Yesterday, Rachel Feintzeig reported for the Wall Street Journal that the Republican tax scam has specifically helped executives afford even fancier airplanes. "The recent changes to the tax code," she wrote, "are giving business executives a new perk: the opportunity to deduct the entirety of a corporate-jet purchase. A 100% tax write off was one of the GOP changes to the tax code. Maybe something will trickle down.
The write-off does allow some buyers to splurge on bigger, faster jets that cost between $7 million and $10 million that they otherwise might not afford, Ms. Meiners-Levy said.Jessica Mah, head of San Francisco accounting-software firm inDinero Inc., has been testing out potential planes in anticipation of buying next year. She has a budget of as much as $10 million, assuming she can get the 100% deduction.“It goes from being completely unaffordable to being like, ‘Oh my God, not only is this not unaffordable but it’s kind of a no-brainer,’ ” she said.
The Center for American Progress weighed in to point out that GOP tax scam 2.0, which Republicans are trying to ram through Congress now, would hand a tax break to the wealthiest 1 percent big enough to buy more than 13,000 yachts every year. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) sits on the House committee that was charged with drafting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act-- a bill that gave him millions of dollars in special tax breaks. On the same day that he voted to pass the bill, Rep. Buchanan purchased a brand new 73-foot yacht with a base price of nearly $3 million.Nancy PAY-GO Pelosi chimed in that "the deficit-exploding GOP tax scam for the rich continues to enrich big corporations and the wealthiest few, while threatening the future of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That’s why Democrats are fighting for real, bipartisan tax reform that creates jobs, reduces the deficit and is For The People."Going Down by Nancy OhanianLast week, in his newsletter, Popular Information, Judd Legum did a piece called "Trump's Imaginary economy." He wrote that "Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers [paint] a fantastical picture of an idyllic American economy. The only thing that was missing was a chocolate river: wages are booming, business investment is spiking, and a trillion dollars in corporate tax cuts is paying for itself. And we have one person to thank: Donald Trump. None of this, however, is true. Hassett's apocryphal economy has little in common with the real thing." And yet... the Republicans want to keep digging.
The Trump administration is eager to make the case that the tax cuts have delivered. Why? Because they want more.The administration and Republican leaders in Congress are currently working on a new wave of tax cuts that will be unveiled sometime this month.The centerpiece of the proposal is to make the individual tax cuts enacted in December 2017 permanent. That legislation created massive permanent tax cuts for corporations but its individual tax cuts, which are heavily tilted toward the wealthy, expire around 2025.The cost of the extension would be about $600 billion.The effort is expected to struggle to get the necessary votes in the House and has no chance of passing the Senate.One reason: Support for the original tax legislation is languishing below 40%.
A few days ago Bloomberg News ran a piece by Cormac Mullen, Goldman Bear-Market Risk Indicator at Highest Since 1969: Chart. "Goldman Sachs' Bull/Bear Index, which is based on measures of equity valuation, growth momentum, unemployment, inflation and the yield curve, is now at levels last seen in 1969. While the gauge is at levels that have historically preceded a bear market, Goldman strategists including Peter Oppenheimer wrote in a note last week that a long period of relatively low returns from stocks is a more likely alternative."I asked my financial advisor and she agreed that it was coming but said "not yet." That wasn't comforting so I asked her when. She e-mailed me "Year end to April data dependent... I am watching. Hold for now."These are the guidelines by which the leader of our county runs his life-- always has and always will-- which is why I'm nervous about investments:
