/——/ as we all know, Dems campaign like Republicans and legislate like Communists.A few days ago, Senator Chuck Schumer and other leading Senate Democrats held a press conference to present their infrastructure and tax reform plan. The full title of the bill is SENATE DEMOCRATS' JOBS & INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN FOR AMERICA’S WORKERS: RETURNING THE REPUBLICAN TAX GIVEAWAYS FOR THE WEALTHY TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
The Dem plan is actually pretty good. It is only a tax-hike measure compared to the new tax rates under the Trump tax cuts. Compared to the tax rates that existed until last year, it calls for huge tax cuts, even for corporations, in spite of the bill's unfortunately partisan subtitle. If Hillary had proposed this plan during the election, Bernie supporters and other Dems would have skewered her for wanting to "give away hundreds of billions of dollars to the rich." Consider:
* The Dem plan would set the corporate income tax rate at 25%. This is 4 percentage points higher than the Trump rate of 21%, but it's 10 percentage points lower than what the rate was last year and for decades before that. When Mitt Romney proposed cutting the corporate tax rate to 25% in 2012, Dems attacked the idea as a "tax cut for the rich."
* The Dem plan would leave intact all of the Trump tax cuts for personal income taxes, with the sole exception of the top marginal rate, which would go back to the previous rate of 39.6%, which would still be lower than it was for most of Reagan's presidency. Moreover, the Dem plan would maintain the Trump threshold of $600K for the top bracket.
* As mentioned, the Dem plan would keep *all* of the massive Trump tax cuts for the middle-income brackets. It would also maintain the Trump tax-cut provisions of capping SALT deductions at $10K and of capping mortgage-interest deductions.
* The Dem plan would return the death tax (the estate tax) to 2017 levels, which were an improvement over the rates for most of the previous four decades, and it would also return to the previous GOP-backed threshold of $5.49 million for exemption from the tax (vs. $11 million under the Trump tax cuts).
* The Dem plan would bring back the AMT, a very bad, baffling move. But, the AMT only affected people who made over 120K (single)/160K (married), and it did not really bite anyone until they started making over $300K, and even then the bite was not draconian.
* The Dem plan would leave intact Trump's special repatriation rate of 13.5% for American corporate money parked overseas that is brought back to the U.S.
* The Dem plan would close the carried-interest loophole, something that should have been done with the Trump tax cuts.
* The Dem plan would use the assumed savings vs. the Trump tax cuts to fund $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, and even most conservative think tanks agree that infrastructure spending usually largely pays for itself and sometimes gives us a large net gain. Trump has called for at least $1.6 trillion in infrastructure spending.
The Dem plan is not bad at all, but it is not as good as the Trump tax-cut bill and the Trump infrastructure-spending proposal. The Dem plan is a non-starter as long as the GOP controls the Senate, but it is really a pretty good plan.
Full text of the bill:
https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Senate Democrats' Jobs and Infrastructure Plan.pdf
Executive summary of the bill:
https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Senate Democrats' Jobs and Infrastructure Plan One Pager.pdf