What about the additional $1.4T being added to the deficit to pay for them? Is that moving the economy forward? I'm all for a lower tax burden, but like politicians of both parties they're much happier handing out the benefits than paying for them.

Not to stir up controversy, governments have to figure out a different way to make money than taxing people. It is about time somebody figured this out. In a world run by fiat currencies, what does deficit even mean? Just print more money using leverage. Who’s gonna check?

You have the arrow backwards:

Governments create demand for money by collecting taxes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory

That's why the economy (the measure of the velocity of money) grows when taxes are raised.

Modern Monetary Theory is based on collecting taxes. I am talking about a new theory that is not based on taxes at all but instead, it is based on Government making money by selling govt. land, investing social security money in high growth funds, etc.

Are you proposing having honest accounting, and assuming that nobody will look? Or are you proposing having dishonest accounting, and assuming that nobody will be able to look deep enough to prove it?

People actually do seriously read the federal budget statements...

Printing money would be de facto tax-by-inflation.

Not if that money never enters the circulation. Just use it to keep deficit down, it doesn't need to actually get all the way down to consumers.

Is this after ignoring the deliberate corruption in making the individual tax cuts temporary vs permanent tax cuts for businesses plus the individual mandate repeal resulting in skyrocketing premiums?

Didn't Obama propose bringing Corp taxes down to 28% (vs 35 now and 22% after passage?). So it isn't only Reps who recognized our corp taxes were out if sync with other nations corp tax rates.

Yes, BUT that was meant to be combined with the closing of multiple loopholes that would prevent companies from paying far less than what they're supposed to. In comparison the Republican bill leaves them open and even has a few of its own.

That's why Obama had such a tough time actually getting something done. Well, that and another obvious factor.

Obama is the benchmark for how to get elected.

ACA was kinda a big deal.

Of all the criticisms one could make, you parroted least reality-based.

I'm not here to argue about the whether or not Obama was a good president, but your second point is incorrect. The ACA was formulated in an almost entirely bipartisan way, taking influence from many Republican plans. It was a bandage on the bleeding wound of Healthcare and one that was desperately needed.

I would say it was particularly effective, considering my family personally benefited from the removal of pre-existing condition denial. That said, it was obvious more needed to be done and gutting the ACA just means ripping open the wound once more and hoping we don't bleed out.

“The ACA was formulated in an almost entirely bipartisan way,“

While the idea for health exchanges initiated with repub policy people, the implementation is really different. So I don’t think it’s accurate to say the ACA was bipartisan. That’s why not a single republican voted for it, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/111-2010/h165.

I suppose you could say that this bill is bipartisan because a democrat came up with the idea of lowering corporate tax rates. While true at face, the implementation is super different. Thus the zero democrat votes.

Interestingly, the ACA kind of set precedent for shoving stuff through with only a single party. If the ACA hadn’t been so super partisan, it would have been a lot harder to pass this bill.

There's an important distinction to be made between what happened with the ACA and what happened with the current tax bill. It was bipartisan because republicans at all stages were given the opportunity to engage, plus a lot of the basic foundations of the ACA were praised by conservative economists and it was directly based off of Romney's healthcare plan. At no point were republicans shut out or their opportunity to amend the bill taken away. Many republicans even supported the individual mandate before the ACA came along!

With the republican tax bill, democrats were outright denied any opportunities to work with republicans. They were shut out of the entire process, all of their amendments were denied and there was no opportunity for bipartisan legislation because the GOP viewed it as 'my way or the highway'. Similarly, republicans simply backed away from any and all debate or attempt to amend the ACA because they refused to work with democrats.

This is the important distinction between what happened with the ACA and with the recent tax bill. Many republicans immediately turned face against what they had previously supported. Which is also a reflection of the modern-day GOP and reflected in how disastrous their attempt at governing has been.

I don't think that's corruption, I think that's just politics. It will be easy to get agreement to extend the individual cuts before they expire. It would be much harder to get agreement to extend the corporate cuts.

If you want to cut both then you basically have to do it this way.

I think it is the Republican party showing its priorities :) Tax cuts for the reach are more important than anything else.

Hopefully we get a repeal of the corporate cuts, with even an increase to compensate for the years it was cut.

Corporate taxes are bad.

1) Their inherent complexity leads to a lot of wasted work and other distortions away from an efficient allocation of resources.

2) Corporate taxes charge the same rate to rich shareholders as poor shareholders: not progressive.

Cutting them is good.

There is also the fact that the renewal vote happens on an election cycle. If the republicans hold the house, the tax cuts will be renewed. If the democrats take control, they will be forced to expire the cuts since they are planning to campaign heavily on the tax bills as bad for the public. This means that if the GOP loses control, the following year taxes will go up on most voters and help reinforce the GOP narrative of the Democrats as the party of taxation.

The corporate cuts are permanent. Only the individual ones expire

Yes, I am aware. And my comment explained the political reasons behind that decision.

> In this particular case they only cared about not giving Trump a win.

No, that was the GOP's strategy against Obama over the last 8 years... I don't know how you mixed that up.

That doesn't mean the other party isn't using the same tactic now that the shoe is on the other foot.

But they're not, so you're suggesting it or for no reason. In fact, the GOP is still trying to undo everything Obama did just because Obama touched it.

They're clawing back deductions that helped high income earners because they also helped fund local schools & infrastructure that benefits everyone. They had no problem letting rich people give away 5M more tax-free in estate transfers, for instance.