Tax "Reform?"

I'm not going to write a long analysis of the Republican tax reform proposals in Congress, because, quite frankly, I don't have to go through all that pretentious mumbo-jumbo.  I'm just going to come right out and tell you what I think of it - it sucks!

Most of the tax breaks in this plan go to cuts in the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, which benefit . . .rich people.  Deductions for student loans, medical expenses, and other expensive necessities would be eliminated, as would, in the Senate version of the bill at least, deductions for property taxes . . . so that property owners all pay their fair share.  But it would hurt a homeowner in New Jersey, where the cost of living is high, than it would affect a homeowner in Tennessee, where the cost of living is much cheaper.  The main reason it's so expensive to live in northern New Jersey is because of its proximity to New York City.  Of course Tennessee is a cheaper (and more Republican, by the way) state to live in.  Who wants to live in Knoxville?

Republicans have fixed the process so that there is no way that Democrats can stop the tax reform bill, not even through a Senate filibuster.   Trump wants it on his desk to sign before Christmas.  The GOP has have the power to pass it without debate - Soviet-style rubber-stamp legislating without the Marxist ideology.  But there are enough differences between the House and Senate bills to make it awfully hard to reconcile by Christmas . . . Christmas 2018.  Trump wants it passed by this Christmas (2017).  One can only hope that this bill goes the way of their GOP's disastrous health care "reform."

And that is all I have to say on this subject. >:-(  

The Democratic election victories?  I'll get to that . . ..            

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Fifth Generation Reaganomics

First there was President Ronald Reagan's 1981 supply-side economic program . . . cut domestic spending, cut taxes on the rich, let them invest money in factories, and more people will join the workforce and contribute to the tax base.  In other words, tax work instead of wealth.  Reagan economics - called, henceforth, "Reaganomics" - worked, at least in the short term, but not the way Reagan, Arthur Laffer, Jude Wanninski, and other economic conservatives envisioned.  The rich people invested their tax cuts in themselves, and most of the jobs created in Reagan's eight years - which lowered the employment rate from 7.4 percent in February 1981 to 5.4 percent in January 1989, making Reagan the only Republican President since World War II to leave office with the unemployment rate lower than what it was when he entered office - were low-wage jobs that no one could reasonably expect to make a living from.

The tax cuts blew up the deficit and caused a recession, forcing tax increases in 1990 under the senior George Bush and another tax increase under Bill Clinton in 1993.  With the passage of a budget that year that increased domestic spending, then-House Speaker Tom Foley, a Democrat from Washington State, said we had come to the end of Ronald Reagan.

Ironically, he lost his House seat in the Gingrich revolution of 1994 that gave us a Republican Congress and Reaganomics Mark Two.  Only President Clinton's firm stand on deep spending cuts, plus a 1995 government shutdown that neutralized Speaker Newt Gingrich, prevented another deficit; in fact, with many tax hikes still in place and with measured spending cuts to boot, a budget surplus was generated.  Not to mention decent jobs.   

Then came the third iteration of Reaganomics with George Walker Bush and his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, blowing the surplus and putting the country deeper in debt and leading to the loss of good jobs that, quite frankly were lost for good.  And military spending went way up thanks to not one but two wars in the Middle East.  And then came the 2008 financial crisis.

Barack Obama then came into office with a Democratic Congress in 2009, with many Americans thinking we'd seen the last of Reaganomics. Fourth generation!  The Tea Party came into power in Washington in 2011 and brought it back.  More jobs lost, more tax breaks for wealthy people.

Now Donald Trump is the White House with a Republican Congress, and his tax reform proposal is essentially Reaganomics Mark Five - Reaganomics on steroids.  I won't go into the details, because, quite frankly, neither has Trump.  The proposal - which would pretty much give corporations a huge tax break - only takes up one page of a ream of paper. 

We've seen this movie before.  And not only does it keep getting worse, the celluloid is wearing very thin.

Just Say Hell No

The Republican party - a party once expected to fade away until the Democrats got blamed for the foundering economy and ended up looking like the Whigs of yore - has been showing its resurgence by saying no to everything in the lame-duck session of Congress. Senate Republicans have unanimously pledged to stop all Senate business until they get the tax cuts for the rich that they want. Even if the Democrats did stand up to them (don't give it a second thought, they won't), nothing to help the people will get accomplished.

That includes lifting the ban on gays in the military, which got a lot of momentum from a study released yesterday saying it wouldn't have an affect on unit cohesion. Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, military veterans both, have suggested that while lifting the ban can be done, the study fails to say whether it should be done. President Obama should come right out and tell the Republicans not to play semantics with him on this issue and make them feel the heat. Not in this month of December or in any other month will that happen.

As for the tax cuts, the only recourse for the Democrats is to let them expire and let the Republicans take the blame for a sudden tax hike on the middle class. But the Republicans never pay a price for leaving the unemployed high an dry by refusing to extend unemployment insurance, as they just did again. They only get applauded by those who have jobs for not spending more money on freeloading the jobless, even though benefits are meager for individual claimants and it would help the economy by generating two dollars worth of economic activity for every dollar paid out. If taxes go up, and the Democrats try to place the blame on Republicans for their refusal to compromise (again, not going to happen), Frank Luntz will probably come up with some scary slogan to deflect the blame to the Democrats (which will happen regardless).

All of this Republican brinkmanship over taxes have set the tone for the foreseeable future, and possibly beyond that. And the reason the Republicans are not in trouble for their greedy, swinish, nasty values is because the voters also have greedy, swinish, nasty values. Say what you will about Fox News, a lot of people are actually watching it.

Guess Who's Coming To the White House

President Obama had his long-delayed meeting (without dinner) at the White House with Republican congressional leaders today, and I'm sure that the result in finding common ground on issues such as the extension of the Bush tax cuts and extension of unemployment benefits was that the President gave his orders to the White House staff on how to proceed . . . right after John Boehner and Mitch McConnell handed those same orders down to him.

Rumors that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is working on a proposal designed to appease Republicans sound very Chamberlainish. The White House has to choose between compromise or conflict in dealing with Republicans. The President is on the verge of choosing compromise. He will have conflict. Some of it will come from a liberal base once convinced that the President would stand up for their interests. I don't care what pundits like Jonathan Alter says about trying to get along with Republicans or big business, because they have the most power to create the private-sector jobs we need. How is Obama going to get anything he wants if the Republicans demand everything they want? Meanwhile, eight hundred thousand unemployed Americans are about to lose their benefits tonight with no congressional action.

The federal government, swinish as it is, isn't evil. The Senate did pass sweeping food safety regulations in this lame-duck session, and the House finally got around to compensating black farmers for their earlier failures to get federal aid after a court ruling in the farmers' favor. So, there's that.

But it should be more.