Republican Senator Mike Crapo is full of Orwellian crap, says extending the Trump tax cuts which increased deficits by $1.7 trillion won't keep increasing deficits

 

 If you're not changing the tax code, you're simply extending current policy—you are not increasing the deficit. The bottom line here is that it's a $4.3 trillion tax increase, not a $4.3 trillion deficit increase. 

-- Mike Crapo 

Most of the tax cuts passed by Republicans during President Donald Trump’s first term, in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which raised deficits by $1.7tn, are set to expire at the end of 2025. ... Without new legislation, current law requires tax rates to return to their pre-TCJA levels. Maintaining the current policy would cost nearly $5tn in lost revenue over the next 10 years. 

-- Oren Cass

Passing economic legislation through the US Senate can by-pass the 60-vote rule if the legislation does not increase deficits beyond 10 years. 

The total public debt has ballooned by over $16 trillion under the Trump tax cuts.

Republican fantasies about using "current policy" to price the cost of extending the Trump tax cuts at $0 are illegal

House GOP explores alternative math on Trump tax cuts

 ... But the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires that Congress use "current law" to account for how much a tax cut will cost. ...

If you thought the GOP pretending that Ukraine started the war with Russia was nuts, behold Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho who wants to pretend that Trump's 2017 tax law wasn't passed under reconciliation rules

 

 Honest to God, these people are clowns.

Republicans consider major budget change to obscure deficit impact of extending Trump’s tax cuts

... Extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law in 2017, would cost $4.6 trillion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the official nonpartisan scorekeeper.

That’s under the “current law” metric that has traditionally been used, as the tax cuts are slated to expire at the end of this year. But Senate Republicans want to use a different scoring method called the “current policy” baseline, which would assume that extending tax cuts costs $0 because they’re already law.

The chair of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, endorsed the “current policy” approach, telling reporters that it “recognizes that extending current law does not change the tax policy, does not reduce tax revenue.”

Congressional GOP aides say the idea could have a huge impact on what they’re able to pass in the budget bill. If they use the current accounting process, they have no chance of making the 2017 tax cuts permanent, because that would require paying for it. And this process would also be key to unlocking Trump’s other tax proposals, like slashing taxes on tips and overtime pay. ...

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said it would set a “terrible” precedent if Republicans adopt that budgeting approach.

He said it would be a backdoor way to nuke the filibuster and take an anything-goes approach to the reconciliation process, which Congress can use once per fiscal year to evade the 60-vote rule in the Senate for changes to spending and taxes. The process imposes significant constraints, like needing to pay for long-term laws that add to the U.S. debt.

“My advice is: If they adopt that policy, we should advise the American people to forget about their credit card debt,” Neal said. “You wouldn’t have to analyze revenue and expenditure.” ...

The budget framework passed this week by the GOP House is guaranteed to raise the national debt by $19 trillion in 10 years, which means we'll be $60 trillion in the hole by 2035. 

All the shenanigans and pretending and make believe used over the years to get us to the current point of $36 trillion in debt, trotted out yet one more time aren't going to stop us from a date with $60 trillion in debt.

 

WE ARE NOT A SERIOUS COUNTRY.

So predictable: Democrats run on punishing the rich with new taxes to pay for more obscene spending, the rich run scared to transfer wealth under current rules to escape them

 

  Under current law, individuals can transfer up to $13.61 million (and couples can send up to $27.22 million) to family members or beneficiaries without owing estate or gift taxes.

The benefit is scheduled to expire at the end of 2025 along with the other individual provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. If it expires, the estate and gift tax exemption will fall by about half. Individuals will only be able to gift about $6 million to $7 million, and that rises to $12 million to $14 million for couples. Any assets transferred above those amounts will be subject to the 40% transfer tax. ...

With Harris and Trump essentially tied in the polls, the odds have increased that the estate tax benefits will expire — either through gridlock or tax hikes. ...

More than $84 trillion is expected to be transferred to younger generations in the coming decades, and the estate tax “cliff” is set to accelerate many of those gifts this year and next. ...

While giving the maximum of $27.22 million may make sense today from a tax perspective, it may not always make sense from a family perspective. ...

For families that plan to take advantage of the estate tax window, however, the time is now. It can take months to draft and file transfers. During a similar tax cliff in 2010, so many families rushed to process gifts and set up trusts that attorneys became overwhelmed and many clients were left stranded. Advisors say today’s gifters face the same risk if they wait until after the election.

