House Passes $3.8 Trillion More in Tax Cuts

With attention fixed on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a new $3.1 trillion tax cut on Friday. The vote was 220 to 191, including three Democrats.

The House’s new bill takes effect starting in 2025, and would add $600 billion to the national debt within the next decade, and then $3.2 trillion in the 10 years after that, according to Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center.

This set of tax cuts, however, is unlikely to pass the Senate because it would be bound by filibuster rules.

Why have them in effect so late?

Glad to hear it's unlikely to pass. Taking in that little tax revenue with, what appears to be, no intention to cut spending, doesn't seem to be sustainable in any way.

The GOP has really become the party of financial insanity.

Ingenious, this should increase tax revenue EVEN MORE! Where's JimB's moronic self to give us made up numbers and hackneyed concepts justifying this.

@HoolaHoopMan: According to his Civil Rights bill logic, the Democrats actually passed this.

I've been down that road with people before. The inability to look past the designations of 'Democratic' or 'Republican'. *Historical context not included*

My guess is that they extend the Trump tax cuts to be permanent since they are initially to be phased out after a period of 7 years. Only the corporate cuts were meant to be permanent.

Puts the president in a bind down the line. Extend them or be the guy who 'raised taxes' on the middle class. It's political suicide to do what's right sometimes.

So, we've now got a budget with a deficit that is closing in on 1 trillion dollars during a non-recession period. This means we aren't paying out higher unemployment benefits, incurring lower tax revenue due to increased unemployment, and the government isn't using funds to stimulate the economy. There's simply a gap between revenue and spending.

The largest portion of the budget is made up of mandatory spending which is mainly comprised of social security, medicaid, and medicare. Social security is funded at current levels for another 20 years but medicare and medicaid are not. However, medicare itself is extremely popular due to the coverage of the elderly and it seems impossible to curtail it's use since our population is growing increasingly old.

This brings us to discretionary spending. Half of this is simply the military budget which was approved at nearly 900 billion for last year. The remaining portion is made up of funds going to civic disbursements that help out certain interest groups and infrastructure.

So the question of how to close this gap comes in. I'm going to assume that raising taxes is out of the question for simplicity's sake. Where do you make up the several hundred billion dollar increase we've seen over the last year, let alone the hundreds of billions we had before, to close the deficit gap? Even if we cleave off all other non-military discretionary spending it wouldn't do it and we would need to ignore the societal impact on infrastructure and tax stubs as a results (extreme austerity measures have a history of dampening economic output).

Do we cut military spending? Won't happen.
Do we default on our debt obligations by refusing to pay 300 billion in yearly interest? This will cause a credit crisis.
Do we cap medicare/medicaid spending at pay roll tax revenues? The program would be immediately underfunded and grow over time.

Find us a reasonable way, with out increasing taxes because it's looking really hard to do.

Republicans read Keynes' theory and were all like "Hmmmm...interesting, interesting. So, we like what you're saying, but we think we have a way to improve upon it. Let's do exactly what you're suggesting, only the complete opposite! It can't possibly fail!"

I thought about that after I had made my post. Oh well. Wonder who will be president when/if US faults on paying debt.

@HoolaHoopMan: You've got this all wrong. The tax cuts didn't increase the debt, and we'll fix it by cutting social security, medicaid, and medicare.

(Yes, I know the two links are to the same source. That's partially the point)

He is as good as Obama.

Fine, let them under fund Medicare. I hope they run on a platform of cutbacks on healthcare for their largest base of voters. Can't be out there keeping our citizens alive with healthcare!

More tax cuts and more spending.

@Gaming-Planet: the fiscally responsible thing to do is bring in less and spend more.

Debts great until a democrat is president

We need a system where people pay taxes into and people get socialized medicine for all. But, we pretty much need to get rid of the Republican party to have that happen.

I'm quite sure Democrats will be bought and paid for if Republicans go away...

Probably so. It's just wishful thinking, because the 2 party system is almost as eternal as God at this point.

How they think they pay for the war machine? Oh by cutting healthcare for the people. Thanks for nothing.

Get rid of the EC and have more parties...........

@LJS9502_basic: Why would getting rid of the EC result in more parties? Wouldn't we need to get rid of the winner take all first past the post system for that?

Not easy to create a new party with the EC. That just takes votes away from one of the two. It will take time for parties to grow but it's possible. Of course we need to start at local levels as well but again with the EC people don't always take them seriously so they don't grow. And the better politicians I think latch onto a viable party.

This is what needs to happen. The system of electing representatives determines the party make up. A winner take all scenario will ensure that special interest groups form coalitions PRIOR to the election, not afterwards.

