From: Denny Kubal
Nashville, Indiana
Many people have offered vastly different opinions on how much money you can expect to receive from the Republican tax plan. Each opinion argues that their analysis is factually accurate and opposing opinions must be fiction. Perhaps it might be helpful to tune out all the noise and just look at the tax plan itself.
The tax plan provides tax cuts to business and to individuals. The tax cuts to business are permanent. The tax cuts to individuals expire in eight years. Many will claim they will be made permanent later, but don’t bet on what Congress can or might do later. As of this writing, any tax cut you get will expire in eight years. After eight years, many will see a tax increase.
The tax plan does reduce tax rates in each bracket, so that most will see some decrease in taxes. Folks in the $50,000 to $75,000 bracket will see an average reduction of 1.6 percent. Taxpayers in the $500,000 to $1 million bracket realize a much bigger break at 4.3 percent. Both by percentages and total dollars, the wealthy do much better.
All this might be good, if it didn’t explode the deficit.
These tax cuts are not paid for, and we are already running a deficit. So these tax cuts must be paid for by an increase in tax revenues. Estimates as to how much the deficit will be increased range from $1.4 trillion by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to zero by the administration. No one knows for sure, but we do know that the deficits will be financed by borrowing money. We also know that if the economy takes a nosedive, these projected deficits will skyrocket. It is almost certain sometime in the next 10 years the economy will take a nosedive. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other Republicans now say that the anticipated exploding deficits must be addressed by looking to earned benefits; your Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
In addition, the bill eliminates the individual mandate as part of Obamacare. All agree this will cause premiums to increase for those that remain in the system. The Congressional Budget Office says increases would go up by 10 percent per year with 13 million fewer insureds. The bill also opens up 1.5 million acres of the environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.
Because 55 percent of Americans oppose this tax plan, as well as the possibility it will explode the deficits while heavily favoring the rich, U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly voted against the plan. U.S. Sen. Todd Young was a yes vote. U.S. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth, a multi-millionaire, voted yes.
Have a happy prosperous New Year!
