Miles Davis
Prince of Darkness
Why it feel like Bernie the main one fighting for this
Inflation Reduction Act: 8/12/22 - $740B Bill PASSES, Biden signs it into law!
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88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Why it feel like Bernie the main one fighting for this
bias most likely
Reality Check
Keepin' it 100
Both are up for reelection in 2024. With it being a Presidential election year, I don't see Manchin being reelected given how Trumpanzee they've gone. 50/50 chance Sinema gets primaried or chooses not to run for reelection.
Manchin is already 74, he'll be 76 or 77 by the time he's up for reelection anyway, so my guess is he just retires rather than risk losing. And yeah that seat is going to a Republican.
I agree on Sinema, if she runs she's definitely getting primaried. But like you said she might just decide to go get a job on FOX News or something rather than run again.
Jesus H. Christ
I died for your sins
It seems like Manchin still wants to give it one last run for his senate race. KS is cashing out after her term is over and running towards a lobbying firm.
storyteller
Superstar
Why it feel like Bernie the main one fighting for this
Leadership is letting Bernie (and the progressives) play bad cop which gets more focus and headlines. It also helps in case this thing flops and nothing passes, to claim that the progressive bully pulpit failed without having to acknowledge that the moderate "we can WHIP votes that progressives simply can't" flopped just as bad. But the reality is lobbyists and big donations are bodying all electoral strategies right now. Public pressure is failing, backroom dealing is at the point where Sinema is ghosting calls from the president, and even attempts at compromise have been met with new demands or just a refusal to offer clear parameters to set up a reasonable compromise position.
Because he is the one they can pin it on if it fails not Biden.Why it feel like Bernie the main one fighting for this
Isn't he the budget chair?Why it feel like Bernie the main one fighting for this
They have certainly let the progressives be the face of it and be the bad cop. It’s obvious to see.Why it feel like Bernie the main one fighting for this
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
storyteller
Superstar
Will Congress Tax the Rich to Finance Build Back Better?
How to pay for Biden’s program is as important as how much we spend and what we spend it on.
BY ROBERT KUTTNER
OCTOBER 13, 2021
Signs supporting President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda are seen on the National Mall near the Capitol in Washington, October 4, 2021.
Biden’s original tax proposal would raise about $3.3 trillion over the ten-year budget window, just short of fully paying for the $3.5 trillion in new investments. Not all of this officially appears in the CBO’s budget score, since some $700 billion is projected to come from increased IRS enforcement of the tax evasion of the rich.
The best thing about Biden’s plan is that it raises taxes only on households with incomes over $400,000. It does this by both raising rates and closing loopholes favored by the rich, such as reversing the failure to tax accrued capital gains at death (“stepped-up basis”), getting rid of the loophole that allows hedge fund and private equity income to be taxed at the lower capital gains rate (“carried interest”), and also raising rates.
The top rate on personal income would go back to 39.6 percent. Capital gains would be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. The corporate income tax rate would increase from 21 percent to 28 percent. And the minimum tax on corporate foreign income would rise from close to nothing (given all the possible evasions) to 21 percent.
Equally important is the tax side of the equation, both to pay for the needed public investments and to make the wealthy pay a fairer share.
Progressives did not get everything they wanted. For instance, there could be an even higher tax rate on very high incomes. Shareholders could be taxed on stock buybacks. Very wealthy people could pay taxes on capital gains annually, as they occurred, rather than deferring them until sale.
But as presidential tax reform proposals go, Biden’s was the best we’ve seen since FDR.
And so, over to the tax-writing committees. The best you can say about the House Ways and Means Committee version is that it could have been worse—and probably will get worse by the time the Senate Finance Committee and then Joe Manchin get done with it.
The Ways and Means Committee raises about $2.2 trillion in new revenue, far less than Biden’s plan. It has a lower capital gains tax rate than Biden’s plan and does not include stepped-up basis—those two provisions give up an estimated $325 billion; and the proposed rate on foreign corporate income is 16.5 percent, or less than the 21 percent in the Biden plan.
Meanwhile, over at the Senate Finance Committee, as Reuven Avi-Yonah has reported in the Prospect, the bill drafted by Chairman Wyden weakens the Biden administration’s proposed effort to curtail multinational tax evasion. But in fairness to Wyden, unlike Ways and Means Chair Richie Neal, who basically wrote the bill himself and gaveled it through, Wyden at least circulated a draft for discussion, which allowed for some pushback by committee members Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse.
Wyden’s bill is also better than the administration’s in some respects. It includes his proposal for taxing capital gains on an annual basis, whether or not the asset has been sold. This provision, however, is limited to people with a net worth of at least a billion dollars.
Wyden is a curious blend of liberal and pro-corporate, which partly reflects his closeness to the big tech companies in his home state. He added a measure to the bill pulled together by Chuck Schumer, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, aimed at containing China’s influence, but Wyden’s provision was at odds with the bill’s larger purpose. There has been immense pressure on Biden from U.S. corporations to weaken the tariffs on Chinese exports that were added by Trump and mostly retained by Biden. Wyden’s amendment, with Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, suspends some of the tariffs and retroactively refunds the money to corporations that paid them.