More.

Despite FDA approval of mRNA COVID vaccines, you still can't sue the pharmaceutical companies, and the only government program adjudicating cases is hopelessly overwhelmed

This story is outrageous.

The bastards.

You are already completely out of luck if you received a jab more than one year ago and haven't filed a claim for an injury.

Some excerpts, but make sure to read the whole thing.

Reuters (June 16, 2022):

Part of the Health Resources and Services Administration, the CICP was designed to be “the payer of last resort” for people who suffered injuries from treatments or “countermeasures” related to “a declared pandemic, epidemic or security threat” like Ebola or anthrax. Payouts are limited to unreimbursed medical expenses and up to $50,000 a year in lost wages, with no provisions for pain and suffering or legal fees. A death benefit of $370,376 is also available. 

The CICP is the only option under current law for people seeking damages for COVID-19 vaccine-related injuries. 

Per a declaration under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, the federal government indemnified the vaccine makers, which are not party to CICP proceedings. A Pfizer spokesman declined comment. Media representatives from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson did not respond to requests for comment. 

Until March 2020, the CICP attracted little attention, deciding fewer than 500 cases in its entire history. It’s now drowning in a 16-fold spike in claims, with more than 5,400 COVID-19 vaccine injury cases pending. Another 2,990 allege injuries or death from other COVID-19 countermeasures, such as being placed on a ventilator. ... At the current rate of adjudication – 18 cases a month, by my calculation – it will take 38 years to get through the backlog. That’s not much help for claimants who are unable to work or pay rent right now. ... 

Without exception, the CICP requires claims to be filed within one year of vaccination.

If only Donald Trump knew that he was president

Feinstein urged Obama in 2014 to use 'broad power' to limit immigration:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told then-President Barack Obama in the summer of 2014 that he could use "very broad power" to limit immigration as he saw fit, according to a letter obtained by Fox News.

In the July 29 letter, Feinstein cites Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act -- the same federal legislation cited by the Trump administration Thursday in unveiling a rule denying asylum claims to migrants who enter the country illegally.

"Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States," the legislation states, "he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."

Feinstein's letter initially notes that the senator has discussed possible legislation with then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. Feinstein then writes: "there is also an argument that there is sufficient flexibility in current law for the government to respond to the current crisis and that further legislation is not needed." She adds that the authority vested in the presidency by Section 212 (f) means that "no legislation is necessary to give your administration the tools it needs to respond to this crisis, and that any needed temporary measures can be implemented through presidential action."

A DACA "fix" is a recipe for more illegal immigration

Amnesty for ‘Dreamers’ won’t solve policy flaw creating DACA dilemma:

"Congress itself has been the culprit. ...

Congress continues to refuse to mandate the well-tested and widely-used E-Verify system. The outlaw employers in construction, manufacturing, hospitality and other services, of course, don't use it. Thus, parents worldwide, at this very moment, are enticed to illegally cross borders and overstay their visas while starting their children on the path to the long-term illegal-status life that Dreamers say is untenable. ...

As soon as amnestied illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens, current law allows them to petition for their parents to also obtain lifetime work permits and permanent residency. ...

But in the lifetime of a young Dreamer given an amnesty today, there would likely be time not only to obtain lifetime work permits for the original chain of extended family but for that Dreamer's grandparents (as parents of the Dreamer's parents), aunts and uncles (as siblings of the Dreamer's parents), and cousins (the children of the Dreamer's aunts and uncles).

The chains don't stop there. Every one of those adults could immediately bring their minor children and their spouse. Every spouse can start the same chains in his or her families.

All of them could receive lifetime work permits to compete for jobs with working-age Americans who don’t have a job, nearly one-in-four Americans, according to government data.

That’s the reality of DACA amnesty that Congress needs to face."

Republican war on itemized deductions eliminates medical expense deduction

From the story here:

Under current law, the IRS allows individuals to deduct qualified medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of a person’s adjusted gross income for the year. The bill would repeal that itemized deduction, effective in 2018.

This is part of The Swamp's incremental war against taxpayer deductions.

For decades the threshold was 7.5% of AGI. Then under Obamacare it became 10%. Now it's gone entirely.

These greedy bastards must be stopped.

Insane Hillary Clinton proposes Chinese Communist Party-style interference in free-markets, obliterating short term/long term holding definition

current law says long term holding begins after 365 days

law under Hillary extends that to six years

Story here.

