November 12, 2017

After Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace discussed the major differences between the House and Senate tax reform bills, House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) said the House would never pass Senate proposals to eliminate the deduction for all state and local taxes, even property taxes.

Wallace was shocked at his candor and said, "Good, thank you." And that ended that part of their discussion.

There are major differences between the two tax reform plans which, no matter how Republicans slice it, is still a major tax cut for the top tier earners in America.

Wallace asked, "Chairman, you've got more than two dozen Republican congressmen from high tax states. Can you guarantee them--because they are threatening to vote against an elimination of all the state and local tax deductions--can you guarantee them that the final bill they vote on will not include the total elimination in the Senate plan?

Brady: "I can."

Brady then gave a mostly boilerplate response about people keeping more of what they earn and he listed some portions of his bill.

Wallace asked, "How can you guarantee House members from blue states that the Senate plan, the total elimination [of these deductions], will not be in the final bill?"

Brady didn't answer directly. "I'm convinced that this is where we will end up because this is important ..."

Wallace tried another track. "Are you saying then that the House will not accept a total elimination, that that just won't fly even if the Senate passes it?"

Chairman Brady: "That's what I'm saying."

Wallace chuckled and said, "Good, thank you."

Later in their discussion, Brady used the Joint Committee on Taxation analysis to defend the House tax plan, saying the "study confirmed, every income bracket sees a tax cut," but as the JCT actually reports, "The Tax Cuts in the House Bill Are Overwhelmingly Skewed to the Top"

  • About 45 percent of cost of the bill’s tax cuts would go to households with incomes above $500,000 (fewer than 1 percent of filers). About 38 percent of the bill’s cost would go to tax cuts for households with incomes over $1 million (about 3 out of every 1,000 filers).[2]

So again, Republicans are throwing a very skeevy bone to the poors in their plans to some portions of the middle class somewhere down the line, while some will see tax increases, which in the end is their justifications to give massive tax cuts to the rich.

Got it.

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