K-Mac’s Political Machine Hard At Work
Guys, if you can believe it, that Republican proposed 30% National Sales Tax is unpopular …even with Republicans:
Republican supporters of a bill aimed at abolishing the tax code as we know it are running into an early barrier in the House: their own leadership.
The Fair Tax Act was thrust into the spotlight earlier this month as reports emerged that it was part of a deal made by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) with his GOP detractors during the days-long process to elect him Speaker.
But as the bill becomes fodder for growing Democratic attacks from the White House down, some Republicans are distancing themselves from the legislation…
It would eliminate all income taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes and gift taxes in favor of an outsized 30-percent sales tax that would be collected by states and then remitted to the federal Treasury. The new method of taxation would render the IRS, as it currently exists, all but obsolete.
So now K-Mac’s plan is to smother it in its sleep in the committee. Have we mentioned that K-Mac is really bad at his job?
McCarthy made clear his opposition to the bill when pressed by reporters earlier this week. He said the bill “would have to go through committee” when asked on Wednesday if he planned to bring it up for a floor vote.
That’s weasel speak that translates roughly to, “you know those bodies with concrete galoshes found at the bottom of dried-up Lake Mead…?”
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, has said the bill will get a hearing, telling Axios earlier this week that McCarthy “believes everything should work in regular order.”
“We’re going to have a public, transparent hearing on that issue and we’ll see where it goes from there,” he said.
Whether the bill will ever make it out of the House, or even survive in committee, is far from certain.
Regular Order is weasel speak for “you broke my heart” followed by the kiss of death.
So the real question is if the singularly untalented K-Mac does somehow manage to kill the bill in the committee, will he remain the Speaker?
Mock Paper Scissors 
Honestly I cannot comprehend how the GQP can somehow convince even their rabid base that [checks notes] jacking up the price of everything by a third will be a good thing.
Looking at my last pay check (Friday, so includes all new rates etc) my total Federal taxes are 16%. Granted my total deductions run the total up to about 32% of my gross income, but those won’t change so their glorious plan will double my tax burden.
And I’ll note that Income tax is only half of that 16% the rest is Medicare and SSI, which are separate taxes.
So they double my taxation rate AND make us give up Social Security and Medicare. Even their braindead base that carried around signs saying “Git yer gummint hands off mah Medicare!!” should be able to understand that their Glorious Plan is BOHICA on steroids.
Basically the Freedummm Kookkoose pushing this have been huffing their own farts for so long the oxygen deprivation has cooked their brains.
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What are you saying here? I can’t make it add up in my brain.
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I currently pay about 7.5% of my gross income in Federal income tax withholding.
Medicare and SSI withholding brings that to about 16%; it is unclear from their plan whether they intend on killing all federal taxes or just income tax.
Adding in State taxes and my various insurance and retirement deductions brings it to 32-33% of my gross; my take home is 66% of the gross income. I would wager this is in the general ballpark for most Americans who work for a living instead of sponge off of us like the 0.01% do. This is what the GQP is counting on.
The GOP plan would substitute raising the price of everything I buy by 30% in order to save me either 7.5% or 16% of my total income, hoping that I don’t notice their sleight-of-hand in including a whole bunch of stuff that aren’t federal taxes.
And people not noticing that their great plan means No social security or medicare any more.
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Ooohh.
See “deductions” meant, to me, a reduction in your taxable income. So talking about your gross income next didn’t make sense to me. I got stuck on that, in fact. But you are calling out payroll deductions. And possibly throwing in state taxes as deductions from your income?
Thanks for clearing that up.
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There are pre-and post-tax deductions.
Pre-tax lowers your taxable base (and maybe your tax bracket) and post tax does not. So it is a question (always) of trying to get as many pre-tax deductions as you can.
Rgds,
TG
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Heh. This made me hear Mitch McConnell in my head: “Uh, Kevin. Well, you know that simply because you said you would doesn’t mean you have to.”
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Quick question. Will citizens on fixed incomes like SS be exempt from this bizzaro world brick tax? Where did they come up with this number because 30 percent is insane.
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Simple they added up the entire federal budget, then calculated what sales tax would need to be imposed to make up the difference.
Or they pulled it stinking and dripping out of their ass like they do all their proposals.
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I don’t know, Roket, but I doubt it. Sales tax is not the kind of thing that is indexed.
The point of it is a consumption tax and let the billionaires off the hook. It’s nuts.
Rgds,
TG
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If this legislation starts to look like it has legs, all Democrats should need to do is repeat everywhere & often that the GOP, who campaigned in 2022 on the issue of reducing inflation (which is currently on its way down from a previous high of about 8%), is advocating an immediate 30% increase of the prices of all goods and services (including medical bills and lawyers’ fees). All voters need to be constantly reminded that not only is the GOP hyper-hypocritical, they also don’t give a rat’s patootie whether their policies cause immense pain to even their electorate. In fact, that pain is seen by GOP leadership and advisors as a “feature” rather than a bug.
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The big trick here is a two-step; Get that word out and Stop that stupid bill.
If it somehow does go through, you KNOW it will be shrill-ly touted as another Biden failure.
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It remotely might get out of the House, if every GQP member takes utter leave of their senses. (and remember, Qevin was taken hostage by 14 out of 222 members. A whole lot of those 222 are pretty pissed off that they’re getting this shit sundae served to them right off the bat )
It will die in the Senate, because even Curtsey Sinema and Coal Joe aren’t SO stupid that they’d vote to make everybody pay 30% more at the cash register.
And I’m sure there are marginally sane Republicans in the Senate who might realize that lovingly hand crafting a barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat with rusty spikes through it and handing it to the Democrats wrapped in a bow with a tag “Please hit us with this gift from us from now until Election day 2024” is probably a bad idea, even if the sewer clowns of the House do not.
And even in the 0.0000001% chance that somehow the Senate votes of it. Dark Brandon will veto it in a heartbeat, even though the chinstrokers of the failed media will stroke their chins and somehow conjure up some reason he should sign it.
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That’s it, time for me to call it a day. Not thinking good today.
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I hope the bill makes it to the floor and am fine if it passes, since obviously it won’t become law. Right now it seems to be a 30% tax on all consumption, but there’s no way that’ll make it into the final bill. For example, one Democrat quoted in the linked article says it’ll apply to homes. The real estate industry is not going to want house prices to go up 30% with no increase in the house’s value (since the gov’t gets the 30%). Lots of other industries will demand exemption also (health insurance, for example), and I don’t think the GOP can say “no.” So it’ll be a mess.
And what’s the GOP’s justification for discouraging consumption? With a significant drop in consumption (which we’ll certainly see with a 30% additional sales tax – in addition to state and city sales taxes), we’ll probably have a recession or depression (and the gov’t’s revenue will go down), since the economy runs on consumption.
Of course, this is about cutting taxes for the wealthy, which they want, but not if it crashes the economy. I think they’d prefer the standard GOP way of just lowering the top marginal tax rate.
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They can count?
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