Trump Needs A Big Win On The Board, Here's How To Get One

Investor's Business Daily ^ | 3/31/2017 | Staff

[IBD editorial writer]

Taxes: After the GOP's health care bill debacle, President Trump is now turning his attention to tax reform. But unless he keeps this effort tightly focused, it could suffer the same fate.

Trump met Thursday with his Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday to talk about tax reform, which White House press secretary Sean Spicer described as the "first stages" of tackling the issue.

The meeting came amid numerous reports that, if anything, reforming the nation's tax code would be harder than repealing and replacing ObamaCare, a challenge made still more difficult by Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan's failure to get a vote on the American Health Care Act.

Despite the fact that Republicans control the House, Senate and the White House, they face a multitude of obstacles, note James Arkin and Alexis Simendinger of Real Clear Politics: "an absence of consensus within the House GOP, early pushback from Senate Republicans, budget rules that constrain what can be accomplished in the next few months, the complexity of policies that reach deep into the economy, and a pressured timeline."

All the more reason to keep the process as simple and straightforward as possible, and pick the piece of tax reform that has the best chance of getting bipartisan support.

[rigelkentaurus]

A big win on taxes to me, would be to repeal the 16th Amendment, and replace it with a sales (consumption tax - absolutely NOT a VAT.

Tax collected by each State, forwarded to the US Treasury, IRS is completely disbanded. No more complicated tax forms, no more reporting to the government on your economic activity. Just needs an exemption for what is a business that must collect taxes, and what is not to protect simple things like a family selling a few eggs, lemonade stands, and other low volume incidental transactions.

[nathanbedford]

In a companion article upstream, author Brent Bozell, predicts great losses for Republicans in the upcoming cycles for failure to actually repeal Obama care.

Now we see as a result of that failure is more difficult to fulfill yet another campaign promise, tax reform. The two are related.

The obvious solution is to stop lying to the American people about the difficulties of getting reconciliation past the Senate parliamentarian , use reconciliation to repeal Obama care (if the Republicans are too cowardly to flat out repeal it), taking care that the mandatory provisions are taken out, but fully explain to the public that tax reform (which should be very popular) can only be done successfully if Obama care has a stake driven through its heart.

The Republicans are going to have to cease trying to be all things to all voters and dance with those that brung 'em.

[cashless]

ALL taxes should have NO deductions, NO exemptions, NO credits and NO viable entity not paying some fixed percentage, no matter how small, of tax. Having 50+% of the population not paying taxes is insanity on steroids. You want fiscal responsibility back into the public discourse? Eliminate Federal, State, Local, and Medicare withholding and force a monthly payment to each taxing authority. When you start garnishing wages for taxes owed plus penalties and interest MONTHLY and get in the hip pocket of deadbeats, tax cheats and welfare scammers, you'll get some cooperation. While we are at it, if anyone cannot pass eVerify or provide a bona fide SS number, they immediately are taxed 50% with no refunds until verified. LEGAL immigrants should be taxed at the same rate as citizens without ANY exemptions, credits, or loopholes. That's tax reform I can live with. And while you're at it, cap SS benefits to $40,000 per year but NO cap on wages taxed for SS and Medicare. Stupid to have had a cap to begin with. Thank you FDR, you f’n Progressive Socialist Democrat. Nothing more than a Marxist in drag.

[floozy22]

If Trump and the GOP can get a solid corporate tax bill done, they will have a much better chance of tackling individual taxes.

Seems like good advice. Tackle corporate tax reform first, which will lay a foundation for moving forward on individual tax reform - the much bigger endeavor.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Too many millions of middlemen profit from the system the way it is. Absent a national crisis, only incremental change is likely to get past the 75% RINO majority.

[central_va]

Eliminate the H-1B visa. That would affect a lot of people immediately.

[Lurkinanloomin]

Half of Free Republic has declared a jihad on conservatives for blocking ObamacareII.
When even the most conservative site on the web turns into the RINO cheering section it’s hard to see where we go from here.

[nathanbedford]

When a political forum loses its way and becomes a personality cult, apostasy is inevitable.

[Jim Robinson]

Go, Trump, GO!! We need a big win, baby!!

[Jim Robinson]

Thank God we have a few with great personalities hanging around to point out and offer corrections for our sins.

[Luircin]

Half of Free Republic has declared a jihad on conservatives for blocking ObamacareII.
When even the most conservative site on the web turns into the RINO cheering section it’s hard to see where we go from here.

***

Oh please.

Just because we have the same goals but different tactics, we’re now a cult of personality?

What I find surprising is why half of Free Republic has turned into whiny snowflakes who can’t endure anyone contradicting their Pure Conservative Orthodoxy As Defined By Themselves.

[Lurkinanloomin]

Ryancare sucked swamp water.
Advocating for its passage solely because Trump said it was “wonderful” and excoriating conservatives because they said it sucked swamp water is not what I expected.
The fact that there were more liberal Republicans bailing than conservatives seems to have escaped notice.

Ryancare was swamp water and if President Trump had stayed neutral and not endorsed it I don’t believe there would have been the support for it here that there was.
It was an attempt by the establishment to preserve as much of Obamacare as possible, something one could reasonably have expected that freepers would oppose.

[Luircin]

Logical fallacy: No True Scotsman, demonization.

I’m pretty sure that most of us ‘cultists’ wouldn’t cheer at all for Ryancare in general. Some of us, however, viewed it as a potential starting point. Or at least a shell that we could scoop out and replace with something better, much like the Dems did for the original Obamacare. (Except in their case it was really bad in both cases)

It’s not being a hypocrite or a liberal to want to see what happens with a bill in committee or reconciliation, and it’s not being a hypocrite to think that it’s possible to negotiate that crap into something acceptable.

And the excoriating conservatives was (likely) a direct result of the fact that the members of the HFC looked Trump in the face and lied through their teeth about their support, not about support or lack of support in themselves.

Demonizing we so-called cultists doesn’t move anyone to your side; it’s only gonna provoke angry replies.

[RocketMan1]

I don’t understand why he isn’t looking at the FAIR Tax or a similar national sales tax which rids us of punitive income taxes and withholding and forces the deadbeat EBT and welfare crowd to pay “their fair share.”

[RocketMan1]

Oh .. and the BEST part of the FAIR Tax is that it eliminates the IRS. If they still have to exist with the FAIR Tax, it should be a massively downscaled entity where the employees are nothing more than mailroom clerks opening envelopes and making out deposit slips for checks.

[RocketMan1]

Not sure how a discussion on RINOcare got into a tax post, but ..

I’ll just say that if you believed that Paul RINO and his band of GOPe frauds would have EVER gotten to “phase two” and “phase three,” then I have a plot of swampland to present for your consideration. THAT is the reason that the HFC stood firm against big- government GOPe hack, Paul RINO’s “0bamacare-Forever.”

[monkeywrench]

Breitbart are fair tax supporters. So is Huckabee, so we know the President has to be familiar with it.

[Impy]

Repeal is not gonna happen, but you don’t need to repeal the amendment, just change the tax law.