad thing.  

[LFC]

Biden's proposed tax increases have Republicans screeching to the hills. Of course he's not proposing anything that's radical at all, just a reversal of prior radical tax cuts that have failed spectacularly for the vast majority of Americans.

Biden is reportedly proposing to increase the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 percent. The President also wants to see the tax rate for long-term capital gains go up to 43.4 percent for those making a million dollars or more each year.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page thundered that “Bernie Sanders was right when he predicted that Joe Biden would be the most left-wing President since FDR. Moderate Joe was always a mirage.” And Anthony Scaramucci, the investment banker and, briefly, Trump White House spokesman, told the FT that the capital gains hike “would have deleterious effects on job creation and wage growth for middle-class workers.”

It’s true that the tax proposals as currently reported are aimed at collecting revenue from the country’s wealthiest in order to finance programs aimed at helping those less well-off; national paid-leave, universal pre-K, and other social programs.

But in the context of the past few decades, and even the past few years, Biden’s proposal is hardly eyebrow raising.

Take the proposed marginal income tax hike. The highest income tax bracket currently has a 37 percent rate; Biden would raise that to 39.6 percent.

Last time taxes were that high was … 2017, before the passage of the Trump tax cuts. The number pales in comparison to the top marginal rate of, say, 1954, when it stood at 91 percent before deductions.

The proposed capital gains hike goes further, but it’s nothing that the country hasn’t seen before.

The current top long-term capital gains rate is 20 percent. Biden would reportedly hike it to a combined total of 43.4 percent — that’s a top capital gains tax of 39.6 percent for those making one million or more a year plus a proposal that would add a 3.8 percent investment tax on top of the capital gains rate. White House officials have emphasized that the increases would affect a small portion of taxpayers.

MarketWatch notes that the market is already bouncing back from the kneejerk selling of yesterday. Why? Because past evidence shows that a hike in capital gains, especially for the wealthiest people, won't really impact stock prices.

Blink and you might have missed the stock-market selloff blamed on the White House’s purported plans to hike the capital-gains tax rate on America’s wealthiest investors.

After falling more than 320 points, or 0.9%, for its biggest one-day drop since early March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.67% on Friday took back a chunk of those losses. The S&P 500 SPX, +1.09%, which also tumbled 0.9% on Thursday, ended with a gain of 1.1% after briefly trading above its its record closing high from April 16.

The drop, which came Thursday afternoon, was widely blamed on news reports that President Joe Biden would propose hiking the capital-gains tax rate on people earning more than $1 million a year from 20% to 39.6%. Combined with an existing surcharge, high income individuals would face a capital-gains rate of as high as 43.4%, Bloomberg noted.

Cue the number crunchers, who were quick to point out an important fact about changes in the capital-gains tax rate: history shows they don’t have much, if any, effect on stock-market returns.

In the most recent example, capital-gains tax rates jumped by nearly 9 percentage points in 2013 but stocks rose 30% that year, noted Mark Haefele, chief investment officer for global wealth management at UBS, in a note.

“In addition, we find no correlation between capital-gains tax rates and equity market valuations,” Haefele wrote. “Price-to-earnings multiples have been as low as 10x when the capital-gains tax rate was 20%, and as high as 18x when it was 35%. Ultimately, other factors such as the outlook for economic growth, monetary policy, and interest rates are much more powerful drivers of equity market returns and valuations.”

[AnBr]

Another example of how right-wing economics have no basis in reality. Hell a lot of the times much of what they claim is not only false, but the exact opposite is true.

[LFC]

Robert Reich proposes we get rid of stepped up basis at death. My view is that we keep it but that we assess tax on the majority of assets at death.

How do we prevent America from becoming an aristocracy, while also funding the programs that Americans desperately need?

One way is to get rid of a tax loophole you've probably never heard of. It's known as the "stepped-up basis" rule.

Here's how the stepped-up-basis loophole now works. Take a man named Jeff. At his death, Jeff owns $30 million-worth of stocks he originally bought for a total of $10 million. Under existing law, neither Jeff nor his heirs would owe federal tax on the $20 million of gains because they're automatically "stepped up" to their value when he dies — $30 million.

Under Biden's proposal, Jeff's $20 million of gains would be taxed. And don't worry: Biden's proposal doesn't touch tax-favored retirement accounts, such as 401-Ks, and it only applies to the very richest Americans.

As it is now, the stepped-up basis loophole enables the super-rich, like Jeff, to avoid paying more than $40 billion in taxes each year. It has allowed them to skip taxes on the increased values of mansions and artworks as well as shares of stock.

I really like Canada's approach. When somebody dies their estate must "sell" all of their assets and realize all capital gains. (An exception is made for a surviving spouse.) These gains are taxed in the decedent's final income tax return. So everything gets taxed but there's no estate tax. I accept having some exclusion amount but the current $11.7 million per person is an insanely high tax dodge.

[LFC]

Add increased taxation and I think Joe Biden's view of the need for investment in the U.S. is vastly more realistic than the Jude Wanniski / Art Laffer / Paul Ryan / Ayn Rand view.

President Joe Biden on Friday proposed a $6 trillion budget to "reimagine" the US economy and stave off Chinese competition, though driving the United States into record debt -- and with Congress first needing to give approval.

Announcing the proposed spending, Biden said a post-pandemic United States "cannot afford to simply return to the way things were before."

"We must seize the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new American economy," he said.
Raw Story Exclusive: John Dean Claims
Trump Impeachment Lawyer Misled John Roberts

The president's annual budget is more a wish list or a message on his priorities than anything else. Congress ultimately decides what money goes where and the current Congress has only the narrowest Democratic majority.

Opposition Republicans are leery of any big new role for the central government. Even some of Biden's supporters warn that an economy already set to roar back from the Covid-19 shutdown risks getting swept up into an inflationary spiral.

But the massive plan signals the White House's determination to put hard numbers on Biden's campaign to rethink the relationship between government and business in what he says is an existential contest with China.

Under the Biden blueprint, the federal spigot would unleash $6.011 trillion in 2022, with increases gradually rising to $8.2 trillion in 2031. Debt as a percentage of annual GDP would be expected to quickly surpass the level seen at the end of World War II.

The Democrat made clear where the lion's share of that expected $6 trillion price tag should go.

One huge chunk would be an infrastructure bill originally proposed at $2.3 trillion but since whittled down to $1.7 trillion in negotiations with Congress.

Another $1.8 trillion would go on increased state-funded education and social services -- all, Biden argues, part of building a better 21st century workforce.

The overall aim, Biden said, is to grow the US middle class, while positioning "the United States to out-compete our rivals."

It seems like the GOP is doing everything in their power to create a weaker, less competitive nation while simultaneously handing a large slice of the economic benefits to the rich few. (In other words they don't really want to "make the pie higher.") Education? Privatize! Higher education? F*** it. Infrastructure? Privatize! Expand the consumer class who make up 70% of the economic activity in a year? F*** 'em. Nothing they do makes long-term sense for a thriving economy that works for the majority of people. Everything they do makes total sense for the creation of an oligarchy.

[goldenvalley]

May 28, 2021 18:58:04 GMT LFC said:

It seems like the GOP is doing everything in their power to create a weaker, less competitive nation while simultaneously handing a large slice of the economic benefits to the rich few. (In other words they don't really want to "make the pie higher.") Education? Privatize! Higher education? F*** it. Infrastructure? Privatize! Expand the consumer class who make up 70% of the economic activity in a year? F*** 'em. Nothing they do makes long-term sense for a thriving economy that works for the majority of people. Everything they do makes total sense for the creation of an oligarchy.

Hit the nail on the head, LFC.  This is the statement of the week, probably of the year.

[LFC]

Yes, the Trump economy really was worse for the average worker than the Obama economy. Not that the sheople who follow Dear Leader would ever believe it.

Remember Donald Trump bragging about what a fabulous job he did raising the incomes of what he called "America's Forgotten Men and Women"? Chalk that up as yet another Trump con job. Most of the 160 million tax-paying American households were worse off, even before the pandemic stuck.

Average incomes fell in 2019 compared to 2018, data released Wednesday by the Internal Revenue Service shows.

The real shocker: the vast majority of American households made more money during Obama's last year than in Trump's third, my analysis of IRS data reveals, and we can expect that when figures for the plague year 2020 are released next year that the falloff will be much, much greater.

Under Trump, the share of total income going to the prosperous and wealthy grew by a whopping 17% between 2016 through 2019.

Trump true believers may insist this can't be so, but the truth comes from the Trump Administration's own data. Indeed, the IRS commissioner serving today, Charles Rettig, was appointed by Trump, so there's no reason to doubt this data, which I have analyzed for decades.

Why Incomes Shrank

That most Americans had smaller incomes in 2019 than 2016 comes despite the size of the American income pie growing over those three years by more than 12% to nearly $12.2 trillion.

Households making a quarter-million dollars or more increased from about 4.4 million to 5.9 million. That's a 34% increase compared to a 6% increase in the total number of tax returns, showing how growth is up the income ladder.

The quarter-million-dollar-and-up households expanded their share of income pie from 28.6% under Obama to 33.4% under Trump.

From the perspective of these high-income households, that's a 17% larger slice of the pie. That meant everyone earning had to divide a smaller share.

Average incomes in the quarter-million-and-up group slipped from $697,044 in 2016 to $687,588 per taxpayer household in 2019.That's because most of the 1.5 million new households in this high-income category entered it near the threshold, bringing down the average.

This new data is consistent with my earlier DCReport analyses. They showed that average incomes grew in 2017, continuing a trend that began under Obama in 2010 and continued in 2018. However, under Trump job growth ran about 3% slower than under Obama.

[LFC]

I actually don't have an issue, at least in part, to the core proposal of reducing benefits for the wealthy. It makes sense but I doubt it will get us as remotely far and still does little to reduce the wealth gap caused by vastly favorable tax policy for high-end earners. Still it's worth discussing. I do want to point out the instant tell that this a right-winger writing this (bold mine).

As structural budget deficits grow to trillions of dollars and politicians promise even more spending, “tax the rich” has become a progressive rallying cry. Meanwhile, conservatives typically prefer spending cuts to reduce the deficit.

There is a simple bipartisan compromise: Cut federal spending on the rich. This would accomplish both the progressive goal of increasing government redistribution from the rich to the poor, and the conservative goal of shrinking government.

Beyond representing a healthy bipartisan compromise, this approach, which is the topic of my new Manhattan Institute report, “Cut Spending for the Rich Before Raising their Taxes,” is also sound policy. While economists debate the magnitude, there is a broad consensus that steep tax rate increases reduce incentives to work, save, invest, and be productive. Taxes distort economic decision-making, incentivize expensive avoidance and evasion schemes, and often drive income away from the jurisdictions doing the taxing. Reducing federal spending on the rich can achieve the same redistributive goals as taxing them, without all these broader economic harms.

Uuuuuuhhhhh, what do you mean by "steep?" Return to Clinton era rates and capital gains taxed as ordinary income? Or 90% marginal rate for all income over $500,000? As for taxes distorting decision making and avoidance/evasion schemes well I guess he's been living in a cave for the last 5 10 20 years.

BTW this author rated the Republican Tax Cut and Jobs Act a "B-" and claimed it was quite progressive due to the higher standard deduction increasing the percentage of people who don't pay income tax while studiously ignoring just where the lion's share of the money went. In the past few weeks he's screeching about an infrastructure bill and the evils of debt. Uh huh.

