Tough luck for middle class, but good for econ

CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, “It’s impossible to do that. You can’t craft any bill that would guarantee no one was in a special category that might get a tax increase. What I can tell you is that every segment of taxpayers, every category of taxpayers, on average, gets significant relief.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley defended the tax plan, saying parts of it would force people to use their money more wisely and reward them for it.

“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley (R-Iowa) told the Des Moines Register, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

A fellow Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, showed little regard for kids, sparking a backlash after claiming there’s “no money” for a children’s health care plan.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation projects the Senate bill would add $1 trillion to the federal deficit.

Backers say they believe the bill would spur enough economic growth to make up for any lost tax revenue — but no major study has predicted that.

Warner predicted the bill would add $2 trillion to the debt even after accounting for economic growth.

“I don’t think we are wrong,” McConnell told ABC when asked what would happen if he was mistaken and the debt ballooned. “We think you’re going to get a lot more growth than that. So I’m confident this is not only revenue neutral to the government, but actually it’s very likely to be a revenue producer.”

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (photo, opposite page), a Republican, defended the rushed process to pass the package — even as he admitted he didn’t read the entire bill before voting for it.

“I went through the entire bill. I’m not going to say I read every single letter on every single page,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I did not read 470 pages. But have I read every aspect of that bill before it was fused together? The answer is yes.”

The bill ran nearly 500 pages, with some changes so last-minute that they were written in by hand in the margins. But Scott said its provisions had long been well known. But Maine Sen. Angus King (photo below) scoffed at claims the bill had gone through regular order. Democrats moved to recess Friday night until Monday morning to give pols more time to process the legislation, but the motion failed. “This is the bill that we got at about 6 (o’clock) at night that we were going to vote on that night. There were no hearings. There were some general hearings about tax reform. There were zero hearings on the bill,” the independent senator said on “Face the Nation.” King said he read the entire bill, but “I can’t say I understood all of it. “There’s a lot of stuff in here that I don’t think anybody knows what it’s all about,” he said. “Nobody knew what was going on here.”