I agree that this is the fundamental difference between a first past the post system and a proportional representation system. I have a followup question for you in the interest of discussion, if you don't mind. If the fundamental difference between the two is when the coalitions are formed, does it truly matter which one is used? Perhaps it will make us feel a little better because we have 10% representation from the Tea Party and another 10% from the Social Democracy party, for instance, rather than speaking of the "Tea Party wing" of the Republican party and the "Social Democracy wing" of the Democratic party, but the same coalition will still occur after the election. However, I've struggled with seeing a substantive difference between the two - at least as substantive a difference as is often implied in these discussions.

So how is Trump's deficit compared to Obama these days?

Still about 9.7 trillion less. But you can´t really compare the two that way.

Obama put a lot of expensive programs in action which still are running.

One inherited an economy in recession, the other a booming economy. You're right. Can't compare the two.

Now if you bothered to actually read my question, I wasn't asking how much Trump had left to reach Obamas level of adding debt, that would be silly. Comparing someone who hasn't finished 2 years in the White House compared to one who was there for 8. I wonder how the forecast for this fiscal year is. How it was for last year.

However if you so desperately have to spin it so that Obama looks as bad possible, don't bother to answer.

Oh and hey, found this. It's only estimated values made before Trump took office. Estimated a total of 40 trillion $ in debt with Trump's tax plan by 2026. Suddenly the 10 trillions Obama added wasn't so much. :P

Was not trying to spin anything. Merely pointing out that the question was like comparing apples and oranges.

Obama had his and while he did add more than the 6 previous presidents, asking if Trump´s is worse or better than Obama´s is the wrong question.

Please name them and their costs.

ACA around 600-700 billion

ARRA around a trillion

Tax Cuts and no cut to mandatory programs which was instead increased.

What parts of the ARRA are still in effect?

If you're saying that Obama should have allowed the Bush tax cuts to lapse with that last statement, then we agree.

Mostly the additions to the social programs.

But yes I did mean that Obama should have let the Bush tax cuts lapse.

Wouldn't that just leave the ACA from your list that is still in effect?

Deficit <> Debt.

I can't really say. The first difference, if only at first glance, could just be the illusion of more choices. That could be considered a soft benefit to a population's psychological stance on the issue. We certainly have many instances of this in the developed world where more than 2 parties coexist at any given time.

Maybe it could be argued that it gives more flexibility to smaller interest groups by being able to target specific groups on particular issues instead of resigning itself under a monolithic umbrella. I'd need to see some research or studies on the manner. The metric being used is the variety of bills and varying 'yes'/'no' votes on matters where a 2 party system would reduce the variance.

Then why aren't you leading the charge against the GOP and Trump with their recent tax cuts? This sentence makes no sense.

And yet you liked the trump tax cuts...........which is it.........you can't have both.

Every time this trickle down BS is tried, it leads to record breaking wealth gaps.

Yet the gullible shall praise each, and every one.

This is really going to help with the recession we will all experience in the next 1-5 years.

And by "all" I mean everyone but the wealthy.

Apparently Wikiepdia could answer it.

Estimate for 2018: 440 billion $

2017: 665 billion $

2016: 585 billion $

In comparison to 2010 which was Obamas first proposed budget. 1 294 billion $ deficit. If 2008 counts as Obamas first budget year, then 1 413 billion $ or so.

The estimate for 2018 looks good. Lower than the two previous years, however Trump's first budget year ended up with a larger deficit than Obamas last one. But I am sure you can put the blame on Obama for that as well.

Congress should just eliminate federal taxes entirely. I am sure the trickle down effect would be sensational, wondrous, and amazing all at once.

Eventually gov't would shut down and these elected pigs at the trough would have to get real jobs. Then maybe you could elect new people that aren't either complete morons or leeches on the public trust. At least until the new ones start the circle of idiocy all over again.

@SUD123456:

I agree eliminate taxes, and also get rid of government regulations like IP, patents, trademarks. The rich would be eaten alive by real free market competition.

Patents protect the little guy and his ideas..................

good thing there's never going to be another recession, otherwise we'd be in a shitload of trou--

I need to start transferring my assets into other currencies if this crap keeps up.

@mattbbpl: Only reason I think this was a good move by the repubs, is because this will hopefully mean that every last one of these scum bags is voted out, and the entire party goes extinct.

Some people have never had an original thought or idea in their life, and thus do not comprehend how an idea itself can have value.

@br0kenrabbit: are ideas made in a vacuum? Ideas are built on other ideas, and many people will come to the same idea independently. No need for patents scam.

Then why even take the risk to invent something new if someone can just lift your idea from day one? Do you really think the guys who went into debt to invent the CPU (Intel were a small team) would have done so if they knew IBM could sweep in the next day and use its resources to mass-produce a CPU before Intel could even find a fab?

You're one of those people who can't count past one. And what I mean is you fail to recognize any intricacy.