Free Republic

Since he first started running for president in 2016, Donald Trump has sought a 15% corporate tax rate. Unleash Prosperity co-founders Larry Kudlow and Steve Moore were in the room with him nine years ago when he first started talking up that rate. In the 2017 bill we got the rate down from 35% to 21%. Corporate revenues increased. Trump ran on 15% in 2024 and won. Still the House GOP tax bill has no rate cut. Even the scaled back 15% rate for made-in-America companies is nowhere to be found. This could have easily been paid for with the...

Levin shreds the Democrat rhetoric of Trump's policies and explains what Trump is really doing.

Progressives call the Trump tax plan a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. Most Americans, fortunately, reject that attack.A new McLaughlin poll for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce shows broad support for extending the Trump tax cuts, which are due to expire on December 31, 2025.By 61%-20%, voters support the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.But only 51% are aware the tax cuts will expire.75% support permanently restoring R&D investment deductions.73% support making full capital expensing permanent.73% think jobs will be lost, prices will go up, and businesses will be closed if taxes go up.We ask again: what are conservatives...

What is going on in the United States Senate? Last week the Senate Republican majority passed a budget blueprint resolution that:A) Spends MORE MONEYB) Has NO Trump tax cutHuh?The senators want to push the Trump tax cut off until…later in the summer or maybe into the Fall? The highest priority has become the least urgent priority. Sure. That makes sense!We can count at least three glaring problems with this strategy:First, the economy is looking a little wobbly right now. Consumer spending and consumer sentiment are both falling, housing sales are down, and inflation is rising. This is the after-shock of...

A controversial plan by U.S. Senate Republicans to make President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent by ignoring the cost to the deficit is raising warnings from party fiscal hawks and independent analysts of a potential "debt spiral" that could undermine economic growth. Top Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader John Thune, are determined to make permanent tax cuts due to expire at the end of the year, through a parliamentary maneuver that bypasses Democratic opposition. Because rules prohibit bills from expanding the deficit beyond a 10-year window, they intend to ignore a projected revenue loss of more than $4 trillion...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said that he doesn’t believe spending cuts are necessarily needed and “we’d be better off” if the current tax cuts expired, but he wants to see tax cuts for the middle class. Co-host Becky Quick asked, “How would you go about cutting spending?” Pallone answered, “Well, first of all, this is all being done, these Medicaid cuts are being proposed in order to pay for the Republican tax plan, which, basically, just helps the very wealthy and large corporate interests.”

What is taking so long to get the Trump tax cut cemented into law? Why are Republicans dithering? We have a president who is surfing on a wave of popularity and a voter mandate to make the tax cuts permanent. We have a Democratic party that is rolled up into a ball of confusion. We have an economy that needs a steroid injection. We have all the evidence needed to show that the tax cut was an unequivocal success. By the CBO’s own scoring, there has been virtually no revenue loss from the lower tax rates. With each passing day,...

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are negotiating a tax package that a budget watchdog group estimated could cost anywhere from $5 trillion to $11.2 trillion over the next decade. A series of tax policy changes that Trump supports appear to have broad support among Republicans in Congress. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has released a study that projects the cost of each item over a 10-year period. The possible tax changes are expected to be included in a budget reconciliation package, which allows the GOP to bypass the filibuster in the Senate, where they lack a 60-vote...

The federal government owns multiple trillions of dollars of federal assets -- from land, to buildings, to patent rights, to mineral rights, to immigrant visas, to oil fields to trucks and trains and unused office furniture equipment. The government could earn well over $1 trillion and perhaps as much as $10 trillion by selling off these assets that are simply hoarded (figuratively) in the dark and dusty basement of government buildings. These assets could then generate added annual tax receipts once they are utilized for productive purposes. I'm not talking about selling the Washington Monument or Yellowstone National Park. The...

New Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Sunday said one of his top objectives will be to address the country’s “fiscal mess” — even while acknowledging upcoming expected GOP tax cuts may not be fully funded. Thune (R-SD), 63, who officially took the baton from Mitch McConnell as the Senate’s boss Friday, stressed his intent to focus on problems for the long term. “I would like to see us as a nation do things that affect the long-term stability, future of our kids and our grandkids,” the Republican told NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about the “mark” he wants...

New Hampshire has always been a no-personal income tax state. Now they’ve gone all the way and ended their capital gains tax, as of 1/1/25. This makes eight states with truly no income again. (The number had dropped to seven when Washington State adopted a capital gains tax a couple of years ago.) Congrats to New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu for getting this done.For more good news, we’re thrilled to report that with the New Year, Iowa and Louisiana have joined the list of states with a flat rate income tax. There are now 16 such states and with another...

