Senate GOP Tentatively Agrees to $1.5T Plan on Tax Cuts

[Free Vulcan]

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., on Tuesday said he thinks Senate Republicans have agreed to a deal on a tax outline that would add about $1.5 trillion to the government's $20 trillion debt over 10 years, justifying the spurt of red ink with promises of surging economic growth and a burst of new revenues.

"I think there is" a deal, Corker told reporters, according to the Washington Examiner while not denying reports of a minimum $1.5 trillion tax cut provision. "There is just one number."

Corker, a member of the chamber's dwindling band of deficit hawks, and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., one of the chamber's more ardent believers that tax cuts can pay for themselves, said they sealed an agreement on Tuesday.

The $1.5 trillion figure, confirmed by congressional officials familiar with the agreement, would allow deeper cuts to tax rates than would be allowed if Republicans followed through on earlier promises that their upcoming tax overhaul wouldn't add to the deficit. It's likely to be announced on Wednesday.

Read more at: https://www.newsmax.com/politics/us-congress-taxes/2017/09/19/id/814554/

[jmyrlefuller]

Why do they keep doing this? About 40% of Americans already pay no income taxes (or worse, get more in credits than they do in payments). With any tax cut plan that number will surely grow higher.

Remember, the Laffer curve has two sides. I'd argue we've been on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve since the Bush tax cuts. Eventually, no amount of boffo growth will be able to compensate for that loss, and besides, growth is based more on fundamentals (whether we have resources people are willing and able to buy) than tax rates (and again, because so many are off the tax rolls, further cuts don't do much).