Republican elimination of personal exemptions gives me an idea for truly revolutionary tax reform

In 1913 when the income tax began there was no such thing as the standard deduction. That didn't come along until 1944.

The original income tax was a class tax, a tax on the wealthy, just as was the corporate tax instituted in 1909. From the beginning it came with a personal exemption of $3,000 and if you were married $4,000. Dependent exemptions didn't begin to be added until 1917, starting at $200.

Guess what the personal exemption of $4,000 would be in 2016, adjusted for inflation? $100,000. Times all the individual wage earners in America in 2016 $16.3 trillion would be exempt from taxation. In the third quarter of 2017, personal income in the United States wasn't even $16.5 trillion. 

In other words, the original personal exemptions of the tax code adjusted for inflation would exempt all current personal income from taxation, except for maybe $200 billion.

As far as I'm concerned, the government can have that.

Now that's what I call a tax reform.

Most Americans will be hoodwinked by Republican tax reform because they never do their own taxes

56% use a paid preparer, and 34% use tax software, according to figures reported here.

That means 90% of individual filers really have no idea how the numbers have worked in the past, and therefore they are most likely going to have not the slightest idea how the tax reform will change them.

I'm betting Republicans are counting on this as they try to rush this through by Thanksgiving.

Your goose is cooked, sir.

Republican tax reform includes a sneaky tax increase on itemizers, removing the personal exemption privilege

Josh Barro, here:

Currently, you get to take the personal exemption even if you also itemize deductions, but you get to take the standard deduction only if you forego itemized deductions. Combining these provisions into a single, standard deduction would mean itemizers lose their personal exemption and get nothing back — meaning they'll typically pay tax on an extra $4,050 of income if they're single, or $8,100 if they're married.

Total nonfarm jobs grow at the pathetic pace of 167,000 per month y/y in October 2017

PAYEMS

Ron Wyden: Republicans to let corporations deduct state and local income taxes but not individuals

The Democrat Senator is quoted here:

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said that Republicans were employing a double standard, giving corporations a better deal than individuals. ... “Corporations will still get to deduct their state and local taxes, but individuals and families won’t,” Wyden said.

The Republican tax reform is evil: It goes after the very young and the very old

Parents of large families no longer get dependent exemptions for their multiple children under the proposed Republican tax reform, thereby exposing more of their income to taxation, income which parents need to raise these future taxpayers. It's almost as if Republicans are trying to discourage giving birth to the future country.

And medical expenses are no longer a thing under the plan. It's mostly elderly people who rely on the deduction of medical expenses to keep solvent in old age, but the deduction also helps others who experience catastrophic medical expenses under high deductible plans or under no plan. It's almost as if Republicans want these people to suffer complete and utter penury because of medical necessity.

For the first time in my Republican life I'm having to consider that Republicans deliberately went after these two groups, the most vulnerable in our society. It's almost unthinkable after all these years that the pro-life party is nothing of the sort.

If stuff like that stays in the plan I'm going to be facing the prospect of having to consider seriously voting for the enemy.

Who knows. Maybe that's what Republicans want. They've become so liberal now maybe they want us to fulfill this very clearly expressed tax reform death wish by throwing them out of office.

Tax reform verdict: Big business likes the plan released today, the broad market just shrugged

The DOW gave a thumbs up . . .

. . . but the broadest measure of the market just shrugged.

Big business gets a tax rate cut to 20%, but pass-throughs only to 25%

Republicans are favoring established big businesses at the expense of smaller and independent businesses. In essence they are protecting the already successful from those who only dream of being as successful. Combine the loss of other deductions being eliminated under the tax reform proposal and pass-through filers will find that their big tax cut is not so big after all. 

"One rate for thee, but another for me".

From the story here:

The bill would lower the top rate for income from "pass-through" businesses from 39.6 percent to 25 percent. These businesses, which include some small businesses, otherwise have their income taxed through the individual code on their owners' returns. But NFIB [National Federation of Independent Business] says that most small businesses wouldn't qualify for the lower rate because of the way the new rate is structured.

Additionally, the bill as a default position would not allow income from personal services businesses, such as law and accounting firms, to be eligible for the 25-percent rate.

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.

CNBC's Jake Novak lets it slip that his libertarian hatred of single family homes has been aesthetic all along

Seen here, italics added by me:

Second we have perhaps the most controversial proposal: The plan to cap mortgage interest deductions for new home purchases at $500,000, but keep the rules as is for existing mortgages. This starts the long-needed process of eliminating a tax policy that mostly aided the rich and has aided America's ruinous and unsustainable suburban single-family home sprawl. 

