Taxes

Trump’s Tariffs Could Dampen Investment Spurred by the Tax Cuts

By Michael Rainey

A new Philadelphia Fed survey highlighted by MarketWatch’s Steve Goldstein suggests that some manufacturing businesses see the President Trump’s tax and tariff policies as working at cross purposes...
Republicans Ignore the Obvious Effect of Their Tax Cuts

By Yuval Rosenberg

President Trump, top administration officials and Republican congressional leaders claim that the rising deficit, which grew 17 percent to $779 billion in fiscal 2018, is not the result of their tax...
Why Tax Cuts in a Strong Economy Could Hurt in the Long Run

By Michael Rainey

Passing tax cuts in an already strong economy violates the important fiscal principle, says Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, in The Washington Post Wednesday. “...
Kudlow Says the Party's Just Getting Started, but Is the Economy Headed for a Hangover?

By Michael Rainey

Senior White economic advisor Larry Kudlow touted the Trump economy Friday, telling CNBC that “[w]e're in a hot economic boom. There's no end in sight." As a result, the stock market should “get back...
Mnuchin Spins a False Claim About Tax Cuts and the Deficit

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Congressional Budget Office projected last week that the federal government’s fiscal 2018 deficit would total $782 billion. The final numbers will be released by the Treasury Department, but...

A Fiscal Hawk’s New Plan to ‘Avert a Debt Crisis’

By Yuval Rosenberg

The national debt rose by more than $1 trillion in fiscal 2018, and yet lawmakers have evinced little concern about it ahead of this year’s elections, instead pushing tax cuts and spending increases...
How GOP Rhetoric on Entitlements Has Changed

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Washington Post’s David Weigel describes how Republicans have changed their tune on Medicare and, for this year at least, largely abandoned the idea of entitlement reform: “[O]ver eight years,...
The Trump Tax Cuts Still Aren't Popular

By Yuval Rosenberg

With less than a month to go before the midterm elections, Americans still tend to disapprove of the Republican tax law passed last year — and still say that they haven’t seen an increase in their...
Killing Three Birds with One Stone: A Defense of the Carbon Tax

By Michael Rainey

Yale professor William Nordhaus won the Nobel Prize in Economics this week, prompting Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center to review one of Nordhaus’s most well-known ideas: a tax on carbon fuels...
Big Changes Ahead for Key Tax-Writing Committee

By Yuval Rosenberg

No matter what happens in November’s elections, the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee will see some big changes, Politico’s Morning Tax says: “Four committee members are retiring, three ran...

529 Plans Are Growing — and So Is Their Cost to the Government

By Yuval Rosenberg

Education savings accounts called 529 plans have grown dramatically since 2010, both in terms of the number of accounts and total assets, according to research by The Pew Charitable Trusts . And they...
The Post-Election Outlook: ‘Debt, Debt and More Debt’

By Yuval Rosenberg

The 2018 elections are looking like a lose-lose proposition for the U.S. bond market, according to Bloomberg’s Liz McCormick and Alex Harris : “If Democrats take the House, it raises the odds that...
Deficit Jumped to $782 Billion in 2018 – and It’s Only Going to Get Bigger

By Michael Rainey

You might have missed this with everything else going on in the world, but the Congressional Budget Office said Friday that the deficit for fiscal year 2018 rose to $782 billion, a big jump from the...
MLB Owners Angle for a Tax Break

By Yuval Rosenberg

Major League Baseball owners have made a pitch — fastball? curveball? screwball? — for the IRS to rule them eligible to take the 20 percent deduction for pass-through businesses created by the new...
Larry Kudlow Wants to Put a ‘Big Dent’ in Government Spending

By Yuval Rosenberg

Larry Kudlow, the director of President Trump’s National Economic Council, is once again talking up the economy and talking down the threat posed by rising debt and deficits. And once again, he’s...