By Tim Dickinson
Long after midnight, (click here) following a chaotic scramble that saw tax legislation being re-written on the fly, with handwritten edits in the margins and full pages crossed out, Senate Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – a bill that would ultimately hike taxes on millions of middle-class Americans, swell the ranks of the uninsured by 13 million and explode deficits by $1.4 trillion in the first decade alone.
The winners in this bill are the Republican donor class: Corporations that would see their tax bills slashed by more than 40 percent – and get to bring home trillions in offshored profits at shamefully discounted tax rates as low as 7.5 percent; executives at companies with "pass through" earnings, who would get to deduct nearly a quarter of that income; heirs who would get richer from a doubling of the estate tax exemption, to $22 million for couples; and even private jet owners, who would get to deduct aircraft maintenance from their taxes....
...The only GOP "no" vote on the bill was Tennessee's retiring Bob Corker, who gets little credit for his resistance – days earlier, Corker had provided the pivotal committee vote allowing the bill to reach the floor. "I wanted to get to yes, Corker wrote in a statement. "But at the end of the day, I am not able to cast aside my fiscal concerns and vote for legislation" that he expects to "deepen the debt burden on future generations."...
...Susan Collins of Maine appeared to get the most for her vote. Collins made the bill marginally less awful by insisting on an amendment to allow Americans to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes....
Pure unadulterated corruption. Why should Secretary DeVos make all those large donations for tax deductions when all she has to do is ask for a tax exemption for her favorite college?
...In the mad dash to revise the bill, it turned into a Christmas tree full of gifts for special interests, according to Victor Fleischer, a respected tax professor at the University of San Diego. "Earmarks have mostly disappeared from Congressional spending bills," Fleischer tweeted, "but they are out loud and proud in the tax bill." One sweetheart deal appears to exempt a religious college in Michigan – supported by billionaire Education Secretary Betsy DeVos – from a new tax on college endowments....
The Democrats were shut out of the proceedings, so more than half the country is not represented in this Senate bill.
...Sen. Majority Leader McConnell insisted Wyden would have "plenty of time" to read – afterwards....