[goldenvalley]

How does "reducing federal spending on the rich" work? Does that mean not letting them collect Social Security and enroll in Medicare? I suspect that doesn't save much money.

[LFC]

Jun 9, 2021 21:31:30 GMT goldenvalley said:

How does "reducing federal spending on the rich" work? Does that mean not letting them collect Social Security and enroll in Medicare? I suspect that doesn't save much money.

He claims $1T in the next decade and increasing after that. If he's remotely close then it makes up for only about half of the lost revenue from the Republicans' most recent tax cuts. It doesn't come close to touching the Bush tax cuts before that.

[LFC]

Sen. Chuck GrAssley (R-IAmADumbF***) is a senile old clown. Thought to be fair he likely wasn't very bright when he was younger so I shouldn't blame his age for a life-long affliction.

Despite the fact that this blow-out jobs report came in the sixth month of President Joe Biden's tenure, however, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) gave credit for last month's massive job creation to former President Donald Trump.

"U.S. adds 850,000 new jobs in June," Grassley wrote on Twitter. "The pre pandemic best economy in 50 [years] started by Trump tax cut is roaring back after a virus interlude."

Of course, the "virus interlude" mentioned by Grassley saw unemployment surge to 15 percent in April 2020, when the American economy lost a record 20 million jobs in just one month.

Additionally, Grassley failed to mention the massive $1.9 trillion economic rescue package passed by Democrats earlier this year as a factor in the economy's rapid recovery.

And apparently no mention of a pretty successful vaccine rollout, despite mostly Republican opposition, that is allowing things to open back up safely.

[goldenvalley]

It's executive order time.

Today, President Biden is issuing an executive order that tries to address the economy’s competition problem. It directs regulators to take specific steps to reduce monopoly rents in multiple industries. Among other things, the order would:

Make it easier for generic-drug makers and Canadian providers to compete with U.S. pharmaceutical companies.

Allow Americans to buy hearing aids without a prescription (a 2017 law — signed by Donald Trump — called for that, but it still has not happened).

Require hospitals to be more transparent about billing (a problem that my colleague Sarah Kliff has documented).

Force airlines to refund money when they lose bags or when the in-flight Wi-Fi doesn’t function.

Make sure that farmers can repair their own equipment or choose who repairs it, rather than allowing manufacturers to dictate who can.

Increase federal scrutiny of tech companies’ mergers and their use of consumer data, as David McCabe and Cecilia Kang of The Times explain.

Restrict “noncompete clauses,” like the ones that restaurant chains and retailers use to keep workers from accepting a job at a rival.

[indy]

Jul 9, 2021 16:07:31 GMT goldenvalley said:

It's executive order time.

Today, President Biden is issuing an executive order that tries to address the economy’s competition problem. It directs regulators to take specific steps to reduce monopoly rents in multiple industries. Among other things, the order would:

Make it easier for generic-drug makers and Canadian providers to compete with U.S. pharmaceutical companies.

Allow Americans to buy hearing aids without a prescription (a 2017 law — signed by Donald Trump — called for that, but it still has not happened).

Require hospitals to be more transparent about billing (a problem that my colleague Sarah Kliff has documented).

Force airlines to refund money when they lose bags or when the in-flight Wi-Fi doesn’t function.

Make sure that farmers can repair their own equipment or choose who repairs it, rather than allowing manufacturers to dictate who can.

Increase federal scrutiny of tech companies’ mergers and their use of consumer data, as David McCabe and Cecilia Kang of The Times explain.

Restrict “noncompete clauses,” like the ones that restaurant chains and retailers use to keep workers from accepting a job at a rival.

I expect hearing aid prices to plummet as companies like Apple and Samsung enter the market.

[goldenvalley]

I expect hearing aid prices to plummet as companies like Apple and Samsung enter the market.

That would be nice.  My husband's little  hearing aid was over $3000 3 years ago. That was for just one ear. There's an even more super duper one available now that's far more.