Turkey For Thanksgiving

The House passed its version of tax reform yesterday with numerous poison pills and hidden prizes. The Senate is still working but hopes to have their vote before next Thursday. No matter what political stance you hold, this should bother you. There won't be time for even the senators to read the whole bill before they vote let alone for the populace at large. And don't even start with the what about the ACA nonsense. That was discussed and amended for months before the vote even if Pelosi's remarks seemed to indicate the opposite. So this very large turkey will arrive in time for you to give thanks.

The current proposals on both sides of the Capitol make tax cuts for businesses permanent but tax cuts for individuals temporary. They also give with one hand while taking away with the other. You may get a higher deduction for children but you will lose a host of other deductions so in the end you will probably pay more money. If you live in one of the blue states with very high state and local taxes you will suffer because there is at least a chance that the deductibility of those taxes will disappear. And once again, don't give me the nonsense that the elected men have been spouting that states without high taxes have been subsidizing residents of those blue states. In every single case the states with lower taxes take more in benefits from the federal government than they pay in to the federal government so it's pretty obvious who is subsidizing whom.

Addendum: Someone I know just told me that the tax bill has a particularly nasty poison pill. If you are fortunate enough to receive a tuition waiver for post-grad education, that amount is considered taxable income.  So the poor student, literally a poor student, who has a $50K tuition waiver in exchange for working for his department for very little money, has to pay tax on that $50K even though his real income is probably under $30K. That increases the tax liability by about 400% while Trump will get millions of dollars under various changes in tax assessment from the changes to pass through companies to the changes in the Alternate Minimum Tax. Go ahead and listen to your moronic Republic leaders telling you that this tax bill is for the middle class. They already know they can sell you a mess of pottage. In fact they count on it.