https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/us/politics/budget-vote-senate.html
Tax cuts are key to the Republican platform and they are going to great extents to make it work. Cuts to spending and other programs need to be severe in order to achieve a balanced budget. In fact, the Republican party intends to cut $1.5 trillion combined from Medicaid and Medicare over the course of a decade. The Senate's blueprint for the 2018 fiscal year claims to achieve a balanced budget within a decade and even greater economic growth.
1. Do you think that this plan is a well thought through plan? Why/Why not?
After months of dealing with the Affordable Care Act and immigration, tax cuts have finally made it onto the policy agenda. The Republican party has recently made progress in rewriting the tax code with the passage of a budget blueprint that "would protect a $1.5 trillion tax cut from a Democratic filibuster".
Tax cuts are key to the Republican platform and they are going to great extents to make it work. Cuts to spending and other programs need to be severe in order to achieve a balanced budget. In fact, the Republican party intends to cut $1.5 trillion combined from Medicaid and Medicare over the course of a decade. The Senate's blueprint for the 2018 fiscal year claims to achieve a balanced budget within a decade and even greater economic growth.
Not only do there have to be severe cuts to other programs in order to implement the tax cuts, the tax breaks are more so benefiting the wealthy and corporations than the middle-class. For instance, the plan would eliminate many corporate loopholes and deductions, such as the state and local tax deduction. It would also get rid of many provisions that are currently costly to the rich, like the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax. This has been brought to the attention of several Democratic party leaders such as Chuck Schumer who claims that the tax cuts intend to "give a tax break to big corporations and the wealthiest Americans". Bernie even calls this budget to be "extremely cruel".
Despite all the recent progress made, the cuts only exist on paper and have not yet been implemented.
Questions:
2.) I do not think that the tax cuts will create a budget deficit. The plans to remove Obamacare and other government funded public aid policies would reconcile much of the tax cuts. However, these cuts would lead to many people becoming uninsured, experiencing a lower quality of life.
ReplyDelete-Oliver Nix
2) Differently form Oliver, I do think his plans are going to cause a serious budget deficit. The fact that the general trend for Republicans is to cut taxes, combined with the relative lack of austerity I see here in spending, it seems to me that the only way to balance this budget is to borrow money from a foreign power, perhaps China. This would make the US go further into debt and definitely encourage a deficit.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe the plan for tax cuts is well thought through, or it is, but it would be extremely unfair to the working and middle class. Our current national debt is $20 trillion and almost half of the US revenue comes from taxes. If we were to have another tax cut and still achieve a balanced budget, that would only hurt the people of the working and middle class while the upper class become the sole beneficiaries. Tax cuts can boost the economy, but not by much if the country is $20 trillion in debt and the president decides to make major cuts to almost half the revenue. Cutting spending from Medicare and Medicaid is important to decreasing the annual deficit, but tax cuts should not be made at the expense of the millions of Americans.
ReplyDelete1. This plan does not seem to be a very well thought out plan because it seems to just be benefiting the rich rather than actually being helpful. The idea Republicans have is that it will allow the money to simmer down to the lower classes and boost the economy, but just because the rich and the wealthy get lower taxes does not mean the middle and lower class get more money.
ReplyDelete1. The tax plan is thought out, but it is clearly a scheme to make Donald Trumps millionaire cronies richer and make the middle class poorer. I think the GOP knows that the tax plan will hurt the middle class, but they support it anyways because it will make them rich.
ReplyDelete1. I feel that while the plan is thought out i do not agree with it. I feel that tax cuts should not be used when the economy is doing well. I feel that that is something the government should do when the economy is struggling in order to restore hope in the people and help them out when they need it.
ReplyDelete1. Although the plan may be thought out, I do not agree with what it entails. The economy is running really well right now and the plan only helps the upper class. It doesn't do as much for the other classes and I don't think it is a good idea to have one right now.
ReplyDelete1. I do not think that the plan is super well structured. Severe cuts usually entail a population to be greatly affected and I think that better solutions can be offered.
ReplyDelete