Raser’s Edge:  Do you believe in Santa Claus?

When considering the Republican Tax Bill, it comes down to ones basic question:  Do you believe in Santa Claus or not?  The Republicans, in this analogy, are Santa Claus.  They tell you all Americans will bask in the beautiful glow of tax cuts, “hard working Americans will have more money in their pockets,” big corporations and small business will have more money to create gazillions of jobs, the economy will boom and everything will start coming up roses.   Our Moron Don President claims this is the “greatest Christmas gift Americans will receive in the history of the world.”

Rather than just look at the polls which say as many as 65 percent of Americans think the Republican bill stinks, I thought I would do some research on what the bill would actually do for me.  If you google something like “republican tax bill calculator” you will find a number of sites where you can plug in your data and see what effect the Republican largess will do for you.  I used the real data from my 2016 tax return.  Full disclosure:  l probably qualify as legitimate ‘Midddle Class.”  I file married-joint, we live on my wife’s teachers pension, my Social Security, my small business pension, income from my very small photography business and we are reasonably financially secure as senior citizens.

So here are the figures:  The New York Times calculator says we will reduce our taxes by $930. That is the best result I found and comes from what Trump calls the fake liberal news media.  But let’s try the Market Watch calculator (Market Watch is owned by Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal so it’s hardy liberal.)  Market Watch is much more detailed so I could enter actual deductions from my last year’s tax return.  According to this calculator, I would owe $534 MORE in income tax by itemizing, but WOW! If I take the new generous standard deduction I would pay $47 less! I really don't think that is an impressive tax cut!

I watched a video in which Trump declared at a cabinet meeting that a family earning $75,000 would cut its taxes by $2,000.  However, when I applied the Market Watch calculator and entered a family filing jointly, with two children, taking the standard deduction they would OWE $1,739 in taxes.

Let’s try a single person, head of household with two children making $25,000.  That person, according to Market Watch, would have $700 withheld from wages and get no tax refund.

What’s the point?  This is a huge tax break for corporations and the wealthy which, interestingly, the Republicans do not dispute.  They tell you that giving all that extra money to the wealthy will make them invest,  create jobs and boost the economy. This has not worked in the past and will most likely not work now. 

As you can see from the above calculations, individuals will not be getting meaningful tax cuts and in some cases none at all. Also, the whole thing is so confusing that different calculators, presumably using the same information on the bill, produce vastly different results.  However, none that I tried produce the tax cut bonanza for the middle class that Trump and Company are promising.

 Another disturbing element of the Republican tax plan is that corporate tax cuts remain in the future. However, individual cuts expire, but, according to Republicans, some phantom congress in the future will extend them and if the bill really does increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion we can easily pay for it by cutting Social Security and Medicare.

By almost all analysis, this tax bill is terrible and very unpopular with the American public, but for the conservatives, big corporations, the wealthy and Donald Trump, here comes Santa Claus!