Every college degree earned, lessens the value of a college degree, right?

Educated people create externalities that are not captured in terms of salary alone. I think most economists would disagree that there are diminishing returns to education on a societal level. Well I dunno if most, but the answer is not entirely obvious.

Educated people create externalities that are not captured in terms of salary alone. I think most economists would disagree that there are diminishing returns to education on a societal level. Well I dunno if most, but the answer is not entirely obvious.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

The House Republican tax plan would add $1.3 trillion to the national debt over a decade, even after accounting for new economic growth from the bill, according to a nonpartisan study released Monday.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center is the third outside group to conclude that the bill would add to the deficit, contradicting Republicans’ claim that the bill would effectively pay for itself via a surge in economic growth.

The Tax Policy Center found that the economic growth the bill would create would add $169 billion in additional tax revenue over the next decade. But that would be far outweighed by $1.436 trillion in revenue losses over the decade due to the bill’s tax cuts, leaving the bill with a net addition to the deficit of $1.266 trillion.

The Tax Policy Center found that the House Republican tax-cut package would add 0.6 percent to U.S. gross domestic product in 2018 but just 0.3 percent in 2027.

The White House and Republican leaders have repeatedly criticized the Tax Policy Center’s work, saying it doesn’t accurately measure the positive economic effects from economic growth.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said the GOP tax plan would add roughly $2.5 trillion in new revenue over 10 years, far surpassing the $169 billion projected by the Tax Policy Center. President Trump has said the tax plan could lead to a loss in revenue in the near term but that a jolt of economic growth in the future would more than recoup the losses.

But, so far, most prominent outside groups have published findings similar to the Tax Policy Center’s, projecting that the tax-cut plan would add large amounts to the debt, even when accounting for economic growth.

The Tax Policy Center concluded that the bill would reduce average tax rates for many households in the first few years, boosting their income and leading to more spending.

“These economic benefits would be modest because most tax reductions would accrue to high-income households, who spend a smaller share of any increases in after-tax income than lower-income households,” the Tax Policy Center said.

The report also said that the economic impact of the tax cuts could be greater if the economy were in a recession, but unemployment is already very low and the economy has shown signs of growing at a faster clip without the tax cuts.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania found that the House GOP tax bill would grow the economy by between 0.4 percent and 0.9 percent over 10 years but still lead to a loss in revenue of between $1.470 trillion and $1.697 trillion.

And the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, which has been broadly supportive of the bill, estimated that the House GOP tax bill would cut revenue by close to $2 trillion, but then raise revenue by 3.5 percent over 10 years, adding back $908 billion in revenue. On net, the Tax Foundation found, the bill would add roughly $1 trillion to the debt.

oh hey the debts important now

Ah, Lemonparty, the 8th sacrament.

I dunno. If one of my party's core platforms is being the fiscally responsible guys...probably yes?

I caught that "wonderful" Wisconsin Senator, Ron Johnson on CNBC this morning. I am not sure guys like this understand pass through entities. We all get that private companies in this country produce a lot of jobs. Well, so do public companies. That is not the issue.

Why the hell should a corporation get to avoid entity level income tax, and then when that income is passed through to its owners, they get to then pay a lower income tax rate than wage earners? It makes absolutely no sense.

These Congressman are ripe with inconsistencies and poor logic in their advocacy of certain tax provisions. If you want to make tax filings simpler, you wouldn't create a new tax rate for pass throughs. And then they are exempting some businesses like law firms and leaving current law in place.

Give me 30 minutes on the Senate floor to rip both parties for their crappy logic. "We now recognize the dishonorable poster from CFMB, denisdman, CPA (Libertarian-IL)"

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

THE BIG IDEA: Outside groups on the right are furiously mobilizing against an agreement that Republican leaders made with Bob Corker yesterday to get the tax bill through the Senate Budget Committee.

The Tennessee Republican negotiated a budget deal in September that the tax cuts cannot increase the national debt by more than $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. Now he’s concerned about various gimmicks and overly rosy assumptions in the bill that would almost certainly mean the true impact on the debt is far greater than that. So the retiring senator has been pushing in recent days to include a “trigger” that would automatically increase taxes down the road if the bill fails to generate the level of economic growth that Republicans leaders keep publicly predicting.

It’s not clear what exactly GOP leaders promised Corker, who declined to share specifics with reporters. He said the amendment will be included in an updated version of the bill that is likely to be released publicly on Thursday.

But the constellation of groups funded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers – including Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners – came out strongly against any trigger last night. They were joined by Grover Norquist from Americans for Tax Reform, the Wall Street Journal editorial board and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

They argue that a trigger, if it occurred, would likely increase taxes during an economic downturn, which they fear would cause stagnation. They also complain that it would inject even more uncertainty into the tax system, which would make it harder for businesses to plan their long-term investments

President Trump flew to Missouri Wednesday to pitch his tax plan as a great benefit to the middle class, but a new analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's official scorekeepers, shows that many American families won't pay significantly less under the Senate GOP tax bill.

Trump has promised Americans “huge” tax cuts, but only 44 percent of taxpayers would see their tax bills reduced by more than $500 in 2019, according to JCT's analysis of the winners and losers in the plan. The chart below was first reported by The Washington Post after a GOP senator's office shared it.

“We're going to give the American people a huge tax cut for Christmas — hopefully that will be a great, big, beautiful Christmas present,” the president said last week.

Overall, the majority of Americans -- 62 percent -- would get a tax cut of at least $100 in 2019, according to JCT. The remaining 38 percent would either pay about the same in taxes as they do now or get a tax hike.

But by 2027, just 16 percent of Americans would get a tax cut of at least $100. The "winners" fall dramatically because the tax cuts for individuals go away in 2026 in the Senate GOP plan. Republicans argue that those tax cuts are likely to be extended by a future Congress.

Democrats have criticized Trump's tax plan as a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy. Republicans have fired back that their plan cuts tax rates for everyone and makes U.S. businesses more competitive, which should lead to more jobs and higher wages. While the Senate GOP plan does cut all individual tax rates in the coming years, it also takes away some popular credits and deductions such as the state and local tax deduction (SALT). The result is that not everyone gets a tax cut.

Republicans have already been pointing out that a substantial number of millionaires aren't winners in this tax plan: Nearly 20 percent would see their taxes go up in 2019, according to the JCT and almost a third of millionaires would pay more by 2023. Democrats have focused on how the vast majority of the poor — those earning less than $20,000 — aren't any better off. Most of those people don't pay any federal income taxes, but they aren't getting any more of a refund.

For Trump, the most important selling point is tax cuts for the middle class. Among families with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000, JCT found that 80 percent get a tax cut of $100 or more in 2019, but 10 percent would pay about the same, and the remaining 10 percent would face a tax increase of $100 or more. Many of those people getting a tax hike probably itemize their deductions now.

By 2023, 15 percent of middle-class taxpayers would pay more. And over a quarter would pay more by 2027.

Wealthier Americans, earning between $500,000 to $1 million, appear to get the biggest benefits: 91 percent of them get a tax cut of at least $100 in 2019. In contrast, 46 percent of the working poor, who make between $20,000 and $30,000 a year, would get a tax cut of at least $100.

Many of the working poor filers don't pay anything in federal income taxes now, but some are eligible for refunds from the government where they receive money back, a tactic designed to encourage people to work. What JCT is showing is that only about half of those filers would get additional money in their pockets (a.k.a. larger refunds) from what they get now.

Republican Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Mike Lee (Utah) proposed an amendment Wednesday that would give the working poor a much larger tax break, but a White House spokesman said the president doesn't support the idea because it would require a corporate tax rate of 22 percent instead of 20 percent to pay for the bigger benefit to those families. Senate Republicans plan to vote on their bill Thursday or Friday.

“What we’ve seen is a mad dash to pass a bill that can’t pass scrutiny in daylight,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Wednesday night.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa responded that there is "very significant tax relief" for the middle class in the bill, "but you would never know it listening to my colleagues in the other political party."

Congress’s nonpartisan scorekeeper, the Joint Committee on Taxation, announced yesterday that the Senate GOP tax plan would add $1 trillion to the deficit — even after accounting for the positive impact from economic growth. “The tax committee projected the bill would raise economic growth by only 0.8 percent over a decade, a small fraction of what Republicans had projected,” Heather Long reports. “Some Republicans argued that the tax committee’s report just couldn’t be correct. Yet outside experts were not surprised by the results, which align with the view of many mainstream economists and several independent analyses.”

-- The JCT numbers drew fresh attention to the fact that the Trump administration has never followed through on its commitment to release an analysis to back up its claims that these tax cuts will pay for themselves.

Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, has said repeatedly that over 100 people on his staff are “working around the clock on running scenarios for us,” Alan Rappeport notes in the New York Times. “Mr. Mnuchin has promised that Treasury will release its analysis in full. … [But] those inside Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy, which Mr. Mnuchin has credited with running the models, say they have been largely shut out of the process and are not working on the type of detailed analysis that he has mentioned. An economist at the Office of Tax Analysis, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his job, said Treasury had not released a ‘dynamic’ analysis showing that the tax plan would be paid for with economic growth because one did not exist. Instead of conducting full analyses of tax proposals, staff members have been running numbers on individual provisions or policy ideas, like lowering the tax rate on so-called pass-through businesses and figuring out how many family farms would benefit from the repeal of the estate tax.”

Facts, like integrity and history don't matter to the grand old (party of) pedophiles

If you hate Laurence, then don't listen - don't comment. When he co-hosts the B&B show, take that day off ... listen to an old podcast of a Bernstein solo show and jerk off all day.

I smell a bit....

Isn't that what the over loved CBO does?

Isn't that what the over loved CBO does?

Isn't that what the over loved CBO does?

You think they are overloved?

You think they are overloved?

Educated people create externalities that are not captured in terms of salary alone. I think most economists would disagree that there are diminishing returns to education on a societal level. Well I dunno if most, but the answer is not entirely obvious.

Isn't that what the over loved CBO does?