What is Wyden up to? On the tax treatment of multinationals, he apparently was trying to define a position more moderate and palatable to American corporations than that of the White House proposal. He enlisted as co-sponsors of his draft one Finance Committee member to his right, Mark Warner, and one to his left, Sherrod Brown, as a signal that this was a viable consensus plan. But it’s an odd negotiating strategy to weaken your opening position before the serious bargaining even starts. It’s clear that there will be fierce lobbying to further water down even Wyden’s plan.
The risk is that as the revenue side of Build Back Better moves forward, the eventual proposal will include the weaker elements of the Neal and Wyden measures rather than the stronger ones.
What’s driving the debate about Build Back Better is more the spending side than the revenue side. If the eventual figure is in the $2 trillion range, Congress will be able to come up with enough revenue. But equally important is providing that corporations and the rich pay their fair share.
How to pay for Biden’s program is as important as how much we spend and what we spend it on.
BY ROBERT KUTTNER
OCTOBER 13, 2021
Signs supporting President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda are seen on the National Mall near the Capitol in Washington, October 4, 2021.
Biden’s original tax proposal would raise about $3.3 trillion over the ten-year budget window, just short of fully paying for the $3.5 trillion in new investments. Not all of this officially appears in the CBO’s budget score, since some $700 billion is projected to come from increased IRS enforcement of the tax evasion of the rich.
The best thing about Biden’s plan is that it raises taxes only on households with incomes over $400,000. It does this by both raising rates and closing loopholes favored by the rich, such as reversing the failure to tax accrued capital gains at death (“stepped-up basis”), getting rid of the loophole that allows hedge fund and private equity income to be taxed at the lower capital gains rate (“carried interest”), and also raising rates.
The top rate on personal income would go back to 39.6 percent. Capital gains would be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. The corporate income tax rate would increase from 21 percent to 28 percent. And the minimum tax on corporate foreign income would rise from close to nothing (given all the possible evasions) to 21 percent.
Equally important is the tax side of the equation, both to pay for the needed public investments and to make the wealthy pay a fairer share.
Progressives did not get everything they wanted. For instance, there could be an even higher tax rate on very high incomes. Shareholders could be taxed on stock buybacks. Very wealthy people could pay taxes on capital gains annually, as they occurred, rather than deferring them until sale.
But as presidential tax reform proposals go, Biden’s was the best we’ve seen since FDR.
And so, over to the tax-writing committees. The best you can say about the House Ways and Means Committee version is that it could have been worse—and probably will get worse by the time the Senate Finance Committee and then Joe Manchin get done with it.
The Ways and Means Committee raises about $2.2 trillion in new revenue, far less than Biden’s plan. It has a lower capital gains tax rate than Biden’s plan and does not include stepped-up basis—those two provisions give up an estimated $325 billion; and the proposed rate on foreign corporate income is 16.5 percent, or less than the 21 percent in the Biden plan.
Meanwhile, over at the Senate Finance Committee, as Reuven Avi-Yonah has reported in the Prospect, the bill drafted by Chairman Wyden weakens the Biden administration’s proposed effort to curtail multinational tax evasion. But in fairness to Wyden, unlike Ways and Means Chair Richie Neal, who basically wrote the bill himself and gaveled it through, Wyden at least circulated a draft for discussion, which allowed for some pushback by committee members Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse.
Wyden’s bill is also better than the administration’s in some respects. It includes his proposal for taxing capital gains on an annual basis, whether or not the asset has been sold. This provision, however, is limited to people with a net worth of at least a billion dollars.
Wyden is a curious blend of liberal and pro-corporate, which partly reflects his closeness to the big tech companies in his home state. He added a measure to the bill pulled together by Chuck Schumer, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, aimed at containing China’s influence, but Wyden’s provision was at odds with the bill’s larger purpose. There has been immense pressure on Biden from U.S. corporations to weaken the tariffs on Chinese exports that were added by Trump and mostly retained by Biden. Wyden’s amendment, with Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, suspends some of the tariffs and retroactively refunds the money to corporations that paid them.
What is Wyden up to? On the tax treatment of multinationals, he apparently was trying to define a position more moderate and palatable to American corporations than that of the White House proposal. He enlisted as co-sponsors of his draft one Finance Committee member to his right, Mark Warner, and one to his left, Sherrod Brown, as a signal that this was a viable consensus plan. But it’s an odd negotiating strategy to weaken your opening position before the serious bargaining even starts. It’s clear that there will be fierce lobbying to further water down even Wyden’s plan.
The risk is that as the revenue side of Build Back Better moves forward, the eventual proposal will include the weaker elements of the Neal and Wyden measures rather than the stronger ones.
What’s driving the debate about Build Back Better is more the spending side than the revenue side. If the eventual figure is in the $2 trillion range, Congress will be able to come up with enough revenue. But equally important is providing that corporations and the rich pay their fair share.
If they don't, its the end of the Democratic Party, or at least this version.
No, it may be the end of Democracy itself. Biden needs something going for him going into the midterms and into 2024. If Republicans take control we can kiss our Democracy good bye. They are prepping for a Hungarian Victor Orban style takeover .