Taxes

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...

Here’s What Democrats Want to Do if They Win the House in November

By Yuval Rosenberg

Election Day is just over two months away, but Democrats — with reason to be confident that they can win control of the House — are already planning their legislative agenda for 2019. In addition to...
Why the IRS Still Doesn’t Have a Permanent Commissioner

By Yuval Rosenberg

The highly charged confirmation hearings for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, began on Tuesday. While the Senate could be occupied with Kavanaugh’s confirmation for weeks,...
Trump Puts Capital Gains Tax Break Back on the Table

By Michael Rainey

President Donald Trump told Bloomberg News Thursday that he is considering using his executive powers to index capital gains to inflation, a move that would provide a roughly $100 billion tax break...
The Economy Is ‘Doing Great.’ Can It Last?

By Michael Rainey

Economic growth in the second quarter was a bit stronger than previously estimated, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday. GDP grew at a 4.2 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, up...
Limit on SALT Deduction Isn’t Depressing Blue State Housing Values

By Michael Rainey

Housing prices continue to climb across the U.S., even in areas hit hardest by the new limitation on state and local tax deductions, Jim Tankersley of The New York Times reports . Many analysts...