Possibly very true. Also possibly very true: The US might need to strike actual gold to afford it. Nevertheless, Donald Trump has emphasized his desire to find new places to cut taxes in order to generate real economic growth. Those ideas are also clearly aimed at finding inroads into traditional Democrat constituencies. A proposal to end taxes on tips has a lot of appeal for low-income servers, who are likely younger voters, and both are key demos for Kamala Harris and other Democrats. It didn't woo the culinary union leaders, but it might appeal to their members.His latest proposal clearly...

At the beginning of Joe Biden’s term, former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers correctly predicted that inflation would worsen if Democrats got their way with massive spending. But now, Summers is no different than Paul Krugman or Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, as he’s “predicting” a disaster and massive debt and deficits if Republicans are elected and their policies are implemented. From Bloomberg News comes this report:Summers Says GOP Fiscal Plans Set US Up for ‘Liz Truss Moment’Republican politicians are setting the US up for a ‘Liz Truss moment’ by promoting policies that would widen fiscal deficits and weaken the dollar,...

The increasing likelihood of a second Trump administration has helped spark a selloff in U.S. government bonds, with investors betting policies including tax cuts could drive up deficits and inflation. Treasury yields, which rise when bond prices fall, started surging June 28, a day after a debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump that Wall Street viewed as delivering a major blow to Biden’s re-election chances. A poor showing from Biden could also help tip control of Congress to Republicans, creating more space for their budget priorities. “Something obviously changed pretty quickly on Friday,” said Dan Mulholland, head...

President Biden wants to let the tax rate cuts that President Trump and Republicans passed without Democrat support, in 2017. Biden and others continue to intentionally lie that the tax cuts "cost" the government $2 trillion and increased the debt and deficit. That essentially was the prediction of Congressional Budget Office. The problem is predictions are not facts. Here are the facts that show that the government has collected a huge amount of additional revenues after the tax cuts were passed, and additional revenues do not cause increased debt. The problem is that the government is spending more. Individual income...

Federal tax revenue increased 33% since Congress passed the Trump-era tax reform bill in 2017, while spending increased more than 50% over that same time frame. The data is contained in the Congressional Budget Office's recently released 10-year budget outlook. "Measured as a share of the economy, tax revenue averaged 17% of gross domestic product in the years since the TCJA was passed, the same share as in 2017, and would have been higher if not for the pandemic and associated economic shutdowns," wrote Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network. "The CBO projects the tax share...

Senator Mitt Romney and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan are holding a two-day summit that began Tuesday. It is described as a “closed-door” summit in Park City, Utah. The Republican presidential ticket from 2012, who lost an election that should have been winnable, brought together four current presidential candidates. The four are Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, and Doug Burgum. This is an 11-year-old summit called the E2 Summit. It focuses on foreign policy, tech, and finance/business. Those attending the summit are “well-heeled, well-wired Republicans” who want to find an alternative to Trump and fund that candidate.The...

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt indicated Friday that he would continue vetoing unrelated bills until the House and Senate agree on school choice and tax cuts. Stitt vetoed 20 unrelated Senate bills this week, all with the same message. "Until we get tax cuts, until we get parent choice done, we are not going to do all this other stuff for lobbyists and special interest groups," Stitt said at his weekly news conference. "Let's get those things done and then we will be happy to talk about some other things in the budget." The House and Senate have passed two versions...

How many times have you heard President Joe Biden or Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) berate the Trump tax cuts as “a giveaway to the rich?” Biden and congressional Democrats now want to let expire major planks of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, former President Donald Trump's signature domestic achievement, particularly the incentives for American businesses to invest more here at home. We now have incontrovertible evidence that after five years since they took effect, the Trump tax rate cuts of 2017 raised revenues over this time period. For full disclosure, I should note...

Liz Truss, the U.K.'s new prime minister, billed herself to the public as that, but the mess she's made of the British economy, which includes a cave-in on a proposed tax cut, is pretty much the opposite of What Thatcher Would Do. According to Fox News:The U.K. is canceling plans to impose a major tax cut for the nation's top tax bracket following widespread frustration and market chaos, U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss announced Monday.Truss' plan had called for eliminating the U.K.'s highest tax bracket, resulting in major cut for citizens making more than $168,000 annually. Truss and her government...