No One Read the Bill: Republicans "accidentally nullified all of their corporate donors' favorite deductions."

Oddly, I haven't seen this story reported on cable news anywhere. 

Seems like a really HUGE deal, right? Put another way...

While Republicans were manically outlining their plans to take from the poor to give to the Trumps, they also, accidentally, nullified all of their corporate donors’ favorite deductions. The Senate bill brings the normal corporate rate down to 20 percent — while leaving the alternative minimum rate at … 20 percent. The legislation would still allow corporations to claim a wide variety of tax credits and deductions — it just renders all them completely worthless. Companies can either take no deductions, and pay a 20 percent rate — or take lots of deductions … and pay a 20 percent rate.

And you can thank Dumb Ron Johnson, who New York Magazine named specifically:

Last Thursday, the Senate tax bill already cost about that sum, and then McConnell started making expensive promises to his few holdouts. Susan Collins wanted a $10,000 property tax deduction for Americans in high-tax states; Ron Johnson wanted a 23 percent business-income deduction for the company that his family owns. This left the Senate Majority Leader searching under the tax code’s couch cushions for new sources of revenue.

Eventually, he came upon the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT). The GOP had originally intended to abolish the AMT. But on Friday, with the clock running out — and money running short — Senate Republicans put the AMT back into their bill. Unfortunately for McConnell, they forgot to lower the AMT after doing so (AMT prevents companies from paying any less than 20 percent on their profits).

There's a reason Republicans don't like government; they can't manage their way out of a paper bag and they're ruled by anecdotes and wildly fanciful theories that have failed over and over.

Senate Republicans rewrote the American tax code over lunch — and passed their (partially handwritten) legislation around 2 a.m. the following morning. Mitch McConnell never subjected his blueprint for restructuring the world’s largest economy to a single hearing. His caucus never invited experts to offer insight into the bill’s implications for housing, health care, higher education, outsourcing, or tax evasion. 

This haste had an upside for the Senate GOP: It allowed the party to pass deeply unpopular changes to the tax code before the public had time to learn about them. But approaching major legislation like an Adderall-addled sophomore approaches an overdue term paper came with a minor drawback: It forced the party to pass a tax bill before they had time to read it.

GOP Sinks Future Economy by discouraging major research and development:

As The Wall Street Journal reports: The biggest consequence could be the research credit, often used by manufacturers, technology firms and pharmaceutical companies ... Under the credit, companies get money back from the government for what they spend on innovation, often for wages of scientists and engineers.

I think the following comment sums up the GOP tax cut bill, and it's unintended consequences very well:

… Robert Murray, of Murray Energy Corp., an Ohio-based firm and the largest privately held U.S. coal-mining company, complained ... the Senate tax plan would raise his company’s tax bill by $60 million. “What the Senate did, in their befuddled mess, is drove me out of business and then bragged about the fact that they got some tax reform passed,” Mr. Murray said in an interview Sunday. “This is not job creation. This is not stimulating income. This is driving a whole sector of our community into nonexistence.”

Dear Lord, help Murray Energy’s Laid off workers get used to being “takers” who “outvoted the Producers.”

The founding fathers fought to free corporate people from the taxes of the king…or Obama in this case.

So why has the Lord forsaken business interests, like Murray Energy in the presidential election?

Murray Energy laid off 163 workers.

WestSideStory:  Chief Executive Officer Robert Murray read a prayer to workers that asked God’s forgiveness for the decisions that the company was forced to make to preserve the very existence of enterprises that God has helped them build. He did this during a conference call. the company’s CEO read a prayer. Here’s the complete text:

Courier: “Dear Lord: The American people have made their choice. They have decided that America must change its course, away from the principals [sic] of our Founders. And, away from the idea of individual freedom and individual responsibility. Away from capitalism, economic responsibility, and personal acceptance.

We are a Country in favor of redistribution, national weakness and reduced standard of living and lower and lower levels of personal freedom.

My regret, Lord, is that our young people, including those in my own family, never will know what America was like or might have been. They will pay the price in their reduced standard of living and, most especially, reduced freedom.

The takers outvoted the producers.

Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build. We ask for your guidance in this drastic time with the drastic decisions that will be made to have any hope of our survival as an American business enterprise.

Amen.”

That employers can dismiss workers on a whim, on the basis of speculation, for the sake of retribution, or to make a political point, is simply wrong. When businesses don’t like the decisions we make democratically, they withdraw the resources we need to work and thrive, often shipping them abroad, until they get their way. 

Here's Ed Schultz: