Wednesday, December 20, 2017

THE SWAMP UNITES FOR A MASSIVE TAX CUT FOR THEIR CRONIES, BANKSTERS, WALL STREET and the SUPER RICH

STEVE BANNON'S PHONY POPULIST TRUMP'S TRICKLE UP ECONOMICS


"The sharply increased budget deficit and national debt will 

be used to justify a frontal attack on the core social programs 

remaining from the 1930s and 1960s: Medicare, Medicaid 

and Social Security."

"The biggest windfalls will go, not to manufacturing or mining, but to real estate (the basis of the Trump empire) and finance. "

US Congress set for Wednesday passage of multi-trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich

By Barry Grey
20 December 2017
The mad dash of the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut for corporations and the wealthy for President Trump’s signature before the Christmas break, hit a speed bump on Tuesday. After the House of Representatives passed the measure in a largely party-line vote and the Senate began debate with the aim of securing passage late Tuesday night, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that two minor provisions violated Senate “budget reconciliation” rules.
As a result, the House will have to vote again Wednesday morning on the bill, minus the two provisions that will have been stripped out by the Senate. The end result, however, is a foregone conclusion.
Senate Republicans are using the expedited budget reconciliation process, which enables them to prevent a Democratic filibuster and pass the measure with a simple majority in the narrowly divided (52 to 48) chamber. This 

is one aspect of the brazenly undemocratic 

procedure being used to ram through a 

massively unpopular windfall for America’s 

corporate-financial elite, which will make the 

United States, already the most unequal 

advanced economy in the world, far more 

unequal.
Legislation that will transfer trillions of dollars from the 

working class to the richest 10 percent of the population, 

disproportionately to the richest 1 percent and 0.1 percent, 

will be made the law of the land within less than two months 

of its initial release and without a single congressional 

hearing.
What is being exposed is the fraud of bourgeois democracy and the reality of rule by an oligarchy that controls the political system and both major parties. It wants the money and will stop at nothing to get it.
The Democrats are offering only token opposition. They themselves fully support a sharp cut in the corporate tax rate, something proposed by the Obama White House, and have done nothing to mobilize the widespread popular opposition to the bill.
The giddy mood of Republicans and half-hearted posturing of Democrats is, in no small measure, due to the personal benefits most of those in Congress will receive from the legislation. A majority in Congress are millionaires, including 66 percent of senators.
Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the lone Republican to vote against the Senate version of the bill earlier this month, suddenly reversed himself last Friday, after House and Senate conferees inserted a last-minute provision in the final bill, adding commercial real estate firms to the list of “pass through” companies entitled to a hefty tax cut. Corker is a former construction executive with significant real estate income.
Enactment of the cynically named “Tax Cut and Jobs Act” will slash federal tax revenues by between $1 trillion and $2 trillion over the next decade. The sharply increased budget deficit and national debt will be used to justify a frontal attack on the core social programs remaining from the 1930s and 1960s: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Trump and the Republicans are accompanying enactment of the tax overhaul with a barrage of lies. They are insisting that the measure is a boon to the “hard-working middle class.” This continued Tuesday after the House initially passed the measure by a vote of 227 to 203, with 12 Republicans, mostly from the high-tax states of California, New York and New Jersey, joining all 191 voting Democrats in opposition.
Despite multiple non-partisan analyses, which have shown that the measure overwhelmingly benefits the rich and will actually increase taxes for a majority of Americans, House Speaker Paul Ryan hailed passage of the bill Tuesday as “a good day for workers.” It will “increase take-home pay,” he added.
Kevin Hassett, the chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, told the cable news channel MSNBC, “Corporations are going to start building plants here. People will open the want-ads page and find a lot more jobs.”
In fact, America’s financial aristocracy will 

