A Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Update

Photo credit: Michael, CC BY 2.0.

As you might have already heard, the Senate is preparing to vote on their tax bill later this week. Yesterday, the Senate Budget Committee voted to advance the legislation, and I’ll quote the LA Times here:

Some Republicans on the committee had threatened to vote against the measure, citing concerns about its impact on the deficit and small businesses. But in the end, all Republicans voted in favor of the plan and all Democrats opposed.

Well, there you go.

The Washington Post explains what might happen next:

If Senate Republicans can unite behind their bill, the House and Senate would need to pass matching versions before it could be signed into law by Trump. There are major differences between the two pieces of legislation, but Republicans appear motivated to cut a deal before the end of the year, given their broad goals of cutting taxes and notching a legislative victory at the end of an uneven year.

No, we don’t yet know whether the health insurance mandate will be cut, giving us the “freedom” to choose whether we have health insurance. We don’t know whether some of the deductions that these bills wanted to eliminate will get reinstated. We don’t even know… well, I’ll quote the Washington Post again:

No official analysis has been released by the Treasury Department or the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation to support the GOP claims that economic growth generated by the tax plan would make up for the major revenue losses.

You’d think that would be important, but we all know what’s really important to the legislators crafting these tax reform bills.

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