Funny how so many Americans like to live in that suburban sprawl instead of in cities.

Funny also how they overwhelmingly vote Republican.

Funny Rush hasn't mentioned it lately, but his infamous "94 million eating but not working" are still there one year later

Looks like as much as 5,000 tons of US yellowcake were shipped by Uranium One to Canada and then on to Europe and Asia

From the story here:

NRC memos reviewed by The Hill show ... that it did approve the shipment of yellowcake uranium — the raw material used to make nuclear fuel and weapons — from the Russian-owned mines in the United States to Canada in 2012 through a third party. Later, the Obama administration approved some of that uranium going all the way to Europe, government documents show. ...

Rather than give Rosatom a direct export license — which would have raised red flags inside a Congress already suspicious of the deal — the NRC in 2012 authorized an amendment to an existing export license for a Paducah, Ky.,-based trucking firm called RSB Logistics Services Inc. to simply add Uranium One to the list of clients whose uranium it could move to Canada.

The license, reviewed by The Hill, is dated March 16, 2012, and it increased the amount of uranium ore concentrate that RSB Logistics could ship to the Cameco Corp. plant in Ontario from 7,500,000 kilograms to 12,000,000 kilograms and added Uranium One to the “other parties to Export.”

The move escaped notice in Congress. ...

The entire Uranium One episode is getting a fresh look after The Hill disclosed late last month that the FBI had gathered extensive evidence in 2009 — before the mine sale was approved — that Rosatom’s main executive in the United States was engaged in a racketeering scheme that included bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering.

Climate update for Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 2017

Grand Rapids, Michigan, climate update for October 2017

Max Temp: Actual 82, Mean 79

Min Temp: Actual 28, Mean 28

Av Temp:   Actual 55.2, Mean 51.3, YTD Actual 54.06, YTD Mean 51.08

Precip:       Actual 9.69, Mean 2.98, YTD Actual 34.67, YTD Mean 29.26

CDD:         Actual 11, Mean 8, YTD Actual 719, YTD Mean 693

Average temperature is running 5.8% ahead of mean to date.

The warmest years on record here were considerably warmer at this stage.

In the warmest full year on record by average temperature, 2012, average temperature year to date was 55.84, 1.78 ahead of 2017 year to date and 9.3% ahead of mean to date.

In the second warmest full year on record, 1931, average temperature year to date was 54.35, 0.29 ahead of 2017 year to date and 6.4% ahead of mean to date.

In the third warmest full year on record, 1921, average temperature year to date was 56.00, 1.94 ahead of 2017 year to date and 9.6% ahead of mean to date. 

If you're among the 59% who think this is the lowest point in American history, you're a dumbass

In 2009 in Obama's America, nearly 30 million people filed first time claims for unemployment. That high point is the lowest point in recent memory. And if you can't remember that, you're either a moron, on drugs, or NINE.

Story here.

Yeah, Hillary and Harvey, they know who Trump is

Michael Savage interminably asks why no one will have him on their shows despite his many bestsellers

The answer is simple. He's a traitor to his tribe, which runs most of the shows, if not all of them.

The only reason itemized deductions are on the table is a minority of 30% of tax filers itemize

And when it comes to minorities, they're only as effective at protecting their interests as their lobbyists. We'll see how strong those lobbyists remain, but Republicans in the House and the Senate are clearly divided, and seem to have joined the side of the enemy. The latter aim to pitch deductibility of state and local income taxes, while the former aim to pitch deductibility of mortgage interest.

It's weird beyond odd that Republicans are having a war over tax deductions when they should be having a war over spending. Republicans used to be the "no new taxes" party, but have become the "no tax deductions" party instead, which means they're more interested in raising revenues than in cutting your taxes (which implies cutting spending).

Just 44.7 million itemized in 2015, out of 149.7 million returns.

Watch your wallets.

Discussed here.

Putin did not want Trump and $50 a barrel oil, Putin wanted Hillary and $120 a barrel oil

Seen here in the comments.

If you're having trouble summarizing the Russia mess so far, Pat Buchanan lays it out for you

Here:

Thus we have Free Beacon neocons, never-Trump Republicans, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the DNC, a British spy and comrades in Russian intelligence, and perhaps the FBI, all working with secret money and seedy individuals to destroy a candidate they could not defeat in a free election.

Laugh of the Day: "I'm not afraid to call myself a moderate"

Only in election season.

Senatrix Claire McCaskill, Missouri's arch feminist, here.