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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRepublicans Angry at Economists for Finding Their Tax Cuts Go to the Rich
By Jonathan Chait at NY Magazine
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/republicans-angry-economists-find-their-tax-cuts-go-to-rich.html
"SNIP..........
Friday, the Tax Policy Center published an analysis of the Republican tax-cut plan, finding that nearly 80 percent of its benefits would accrue to the highest-earning one percent of the public. Asked about these findings, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called the center the National Tax Center, erroneously charged that a former economic adviser to Joe Biden works there, and used this imagined fact to discredit its calculations (Its not surprising that, you know, a former chief economic for a Democrat vice-president doesnt like a Republican tax plan.)
A slightly more coherent version of the argument comes from the The Wall Street Journal editorial page. The Journal dismisses the Tax Policy Centers findings as propaganda, arguing that the Republican plan is not completely finished. That is true: The GOP framework omits key details, as the Tax Policy Center acknowledges (Many aspects of the plan were unspecified or left to be determined by the tax writing committees in Congress. The Tax Policy Center (TPC) has completed a preliminary analysis of the proposals contained in the unified framework based on previous proposals such as the House Republican leaderships A Better Way blueprint and the Trump administrations April outline, read the third and fourth sentences of the report).
Republicans would prefer to use this ambiguity to prevent any analysis, so that there is no hard evidence available for a public debate. Instead, TPC filled in the details with the elements of the plan that House Republicans proposed. The Journal has repeatedly gushed about the House plan, so it would be very strange for the Journal to attack the TPC for assuming House Republicans will take up the ideas the Journal has urged them to take up. If House Republicans change the contours of their proposal, then the Tax Policy Center will publish a new analysis reflecting the changes.
The Journal editorial argues that, while journalists describe the Tax Policy Center as bipartisan, Its record of hostility to any GOP tax reform that cuts tax rates shows the opposite. It is true that the TPC regularly publishes reports indicating that Republican tax proposals confer a large proportion of their direct benefit upon the highest-earning households. The Tax Policy Center hates Republicans is one way of explaining this fact pattern. Likewise, the FBIs long-standing pattern of charging members of the Gambino family with federal crimes could be explained as FBI bias against the Gambinos. On the other hand, it might just be the case that the Gambino organization commits a lot of crimes and TPC calculations keep showing that Republican tax-cut plans benefit the rich because Republican tax cut plans always benefit the rich.
............SNIP"
Eliot Rosewater
(31,151 posts)90% of us want background checks, guess what.
The GOP has no concern what the public thinks, only what the billionaire class that run them thinks.
Remember, a healthcare bill that would have KILLED us was OK with 49 GOP senators.
gopiscrap
(23,768 posts)ThoughtCriminal
(14,057 posts)When it is finished you can bet that it will be even more wealth-friendly.