Mulvaney has said that the administration is willing to negotiate with Democrats — funding insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in exchange for support for wall funding.
.. “The White House gambit to hold hostage health care for millions of Americans, in order to force American taxpayers to foot the bill for a wall that the President said would be paid for by Mexico is a complete non-starter,”
.. Further complicating matters for the White House, some Republicans in Congress say they don’t view wall funding as a must-have item in a short term spending bill.
.. Meanwhile, the Trump administration plans to release a very general sketch of its tax reform plan this week, Mulvaney said.
“I think what are you going to see Wednesday is some specific governing principles, some guidance,” he said, explaining that the White House will not release specific legislative text. “Also some indications of what the rates are going to be.”
Asked whether the plan will be revenue-neutral, Mulvaney replied, “I don’t think we’ve decided that part yet.”
Major Hurdle for a Tax Code Overhaul: Trump’s Own Field
Many tax experts say a key element to any fundamental overhaul is getting rid of certain deductions for businesses — the “special-interest giveaways that are masked as tax breaks,” as House Republicans describe many of them in their own proposal.
.. But there is a major roadblock to that fundamental change, and it comes from a sector well known to the president: the real estate industry.
.. “There’s probably no special interest that’s more favored by the existing tax code than real estate,” said Steven M. Rosenthal, a real estate tax lawyer and senior fellow at the centrist Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “It’s really hard to take that industry on.”
.. the tax deduction for interest payments by businesses, a provision that Mr. Trump has used to great advantage in what little has been seen of his past tax returns. The House Republican plan calls for eliminating the deduction as part of an overall plan, helping offset lower tax rates. The nonpartisan, conservative-leaning Tax Foundation says the provision could be a $1.5 trillion proposition over the next decade.
.. After the last major overhaul of the tax code, in 1986 — under a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, and a Democratic Congress — it was a Democrat, Bill Clinton, who signed legislation that restored lost real estate tax breaks seven years later.
.. Start, for example, with the ability of businesses to deduct interest payments. More than in just about any industry, real estate investors use leverage — borrowed money — to enhance returns. They lower their taxes by deducting interest payments.
.. a growing number of economists and tax experts have called for abolishing the deduction, as does the House Republican tax plan, “A Better Way,” on grounds that it distorts capital markets by favoring debt over stock.
.. Mr. Trump came out in favor of another key element of the House Republican plan: immediate deductibility, or expensing, of capital expenditures, rather than the practice of depreciating assets over time.
.. “Reagan didn’t get into the details,” Mr. Burman said. “But he made the calls, he gave the speeches, and he got people excited about the idea of fixing our broken tax system.”
“It’s hard to imagine President Trump doing that,” he said. “Because at the end of the day, the existing tax code is great for people like him.”
Tomi Lahren Was Made for the Trump Era
The rising TV starlet might have run afoul of social conservatives. But with her wide reach and trademark sass, her future could be positively Trumpian.
.. she’s pro-choice
.. I’m for limited government, so stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well.”
.. Beck, Lahren’s boss, questioned Lahren’s libertarian bona fides as a zealous Trump supporter
.. Trump is anything but libertarian.
.. high-speed rant style with “Final Thoughts .. little jalapeño poppers of bravura bile clock in at just 30 seconds, and are perfectly suited to social media
.. Lahren’s departure from TheBlaze might contain clues for the future of conservative media in the age of Trump and beyond, and even for the Republican Party.
.. most in conservative media are impotent to censure the president himself for his betrayal of signature conservative positions, they can flex some muscle by smacking down Lahren
.. a suggestion of what could happen, ideologically, if the GOP is ever emboldened .. to take Trump to task for his disregard of both civil liberties and family values.
.. on track to be the Samantha Bee of the right
.. the ironies that interest her concern “snowflakes” and “participation-trophy” types
.. she admitted that Trump’s on-tape comments about groping women didn’t “look good
.. “Don’t go around acting holier than thou about this, like you’ve never heard anyone say anything like that before.
.. “When will those in black communities take a step back and take some responsi-damn-bility for the problems of black communities? Because it seems to me blaming white people for all of your problems might make you the racist.”
.. grew up in a military family in South Dakota
.. with decades of sass ahead of her, Lahren is rumored (without clear evidence) to be in Fox’s sights
.. Mindful of her senior-citizen base, Lahren has made her home not primarily on Snapchat or even Twitter but on venerable old Facebook.
.. Facebook is a perfect place for her to perform for Tea Partyers and older conservatives, leaning on her love of guns and country to come off as the dream daughter—like Ivanka Trump, but country and not snooty.
.. tacit pact with Beck: He could give her the conservative white-old-man seal of approval and then she would be allowed to be spicy and pro-Trump, which in turn would be evidence of Blaze’s big tent.
.. Beck is a genuinely principled conservative, and his commitments to both family values and libertarianism made Trump—multiply-married, genital-grabbing, pro-choice in some interviews—insupportable, and finally appears to have made Lahren insupportable, too.
.. many uneasy bargains .. are being tested now
.. If Ryan’s tax reform, or Pence’s desired overturn of Roe v. Wade, come to nothing, how much more will they be willing to sacrifice for this rogue president?
.. there are libertarians, who have quarrels with Trump.
There are family-values types, who have quarrels with Trump.
And then there is Trump—a reality star who darkens his skin and lightens his hair and says whatever gets the biggest response
.. She’s trying to be Trump.
The Bad, the Worse and the Ugly
the most revealing thing in the interview may be Mr. Trump’s defense of Bill O’Reilly, accused of sexual predation and abuse of power: “He’s a good person.” This, I’d argue, tells us more about both the man from Mar-a-Lago and the motivations of his base than his ramblings about infrastructure and trade.
.. How much difference has it made, really, that Donald Trump rather than a conventional Republican sits in the White House?
.. the ignominious collapse of the effort to kill Obamacare — owed almost nothing to executive dysfunction. Repeal-and-replace didn’t face-plant because of poor tactics; it failed because Republicans have been lying about health care for eight years. So when the time came to propose something real, all they could offer were various ways to package mass loss of coverage.
.. Tax reform looks like a bust .. because nobody in the G.O.P. ever put in the hard work of figuring out what should change and how to sell those changes.
.. it’s clear that the administration has no actual infrastructure plan, and probably never will.
.. there are some places where Mr. Trump does seem likely to have a big impact — most notably, in crippling environmental policy. But that’s what any Republican would have done
.. Trumpist governance in practice so far is turning out to be just Republican governance with (much) worse management
.. Trumpism has brought is a new sense of empowerment to the ugliest aspects of American politics.
.. one thing the interviewees often say is that Mr. Trump is honest, that he tells it like is, which may seem odd given how much he lies about almost everything, policy and personal. But what they probably mean is that Mr. Trump gives outright, unapologetic voice to racism, sexism, contempt for “losers” and so on
.. Mr. Trump isn’t an honest man or a stand-up guy, but he is, arguably, less hypocritical about the darker motives underlying his worldview than conventional politicians are.
.. they provide a safe space for people who want an affirmation that their uglier impulses are, in fact, justified and perfectly O.K.
..
whether unapologetic ugliness is a winning political strategy.