Sounds similar to the Chinese Communist Party recently telling investors they cannot sell. 

Rich Radio Talkers To Make Bazillions Off AMT Fix And Don't Know It!

The New York Times reported the cost to the federal government of the permanent AMT fix over the next decade at $1.8 trillion, here, based on the findings of the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Do you know what that means?

If something costs the federal government something, it means it saves someone something, namely, the (mostly) rich taxpayers who pay the damn thing, who now get to bear the blame in the liberal media for increasing the deficit over the next decade because of it. That's a good thing to a conservative, last time I checked (keeping the money, not getting the blame), unless you are a conservative radio talk show host whose stupidity is exceeded only by the size of his paycheck. (Sean Hannity is so stupid he's actually criticizing the fiscal cliff deal because it does just that, increase the deficit. Someone should tell him he's just adopted the liberal argument that tax cuts increase the deficit, not that it would do any good). Teams Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingraham and Beck really ought to call their CPAs before they continue shooting their mouths off about what a massive victory Obama just achieved on the backs of the rich. The irony here is that while Obama thinks he just won a free Cadillac, it turned out to be a Pontiac from Rent-A-Heap, delivered by Rush, Sean and Glenn. They made Laura drive.

When are you stupid people out there in radio land going to get it? Like this guy does:

"The AMT fix, like the Medicare 'doc fix' was an end of year ritual that couldn’t be resolved permanently.  Why you may ask?  Because any permanent fix would reflect in the CBO’s deficit and debt estimates for the years going forward.  Fixing the AMT for any one year was considered a cost for that particular year, but the CBO would base their estimates by current law, which would have the AMT not being fixed for the next year and every year afterwards.  Fixing the AMT for one year is a cost of 92 billion dollars.  A permanent fix it for the next ten years costs almost a trillion dollars.  From a purely crass, political position, having the costs of a permanent fix to the AMT and Bush income tax cuts accrued under the Obama administration ( two items that Republicans wanted to do but could never find the money for):

Priceless.

However all is not well in conservative talk radio land.  I made it a point to listen to what I think was a fair cross section of conservative radio for their take on all things fiscal cliffdom, and I must say, it was a muddled mess of incoherence."

We've Already Got a Democrat Stoner Schizophrenic as President, We Don't Need a Republican One

With more and more people realizing that repeated use of the weed is bad for your health, a new study in the news links marijuana use to various mental problems like schizophrenia:

Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric research at Kings College London, said: "This study adds a further brick to the wall of evidence showing that use of traditional cannabis is a contributory cause of psychoses like schizophrenia."

Among the signs and symptoms which schizophrenics may exhibit are these behaviors not often firmly attributed to habitual use of marijuana as a cause of the mental illness:

. . . disorganized thinking and speech. The latter may range from loss of train of thought, to sentences only loosely connected in meaning, to incoherence known as word salad in severe cases. Social withdrawal, sloppiness of dress and hygiene, and loss of motivation and judgement are all common in schizophrenia. There is often an observable pattern of emotional difficulty, for example lack of responsiveness.

The American people should think about that paragraph and ask themselves:

Why does Obama rely so much on his teleprompter, even in the smallest of settings?

Why did Obama exhibit such an inappropriately light mood in his first public comments after the Ft. Hood terrorist incident?

Why did it take Obama so many days to respond to the Fruit of Kaboom bomber incident?

Why was Obama the last world leader to come out and condemn Gaddafi?

And then they ought to think about this from Jacob Sullum for Townhall.com, here, about Indiana's Republican Governor and presidential hopeful, Mitch Daniels:

But like many pot smokers who became politicians, Daniels -- a potential contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination -- seems to have two standards of justice: one for him and one for anyone else who does what he did.

Although Daniels was caught with enough marijuana to trigger a prison sentence, he got off with a $350 fine. Yet he has advocated "jail time" for "casual users" -- a stark illustration of the schizophrenic attitudes that help perpetuate drug policies widely recognized as unjust.

According to the Princetonian, "officers found enough marijuana in (Daniels') room to fill two size 12 shoe boxes." Under current New Jersey law, possessing more than 50 grams (about 1.8 ounces) of marijuana is a felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison. Given the amount of pot Daniels had, he easily could have been charged with intent to distribute, which under current law triggers a penalty of three to five years.

At the time of Daniels' arrest in May 1970, New Jersey's marijuana penalties were even more severe.


Not exactly your daddy's Republican.