What’s Really Behind the GOP Tax Plan?
Originally published in the Delco Times. December 11, 2017 With all the controversy over the details of the tax cut bill that is moving towards a final vote in the House and Senate this week it is easy to forget about the basic features of the bill. As they did during the debate over repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans put forward noxious proposals—to radically reduce the state and local tax deduction, to tax graduate student stipends, to eliminate the deduction for teachers who use their own funds in classrooms, and to eliminate the deduction for extremely high medical expenses miante among others—and then eliminated them in the final proposal. But we shouldn’t be gratified that these horrible elements of the bill are gone when the basic framework of the bill, which has remained constant in every version of it considered by the House and Senate, remains so… Continue reading