GOP Tax Plan DOA
A Republican’s Tax Overhaul Envisions Big Changes [NY Times]: "Big banks would face a new tax on lending. Taxes paid to state and local governments would no longer be deductible. The earned income credit for low-wage workers would be converted to a more limited deduction on payroll taxes. The mortgage deduction and retirement savings breaks would be curtailed. Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, a Republican who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the 70,000-page federal tax code on Wednesday that would collapse seven personal income tax brackets to two and lower the corporate rate to 25 percent from 35 percent. But the seeds of the plan’s destruction might be found in the fine print. When asked about the proposal’s details on Wednesday, House Speaker John A. Boehner replied, 'Blah, blah, blah, blah.'"
Republican tax overhaul would come at a cost of hundreds of credits, deductions [Washington Post]: "The plan drafted by Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) would significantly reduce rates for individuals and corporations, pushing the top corporate rate down to 25 percent, from 35 percent, and the top individual rate down to 35 percent, from 39.6 percent. Tax-filing season also would be much easier for most households under the proposal, with an estimated 95 percent of filers likely to claim a new, expanded standard deduction and call it a day. However, all that simplicity would come at the cost of hundreds of credits and deductions that have been woven deeply into the fabric of American life. "
Would Republican tax reform make the rich richer, like Romney plan? [Christian Science Monitor]: "Of course, some Americans would like to see the rich pay a higher share of taxes, not the same share. But Camp’s proposal has at least been certified by one group, the staff of Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, as not moving in the opposite direction. Romney tried to follow the same 'neutral' premise in a plan to lower tax rates and streamline the code, but failed to persuade many economists that his plan could work. If the Joint Committee analysis is correct, then the Camp plan wouldn't favor the rich in the sense of lowering their share of overall taxes. But it might still allow them to get richer compared with the status quo. That's because the proposal is designed to make the whole economy grow faster – making Americans' incomes higher in general than they'd otherwise be. Judging by trends seen in recent decades, high-income Americans might reap a disproportionate share of these overall gains."
GOP's Obamacare "Alternative" Hazardous to Workers
Republican bill to revise Obamacare would kick one million off their policies, report shows [Raw Story]: "After much bemoaning and more than 200 votes to dismantle President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, House Republicans say they’ve come up with a solution: change the minimum threshold at which employers must provide health insurance coverage from 30 to 40 hours per week, so that companies can maintain workers’ part-time hours without being forced to insure them. Trouble is, the “fix” would cause one million employees to lose their current healthcare coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan arm of government charged with evaluating the effects of proposed legislation. What’s more is that it would likely push roughly 500,000 off their coverage into Medicaid and other programs, forcing the government to pick up the tab.The U.S. deficit would also rise $74 billion over the next ten years, according to the report.
Alternet's Steven Rosenfeld says the GOP's laughable Obamacare alternative is a sop to big business and screws workers: "No matter how you slice it, the GOP’s purported new ideas for Obamacare are old ideas. They’re predictably good for business owners and predictably bad for employees. ... Stepping back from this week’s news, it’s clear that for years, the GOP has been rooting for Obamacare to fail on its own. Last fall’s botched insurance exchange website rollout encouraged that intellectually weak hope. But now, as millions of people have signed up, Republicans aren’t offering anything substantive or even new as an alternative."
Arizona Law Vetoed
Arizona Governor's Veto Aimed at Own Party's Right [ABC News]: "Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer slapped down the right wing of her own party, vetoing a bill pushed by social conservatives that would have allowed people with sincerely held religious beliefs to refuse to serve gays. The conservative governor said she could not sign a bill that was not only unneeded but would damage the state's improving business environment and divide its citizens. ... Brewer pushed back hard against the GOP conservatives who forced the bill forward by citing examples of religious rights infringements in other states. ... And she chastised the GOP-controlled state Legislature for sending her a divisive bill instead of working on a state budget that continues her economic expansion policies or an overhaul of Arizona's broken child welfare system, her top priorities."
WaPo's Chris Cillizza explains what Brewer's veto of SB1062 means: "If any politician understands the political power in signing a controversial measure supported by the most conservative elements of your party, it's Brewer. Had she signed SB 1062, she would have enhanced her position among the most die-hard Republican primary voters -- even while taking a series of body blows from national Democratic (and Republican leaders). But, unlike five years ago, Brewer chose a different path -- vetoing the legislation and insisting that there is no evidence to support the idea that business owners' rights could be violated by serving gays and lesbians. Brewer has said she will make a decision on whether or not to seek re-election sometime around March 1. But, by exercising her veto power of SB 1062 tonight, she effectively has made her future plans known."
Charles Blow writes that bill's like Arizona's SB1062 may further alienate young voters from the GOP: "History doesn’t look kindly on those who stand against equality. Yet, that’s where conservatives have chosen to stand, much to my dismay and their detriment. The pace of Americans’ changing attitudes has been breathtakingly swift and shows no signs of abating. In fact, a report by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute produced some rather striking findings. According to the report, not only do most religiously unaffiliated Americans now support same-sex marriage, but so do most white mainline Protestants, white Catholics, Hispanic Catholics and Jews. ... But perhaps the worst harbinger for the future in the report, as far as conservatives are concerned, were the views of millennials (those ages 18 to 33). Seventy percent of these young people believe 'that religious groups are alienating young adults by being too judgmental on gay and lesbian issues,' the report found."
Breakfast Sides
Study: More than half of U.S. housing wealth concentrated in 10 percent of communities [Washington Post]: "A sizable chunk of the nation’s housing wealth is concentrated in a few markets, and that picture is unlikely to change as the housing recovery unfolds, according to a report released Wednesday. The Demand Institute, a nonprofit group run by the Conference Board and Nielsen, analyzed prices of owner-occupied homes in 2,200 of the largest cities and towns. It found that 10 percent of communities held 52 percent of total housing wealth — about $4.4 trillion. By contrast, the bottom 40 percent held 8 percent of the wealth, or $700 billion."
David Sirota writes that Fortune 500 companies receive $63 billion in subsidies: "Remember when President Obama was lambasted for saying “you didn’t build that”? Turns out he was right, at least when it comes to lots of stuff built by world’s wealthiest corporate behemoths. That’s the takeaway from a new study of 25,000 major taxpayer subsidy deals over the last two decades. Entitled “Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent,” the report from the taxpayer watchdog group Good Jobs First shows that the largest corporations in the world aren’t models of self-sufficiency and unbridled capitalism. To the contrary, they continue to receive tens of billions of dollars in government handouts. Such subsidies might be a bit more defensible if they were being doled out in a way that promoted upstart entrepreneurialism. But as the study also shows, a full “three-quarters of all the economic development dollars awarded and disclosed by state and local governments have gone to just 965 large corporations” — not to the small businesses and startups that politicians so often pretend to care about. ... Fortune 500 firms alone receive more than 16,000 subsidies at a total cost of $63 billion. Additionally, eight out of the top 20 firms receiving U.S. taxpayer subsidies are not even U.S. companies, meaning American taxpayers are being forced to directly subsidize foreign firms."