use its newfound wealth to increase its 

parasitic financial activities and reward itself 

with more mansions, private islands, personal

jets and other means of flaunting its wealth.
As Reuters recently reported, “US corporations are saying they would used a tax reform windfall to buy back shares, retired debt and other shareholder-friendly moves, in recent calls with investors and securities analysts.” These include job-destroying mergers and acquisitions, a number of which have already been announced—CVS and Aetna, Disney and 21st Century Fox—in anticipation of passage of the bill.
Despite the campaign of lies, opinion polls show growing popular opposition to the tax bill. A new poll released this week by CNN and SSRS found that 55 percent oppose the proposal and 33 percent support it. Opposition to the bill has increased by 10 percent since early November.
The Democrats, for their part, are directing much of their criticism at the bill’s budget and debt consequences, and attacking the Republicans for being fiscally irresponsible. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (whose estimated net worth is nearly $200 million), while denouncing the Republicans for “looting” the economy, stressed that their bill will “explode the national debt.”
In Tuesday’s Senate debate, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, cited Trump’s newly issued National Security Strategy document, which calls US economic strength a key to national security, and denounced the tax bill for raising the debt and thereby undermining America’s international position. “Let’s give the $1.5 trillion tax cut to the men and women in uniform” instead of Wall Street, he declared.
The heart of the bill is a massive cut in the corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent to 21 percent. It is estimated that this alone will increase corporate revenues by some $6 trillion over the next decade.
The effective US corporate rate, i.e., the rate corporations actually pay after making use of tax loopholes and dodges of various kinds, is presently between 19 and 21 percent, already below that paid by US rivals in Europe and Asia. According to economists at the University of Pennsylvania, under the new law the effective rate across all industries will fall to 9 percent next year.
The biggest windfalls will go, not to manufacturing or mining, but to real estate (the basis of the Trump empire) and finance. Real estate firms will see a 16 point reduction and financial companies will enjoy a 12 point cut. Mining firms will see a cut of just under nine points, and manufacturers will receive a seven point reduction.
The economists project that the bill will save 

financial firms $250 billion in corporate taxes

over the next decade, a massive 35 percent 

cut.
The bill also gives the owners of “pass through” businesses, which are not publicly held corporations, such as partnerships and S corporations, and who pay taxes at the individual rather than the corporate rate, a hefty 20 percent tax deduction.
It lowers the top individual tax rate from the current 39.6 percent to 37 percent, while raising the income threshold. It reduces the alternative minimum tax rate for individuals and eliminates it for corporations.
The bill goes a very long way in consolidating a dynastic aristocracy of wealth in America by doubling the estate tax exemption for couples to $22 million.
It includes two provisions that will modestly reduce taxes for most middle-income households in 2018 and several years thereafter: a doubling of both the standard deduction and the child tax credit. However, these are largely offset by other provisions that eliminate or reduce current tax deductions used by tens of millions of working Americans, including deductions for mortgage interest and state and local taxes. The bill also pares back deductions on losses from fires and floods, and repeals them for alimony payments and moving expenses.
One critical provision that has been grossly under-reported is the replacement of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by the so-called “chained CPI” in adjusting tax brackets and certain benefits. The new standard underestimates inflation and will slow the speed at which tax brackets adjust to rising prices. As a result, taxpayers will more quickly find themselves in higher tax brackets.
Low income people who currently claim the earned income tax credit will lose an estimated $19 billion over the coming decade, because of the chained CPI. Moreover, in a vicious attack on immigrants, the new law requires families claiming the earned income tax credit to show a Social Security number. Undocumented parents will thereby be disqualified from collecting benefits, even if their children were born in the US and are therefore US citizens.
On top of all this, the bill terminates all provisions relating to individual tax rates at the end of 2025, leaving low and middle-income people facing a sudden, large tax increase for 2026 and beyond.

Tax Bill Limits Payments to Illegal Aliens
Savings to taxpayers estimated to be $3.9 billion a year

Washington, D.C. (December 19, 2017) – A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of the conference report of the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" examines the tax credit implications for illegal aliens. Presently, illegal alien parents who file tax returns receive billions of dollars in Additional Child Tax Credits (ACTC), even if they do not actually pay any taxes. With passage of the tax bill, the children of illegal alien parents must have valid Social Security numbers (SSN) to qualify for the credit, though the adult ACTC claimant will still not need one.

Congress thus takes a step toward not paying illegal aliens federal dollars to stay in the United States through refundable tax credits. Currently, an illegal alien, even with a shaky Social Security number or an ITIN (individual tax identification number created for tax filers without Social Security numbers), may claim the up-to-$1,000-a-head payments even though the kids only have ITINs, which are not proof of legal residence (as SSNs are).

David North, a Center fellow and author of the analysis, said, "What is needed, of course, is a law or an IRS ruling that says if a filer's SSN does not match with a legally obtained one, there will be no refunds. None. But this bill does take one big step towards ending a huge welfare benefit that illegal aliens have received for years."


The new system applies to tax returns filed in 2019, and once in place it is estimated that the savings will be around $3.9 billion a year.

The bill did not make all the needed changes in this area, however; the smaller non-refundable child tax credit, as well as another credit for higher education expenses, are still available to those without SSNs.

Study Shows E-Verify's Effectiveness...

and that's why it is not implemented border to

open border.... IT'S NOT BY ACCIDENT THA

T OUR BORDERS ARE WIDE OPEN!

By Preston Huennekens

CIS Immigration Blog, December 8, 2017

Their study indicates that E-Verify is one of the most important enforcement tools available to states that wish to reduce their illegal alien populations. Research shows that most illegal migration is for economic reasons, and that the adoption of E-Verify and other worksite enforcement measures effectively blocks illegal aliens from procuring employment, thereby preventing many from settling down in the United States. Faced with mandatory E-Verify, the study shows that many aliens either returned to their home countries or traveled to other states that did not have employment verification regulations.





World’s richest one percent capture twice as much income growth as the bottom half

By Niles Niemuth
15 December 2017
The inaugural World Inequality Report published on Thursday by economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman, Facundo Alvaredo and Lucas Chancel documents the rise in global income and wealth inequality since 1980.
The report covers up to 2016, leaving out the last year, in which the stock market has soared on the expectation that the US will enact massive tax cuts, providing yet another windfall for the rich.
The report found that between 1980 and 2016 the world’s richest one percent captured twice the income growth as the bottom half of the world’s population, contributing to a significant rise in global inequality.
The data shows that the world’s top 0.1 percent alone captured as much growth as the bottom half, and the top 0.001 percent, just 76,000 people worldwide, received 4 percent of global income growth. Meanwhile those in the 50th to 99th percentiles worldwide, which the report refers to as the “squeezed bottom 90 percent in the US and Western Europe,” encompassing the working class in the world’s advanced economies, experienced anemic growth rates.
The report is based on tax data and other financial information collected for the World Wealth and Income Database by more than 100 researchers in 70 countries. It shows that income inequality has either risen or remained stable in every country.
Additionally, the report found that concentration of wealth in the hands of the top one percent has risen sharply, particularly in the US, Russia and China. In the US, the wealth share monopolized by the top one percent rose from 22 percent in 1980 to 39 percent; in China it doubled from 15 percent to 30 percent; and in Russia it went from 22 percent to 43 percent.
In terms of income, the top ten percent captured 37 percent of national income in Europe, 41 percent in China, 47 percent in the United States-Canada, 54 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 55 percent in Brazil and India, and 61 percent in the Middle East.
Notably, Russia, when it was still part of the Soviet Union, had the lowest level of inequality in 1980, with the top ten percent accounting for 20 percent of income. There was a sharp spike in inequality following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990-91, with half of all national income going to the top ten percent in less than five years. Russia has now reached parity with the United States, returning to levels of inequality that prevailed a century ago under the rule of the tsar.
The report also shows that there has been a significant divergence in inequality levels between the United States and Europe since 1980, when the top one percent claimed 10 percent of income in both regions. As of 2016, the top one percent in Europe claimed 12 percent of income, while in the United States its share had doubled to 20 percent.
The top one percent and the bottom half of the American population have essentially flipped positions. While the bottom 50 percent received 20 percent of national income in 1980, that figure declined steadily to just 13 percent by 2016. Conversely, the top one percent steadily increased their claim on national income, from 10 percent to 20 percent in less than two generations.
Average annual income for the bottom half of the US population, adjusted for inflation, has remained at $16,500 for the last 40 years, while the top one percent have seen their average income triple from $430,000 to $1.3 million.
The report’s authors note in an op-ed published in the Guardian that the United States is an outlier among the advanced economies, with a surge in income and wealth inequality over the last four decades that has developed into a “second Gilded Age.”
The authors attribute the dramatic difference between the US and Europe to a “perfect storm of radical policy changes” in the US. They argue that the growth of inequality in the US has been exacerbated by a number of factors, including a tax system that has become less progressive over time, a federal minimum wage that has not kept up with inflation, shrinking unions, deregulation of the finance industry and increasingly unequal access to higher education. They warn that the Republican tax cuts will “turbocharge” the further rise of inequality.
Despite its explosive content, the latest report on inequality was buried by the media, relegated to a small headline in the Business Day section of the New York Times and posted well down the Guardian’s front page in the world news section. The vast and ever-growing level of social inequality around the world is not what the ruling classes in the US, Europe and elsewhere want to talk about.
Social inequality in the United States is being ignored and covered up by the political system. The Democrats are entirely focused on issues of sex and the anti-Russia campaign, even as the Republicans are pushing to finalize tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy by the end of the year.
However, under the surface of official life, class conflict is growing. The World Inequality Report reveals that the contradictions of the capitalist system find expression in every country.
In concluding their report, the authors refer to policy decisions that could be adopted to reverse the growth of social inequality, promoting the illusion that a fair distribution of resources can be achieved under capitalism through various liberal reform measures and appeals to capitalist governments to enact progressive tax measures.
There is, however, no “reform” faction in the ruling class. The growth of inequality in the US has been carried out under both Democrats and Republicans, aided and abetted by the trade unions. In Europe, the ruling elite is moving rapidly to catch up to the United States through the implementation of labor “reform” measures, the destruction of social programs and the redistribution of wealth to the rich.
The response of the ruling class to growing social opposition is not reform, but repression. A movement against inequality requires the building of a socialist movement of the international working class on the basis of a socialist program to appropriate the wealth of the corporate and financial oligarchy, transform the banks and giant corporations into democratically controlled public utilities, and reorganize economic life on the basis of social need.

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